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I wanted to support President Obama’s health care reforms if I possibly could.
The U.S. health care system costs too much, delivers too little and excludes too many. Americans pay 60 percent more per person for health care than any other nation. Yet Americans rank only 41st in life expectancy and live with the paralyzing fear that the loss of a job means the loss of coverage.
Rising health care costs are devouring worker pay. Employers pay 25 percent more per hour on average for labor in 2006 than they did in 2000. Yet not one dime of that extra money reached workers. All of it was gobbled up by the surging cost of health care benefits. The typical worker actually earned less after inflation in 2006 than in 2000.
Health care drives federal spending. The U.S. government will spend twice as much this year on Medicare, Medicaid and other health programs as on national defense, including the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
If a Democratic president were willing to accept the political risks of addressing these problems, then more power to him. And if he were willing to work constructively with Republicans and conservatives, that would be a welcome change as well.
Early Monday morning, the Senate cast a critical vote to move its version of the bill forward. It has not passed yet — and negotiations with the House may alter the law further — but probably the deal accepted by holdout Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson on Saturday morning is the plan President Obama will sign sometime in January.
It’s not a plan that those of us who support free markets and limited government can endorse.
This bill will push health care costs farther up, not down. Where is the extra money to come from? The Senate bill promises to find half a trillion of savings in Medicare over the next 10 years. Good luck with that.
Maybe you’ve heard that the bill is deficit-neutral. What that means is that the Congressional Budget Office has added up the promised cuts and scored them as equaling the enacted spending. But because CBO “scores” something does not mean that CBO believes it. CBO must take Congress at its word, no matter how often Congress has broken that word before.
Example: To balance the budget in the 1990s, Congress reduced doctor fees under Medicare. Doctors protested, and Congress relented: by postponing the reduction for one year. The next year, Congress postponed the reduction once more. The year after, it did it again.
Every single time, CBO obligingly “scored” the fee cut as a budget saving that would commence the following year. As of 2009, the doctor fee cut has been postponed more than 10 times — and still CBO registers it as a big budget cut that will go into effect any minute now.
It’s not only the taxpayer who will feel the pressure of rising costs. Experts predict that the bill will raise health insurance premiums for those who purchase insurance as individuals rather than getting it through their employer. Lower-income Americans will receive subsidies to cover those added costs, but middle-income and upper-income Americans of course will not.
It’s hoped that new efficiencies will materialize down the road. Maybe. Maybe not. But doesn’t it seem reckless to create this huge new entitlement with no idea at all of how the public and private sector will support it? Remember all the complaints about George W. Bush cutting taxes while waging war? At least tax cuts can be rescinded if need be. New social programs endure forever.
Health care reform fused two powerful ideas into one great whole: by squeezing costs out of the system, the United States could spend less while covering more.
Instead, what we have done is leap into the dark. Americans have bought a huge new entitlement without any clear idea at all of how to pay for it. But the shape of things to come can already be seen: the government will use its power to order price cuts, substituting command and control for markets and competition across one-sixth of the U.S. economy.
You can blame Republicans for not trying harder to find compromises that might have improved the bill. It might have saved money and preserved market competition. (I have done so again and again and again.)
Yet in the end, the decision was the Democratic majority’s and that of the president. At a time of war, financial crisis, debt and deficits, they have launched the biggest expansion of American government since the middle 1960s. Their decision. Their responsibility. Their consequences.
Originally published December 21, 2009 on CNN.com.
Frum: You can blame Republicans for not trying harder to find compromises that might have improved the bill. It might have saved money and preserved market competition.
No, I don’t blame Republicans for that.
Olympia Snowe tried to work with the Dems for months–but in the end, not a single one of her proposals was included in the Senate bill. The Dems were willing to toss as much largesse to Nebraska as necessary to secure Ben Nelson’s vote–but AFAIK, they offered nothing to Maine. And after all her work, she was forced to vote against the bill as something even she couldn’t support.
The die was cast when Al Franken was sworn in as Senator. Then the Dems had their 60 vote Senate majority, and needed nothing from the Repubs.
Sinz54 wrote:
> Olympia Snowe tried to work with the Dems for months–but in the end,
> not a single one of her proposals was included in the Senate bill.
What important Snowe proposals were not included in the Senate bill?
Snowe supported the Baucus health care bill in the Senate Finance Committee didn’t she? At the time she nonetheless warned that the “public option” was unacceptable to her and that the final bill would have to be reasonably budget-neutral. She also opposed the Medicare buy-in which was removed at the same time as the public option, at Joe Lieberman’s request. So it seems she ought to be as satisfied with the final bill as Lieberman was.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the *only* reason she has offered for no longer supporting health care reform seems to be that the process has been “rushed”. This sounds like a poor excuse since Congress has been working on this for almost a year now.
MARCU$
Frum wrote: “But doesn’t it seem reckless to create this huge new entitlement with no idea at all of how the public and private sector will support it?”
Do you mean like the way Bush pushed through the Prescription Drug Benefit without the occurrence of a single Tea Party?
David Frum: Why Health Care Bill is Too Big a Risk – Frum Forum | FrontPage Magazine // Dec 22, 2009 at 10:32 pm
[...] Why Health Care Bill is Too Big a Risk. Categories: Political News Tags: Afghanistan, Bill, care, cost, cost of health care, coverage, [...]
Spare me the faux argument about life expectancy. Difference between the US and the top nation is 2.5 years and this statistic does not take into account other mortality stats that have nothing to do with the quality of health care.
Don’t get enough for our health care huh? Cost to much…and why is that…could it be our own high demands expectations? 24/7 health care delivery, unbelievable advances in technology and drug therapies. We are spoiled rotten entitled nation who demand a pill for every sniffle. My wife has been a primary care physician for 20 years. She gets a wopping $45 bucks from a thoroughly broken and disfunctional medicare system for medically complex elderly patients.
And just think another 77 million baby boomers will be entering this system to join the 45 million already there. In the next 15 years the number in medicare could reach 90 million+ and these fools in congress want to cut from medicare.
What do you expect when you need care….only the best I am sure. We want 2010 health care on 1960 prices. Sorry that is not the way it works. The day is coming when we will get what we pay for.
One last question for you Mr. Frum: Explain to me how anyone can demand the services, skill and training of another as their right and entitlement while someone else pays the bill at 50% below market rates?
You know any professions that would put up with that??
Let this Conservative tell you very briefly, if a man/woman goes to obtain a position with an employer, and has to show proof of health insurance before he/she could be hired, which is part of the proposal. This would absolutely, and with certainty, be a coercive and centralized plan.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Bowtrol-Colon-Cleanse-Review—Does-Bowtrol-Cleanse-Work?&id=2926555
BOGIEDOC: 4/7 health care delivery, unbelievable advances in technology and drug therapies. We are spoiled rotten entitled nation who demand a pill for every sniffle.
It is estimated that obesity adds ONE TRILLION dollars to America’s annual health care costs.
And Americans grow fatter every year.
Unfortunately, no President can tell the American people “You’re the problem” and get away with it.
Jimmy Carter tried that. He didn’t win a second term.
SpartacusIsNotDead: Do you mean like the way Bush pushed through the Prescription Drug Benefit without the occurrence of a single Tea Party?
At the time, the GOP base was very unhappy about Bush’s passage of Medicare Part D.
But for the most part, they kept silent because they supported Bush on two other major issues–the War on Terror and social issues like abortion and stem cell research–and they didn’t want to undercut him.
Quote of the Day « Free Market Mojo // Dec 24, 2009 at 3:51 am
[...] ~ David Forum [...]
Health Care Bill Un-Repealable?
Senate Dems out of Control
Charlottesville, VA 12/22/09 – According to Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, the Senate’s version of the Health Care Bill declares on page 1020 that the Independent Medicare Advisory Board cannot be repealed by future Congresses. Here is the quote, “it shall not be in order in the senate or the house of representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection.”
According to Virginias Fifth district Congressional Candidate Michael McPadden, “No Congress has the right to tell future Congresses what to do. Un-repealable, just watch us Harry”. These people don’t even try to pretend to follow the Constitution any longer. They simply must be removed from office and replaced with patriots who still believe in the founders vision.
http://www.mcpaddenforcongress.com
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Greenhoof » Blog Archive » Nuggets of Green Goodness in the Healthcare Bill // Dec 24, 2009 at 2:01 pm
[...] commentator David Frum describes the American health care system: “The U.S. health care system costs too much, [...]
Nuggets of Green Goodness in the Healthcare Bill « // Dec 24, 2009 at 5:12 pm
[...] commentator David Frum describes the American health care system: “The U.S. health care system costs too much, [...]
Nuggets of Green Goodness in the Healthcare Bill : Green Resouces // Dec 25, 2009 at 1:13 pm
[...] commentator David Frum describes the American health care system: “The U.S. health care system costs too much, [...]
Health Care: The Next Battle : Discount Health // Dec 26, 2009 at 3:31 am
[...] They are called Republicans, and they are the minority in both the House and the Senate. … FrumForum – http://www.frumforum.com/why-health-care-bill-is-too-big-a-risk/comment-page-1 Category: [...]