Health care madness

By Jennifer J. Foster

OK, folks, let’s talk health care.

I’ve held my fire on this issue until I knew more about what was being done and how fast it was being pursued.

It’s become obvious over the past 10 days that this effort is neither deliberate nor deliberative.

I told you in my column on Saturday about the breakneck pace with which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was determined to accomplish the passage of a bill—any bill, apparently—by a self-set deadline in August. Pelosi stuck her neck out and told President Obama that she would have it done by then, don’t worry.

Well, as it turns out, there are some lawmakers who actually care about what’s in the bill, so they aren’t thrilled about having an articifical timeline shoved down their throat—especially when it’s unclear, even to Democratic leadership, what the reforms will entail or how they will be paid for.

This from CNN:

“We are going to accomplish what many people felt wouldn’t happen in our lifetime,“ (U.S. Rep. Henry) Waxman (D-Calif.) said.

Yeah. They just don’t know exactly how.

Two ideas they have appear to be contradictory: On one hand, House Democrats want to expand Medicaid to individuals and families with incomes at or below 133 percent of the federal poverty level; but on the other, they include a “series of measures intended to reduce costs of Medicaid, Medicare and other existing systems.“

Hmm. There’s only one way you can expand coverage and reduce costs at the same time. And it’s not good for patients.

House Democrats did nail down one thing: The House plan involves a massive tax increase: A 5.4 percent surtax on couples earning more than $1 million, with a 1.5 percent surtax on couples with income between $500,000 and $1 million, and a 1 percent surtax on incomes over $350,000, including capital gains and earned income.

You know what this is called? It’s called PENALIZING SUCCESS.

And then you have the mandate. The House plan calls for a penalty of 2.5 percent of adjusted gross income for “non-compliance” by individuals.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Doesn’t a participation mandate fly in the face of remarks then-candidate Barack Obama made all along the campaign trail last year, when he insisted that Americans who don’t have health insurance lack it not because they don’t want it, but because they can’t afford it?

Yes, I’m pretty sure I remember hearing that sound bite ... oh, about 437 times.

President Obama, WHERE ARE YOU on this issue?

Paging President Obama. Leadership needed. President Obama to the Capitol.

Here’s a flowchart purporting to illustrate the mess that is the House bill. Granted, it is from the Republican leadership office. But note especially the inclusions of “Cultural & Linguistic Training” and a “Language Demonstration Program” and the involvement of the Office of Civil Rights. What are those things doing in a health care reform package?

I’m not sure I want to know.

And then you have the Senate.

You might have missed it, what with all the attention being diverted to the Sotomayor hearings in the Judiciary Committee. But the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, split 13-10 along party lines, passed a $600 BILLION overhaul this morning.

But it’s not really $600 BILLION. Oh, no. From CNN:

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported it would cost $615 billion over 10 years, far less than estimates for other legislation. But the estimate did not include the cost of a proposed expansion of the federally funded Medicaid system for low-income families, which could add several hundred billion dollars to the overall tab.

Sen. Mike Enzi, the health committee’s top Republican, called the measure “a prescription for failure.“ He said the real cost would be about $1 trillion, and the measure would drive up cost and ration health care on lines similar to Britain.

I know U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy has worked on this for a long time, and I realize that Democrats, including President Obama, feel some sort of emotional connection to the senator because of his ongoing battle against brain cancer.

But Kennedy’s illness, even if it is terminal, is no reason to ram a bad plan down Americans’ throats.

If congressional Democrats insist on fast-tracking this legislation, this massive health care overhaul and its associated tax structure, through to President Obama, then at the very least, it should NOT include a mandate. People should have the—what’s the word? Oh yes, FREEDOM—to choose whether to enroll or not.

You know, freedom. That used to be big in these parts.

On my Twitter feed this morning, I mentioned a great editorial produced by the Chicago Tribune on Monday. It is full of common sense. Observe:

The White House is twisting arms and making side deals with the hospital industry, drugmakers and Wal-Mart. The administration is trumpeting billions in promised savings to finance this massive expansion. But it’s hard to understand exactly who has agreed to what and how all these alleged savings are supposed to materialize.

What’s the rush? When did reforming the $2.5 trillion-a-year health-care system become a sprint? ...

A recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that only 41 percent are willing to pay more, either in higher health insurance premiums or higher taxes, to increase the number of Americans who have health insurance. More than half of us—54 percent—say we aren’t willing to pay more.

But it doesn’t seem to matter what Americans want. The lawmakers in charge have an agenda, and they don’t have time to listen.

The Tribune editorial goes on to make a great case for incremental change in health care—first by covering uninsured children, then the poor, then by incentivizing individual health insurance through the tax code, then by expanding state-run risk pools—mostly, by controlling costs.

But none of this empowers Washington. And from the looks of the early plans coming out of Congress, that seems to be the real endgame.

The least lawmakers can do as they pursue this folly is leave Americans with the choice to stay out of the mess.