Yesterday President Obama met with a group of democrats to discuss the need for speed when it comes to his health care agenda.
And to give you a sense of what we’re looking at down the road if we don’t initiate serious reform, one-fifth of our economy is projected to be tied up in our health care system in 10 years — one- fifth. Millions more Americans are expected to go without health insurance if we don’t initiate reform right now.
And outside of what they’re receiving for health care, workers are projected to see their take-home pay actually decrease if we don’t get a handle on this.
So we can’t afford to put this off. And the dedicated public servants who are gathered here today understand that and they are ready to get going.
And this window between now and the August recess, I think, is going to be the make-or-break period. This is the time where we’ve got to get this done.
He said we need to cut health care costs, but didn’t say how that’s going to happen. No mention of rationing or long waiting times for treatment. And if he’s talking about health care costs in ten years, why does this have to happen by August? And why were no republicans invited to offer their ideas? The Wall Street Journal has a few ideas.
It’s not hard to see why Democrats are trying to hew to this full-speed-ahead timetable. Their health overhaul will run up a 13-figure price tag at a time when spending and deficits are already at epic levels and hook up the middle class to an intravenous drip of government health subsidies for generations to come. These are not realities that Democrats want the American people to mull over for very long. …
Part of the need for speed comes from the fact that “stakeholders” — doctors, hospitals, insurers, pharmaceutical and device makers, etc. — still seem to be experiencing Stockholm Syndrome. Democrats have so far succeeded in conjuring an illusion of political inevitability, which has kept industry groups in line lest they be shut out of the negotiations. But once the policy details of Mr. Obama’s new foundation are poured — above all for a public insurance program run by the government that will run private carriers out of the market and eventually fix medical prices — even shell-shocked CEOs might stir up their courage to resist. Democrats are of course acutely aware of how industry opposition chewed through HillaryCare in 1994.
President Obama also told the meeting attendees that he is now willing to tax our employer-sponsored health benefits.
President Obama, in a pivot from some of his harshest campaign rhetoric, told Democratic senators yesterday that he is willing to consider taxing employer-sponsored health benefits to help pay for a broad expansion of coverage.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said Obama expressed a willingness to consider changing the existing tax exclusion. The decision would probably anger liberal supporters such as labor unions, but such a tax change would raise enormous sums of money as Congress and the White House are struggling to find the estimated $1.2 trillion needed to pay for health-care reform over the next decade.
So much for that promise not to raise our taxes. He’s right, they better pass this monstrosity quickly, before any of you find out what they’re really up to.
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