Tag Archives: Death Panels

Videos

What are the effects of Nancy Pelosi’s proposed national sales tax?

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Watch this video by libertarian Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute. (H/T Power Line via ECM)

I normally don’t like these Dan Mitchell videos, but this one is better than the others I’ve seen at giving you a great introduction to so many useful topics.

The national sales tax would be a GREAT idea, if we went on to remove an equivalent amount of revenue from the income tax. It’s much better to tax consumption than productive work. But that’s not what the Democrats want to do with this value-added tax. They want both income and consumption taxes, so they get a new revenue stream and more money to buy votes from their favorite special interest groups.

Here is a Wall Street Journal article about the Democrats’ proposed VAT.

Excerpt:

The allure of a VAT for politicians is that it applies to every level of production or service, rakes in piles of money, and is largely hidden from those who ultimately pay it—namely, consumers. With a $9 trillion 10-year budget deficit, $4 trillion in spending in fiscal 2010 alone, and a $1 trillion (at a minimum) health-care entitlement in the wings, Mrs. Pelosi knows that not even the revenue from the expiration of the lower Bush tax rates in 2011 will cover the bills. Nearly every European country that has passed national health care has also eventually imposed a VAT, and it’s foolish to think the U.S. will be different.

Tax and spend.

News

Obama advisor Robert Reich explains how government-run health care will let you die

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Who is Robert Reich and what is he up to? Verum Serum explains:

Robert Reich, the former Secretary of Labor under Clinton and more recently an Obama economic adviser, has been all over the media lately shilling for ObamaCare. The public option is no more dangerous than a box of puppies according to this professionally produced video featuring Reich. (I won’t embed it but it’s worth a quick watch.) The real injustice, according to Reich, is that political operatives like us are trying to “confuse and scare” people about change.

But what was Robert Reich saying in 2007? Well he was explaining what a candidate for president would say if he wanted to tell the truth about health care. And what is the truth about health care, according to Robert Reich, who now works for Barack Obama?

Listen:

Say what? (H/T Newsbusters)

Let me tell you a few things on health care. Look, we have the only health care system in the world that is designed to avoid sick people. And that’s true and what I’m going to do is that I am going try to reorganize it to be more amenable to treating sick people but that means you,  particularly you young people, particularly you young healthy people…you’re going to have to pay more.

“Thank you. And by the way, we’re going to have to, if you’re very old, we’re not going to give you all that technology and all those drugs for the last couple of years of your life to keep you maybe going for another couple of months. It’s too expensive…so we’re going to let you die.”

“Also, I’m going to use the bargaining leverage of the federal government in terms of Medicare, Medicaid—we already have a lot of bargaining leverage—to force drug companies and insurance companies and medical suppliers to reduce their costs. What that means, less innovation and that means less new products and less new drugs on the market which means you are probably not going to live much longer than your parents. Thank you.”

So let’s see. Young, healthy people (like me) will pay more. Old, retired people like my parents will be murdered by death panels. And health care innovators and insurance providers will be run out of business, which reduces quality and raises costs. Well, OK, then. So now we understand what Obama’s socialized takeover of health care would really accomplish from the mouth of his own advisor.

I note that Hot Air has a video of Reich explaining all his previous opinions away.

News

Will Obamacare cause people to lose their current health care plan?

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The Republicans offered an amendment to protect people who like their current medical insurance plan. (H/T PowerLine via ECM)

Excerpt:

The purpose of this amendment is simple. If the secretary of Health and Human Services certifies that more than 1 million Americans would lose the current coverage of their choice because of this bill, then this bill would not go into effect.

It seems like a very, very simple but perfect amendment for those of us who have integrity. This amendment is simply trying to safeguard President Obama’s pledge to the American people, you’ll get — that you will get to keep what you have.

John Cornyn also introduced a similar amendment.

Here’s the result, as reported by the Heritage Foundation:

Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) introduced amendments to preserve Americans’ existing private health insurance coverage. This would be in accord with the President’s promise that “nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have.” Senator Hatch’s amendment would have required that the Secretary of Health and Human Services certify to Congress that the final piece of legislation would not result in more than 1 million Americans losing their current coverage. Senator Hatch’s amendment failed on a party line vote (10-13).

Senator Cornyn’s amendment also sought to guarantee that Americans enrolled in self-insured employer coverage would be able to keep their current coverage by amending Title I, Subtitle D of the Chairman’s mark. The amendment simply provided that any health insurance plan governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) would be deemed to have met the personal responsibility requirement. This amendment also failed. It was a party line vote (10-13).

Naturally, tons of Democrats voted against it! Because they know exactly what will happen as a consequence of this bill.

Death panels revisited

A Washington Times editorial. (H/T Powerline via ECM)

Excerpt:

The offending provision is on Pages 80-81 of the unamended Baucus bill, hidden amid a lot of similar legislative mumbo-jumbo about Medicare payments to doctors. The key sentence: “Beginning in 2015, payment would be reduced by five percent if an aggregation of the physician’s resource use is at or above the 90th percentile of national utilization.” Translated into plain English, it means that in any year in which a particular doctor’s average per-patient Medicare costs are in the top 10 percent in the nation, the feds will cut the doctor’s payments by 5 percent.

Forget results. This provision makes no account for the results of care, its quality or even its efficiency. It just says that if a doctor authorizes expensive care, no matter how successfully, the government will punish him by scrimping on what already is a low reimbursement rate for treating Medicare patients. The incentive, therefore, is for the doctor always to provide less care for his patients for fear of having his payments docked. And because no doctor will know who falls in the top 10 percent until year’s end, or what total average costs will break the 10 percent threshold, the pressure will be intense to withhold care, and withhold care again, and then withhold it some more. Or at least to prescribe cheaper care, no matter how much less effective, in order to avoid the penalties.

Government-run health care means rationed health care.

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