Senate Democrats are desperately trying every trick in the book to get the lowest possible cost scoring out of the CBO. Ethics and Public Policy Center fellow James Capretta descends into the weeds to explain the latest regressive tax they have come up with to pay for their health care plans:
Senate Democrats, including, have also Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus discovered the budgetary virtues of heavy-handed government decrees. If you want to expand insurance coverage, you can simply make people sign up for a plan — whether they want to or not. And to keep costs down for the government, you subsidize only those who get insurance outside of the workplace — and then write rules that make it nearly impossible for anyone to fall into that category. Presto! Government-run health-care paid for with the hidden taxes of government mandates.
Read his whole post at The Corner here.
Heritage policy analyst Greg D’Angelo also broke down the latest CBO scoring of Kennedy-Dodd 2.0.
Funny Money, to the tune of $155 billion, has been discovered and advertised by VP Biden this week via a Medicare rate freeze for 10 years that is backed by the Hospital trade industry in an effort to get the CBO cost scoring down. Does the federal government need private industry-backing to freeze Medicare rates? I mean really, come on. The answer as to why hospitals are so willing to accept, and even support, a $155 billion Medicare rate freeze over 10 years: The hospital industry's currently uncompensated care of the uninsured would become compensated care with the Democrat-sponsored health care plan. How much of a windfall are we talking about? The Institute of Medicine released a report: Hidden Costs, Values Lost: Uninsurance in America. The National Academies Press. 17 June 2003 (http://www.iom.edu/Report.asp?id=12313.). Yes, 2003. So the following costs should be at least 30% higher in 2009 due to the rapid escalation of Emergency Room usage in the last 5 years.
Hospitals provide about $34 billion worth of uncompensated care a year (as of 2003). Multiply that by 10 years and you get $340 billion. That is way over the $155 billion the hospital trade industry is willing to give up in a Medicare rate freeze over the same period of time. That is more than a 100% return. Pretty good return on investment for the hospitals, eh!?
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