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Sunday, December 20, 2009

Is the Objection to Obamacare Fueled by White Supremacists, Or Is it the ONE TRILLION Dollars in New Taxes?


My Friend Kerry Picket of the Washington Times reports that Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island believes that the Republicans who are opposing Obamacare are doing so to appeal to the worst elements in the United States:
They are desperate to break this president. They have ardent supporters who are nearly hysterical at the very election of President Barack Obama. The birthers, the fanatics, the people running around in right-wing militia and Aryan support groups, it is unbearable to them that President Barack Obama should exist. That is one powerful reason. It is not the only one."
 Sorry Senator, I believe that unfortunately, President Obama was born in America, and I tried to join an Aryan Group, but they don't let Jews join their little racist club. Senator Whitehouse cannot think much of the American people, because every poll that came out this week shows the majority of US citizens are against Obamacare. Now if there are that many birthers and white supremacists in this country, how did Obama win the election?  Maybe every TV in the US broke down  for a year and a half so no one noticed the President had dark skin.

Or Maybe people have other reasons for hating the plan. Like the fact that includes over one trillion dollars in taxes:
The Democrats are irresponsibly and disingenuously claiming that the bill would cost $871 billion over 10 years. But that's not what the CBO says. Rather, the CBO says that $871 billion would be the costs from 2010 to 2019 for expansions in insurance coverage alone. But less than 2 percent of those "10-year costs" would kick in before the fifth year of that span. In its real first 10 years (2014 to 2023), the CBO says that the bill would cost $1.8 trillion -- for insurance coverage expansions alone. Other parts of the bill would cost approximately $700 billion more, bringing the bill's full 10-year tab to approximately $2.5 trillion -- according to the CBO.

In those real first 10 years (2014 to 2023), Americans would have to pay over $1 trillion in additional taxes, over $1 trillion would be siphoned out of Medicare (over $200 billion out of Medicare Advantage alone) and spent on Obamacare, and deficits would rise by over $200 billion. They would rise, that is, unless Congress follows through on the bill's pledge to cut doctors' payments under Medicare by 21 percent next year and never raise them back up -- which would reduce doctors' enthusiasm for seeing Medicare patients dramatically.

And what would Americans get in return for this staggering sum? Well, the CBO says that health care premiums would rise, and the Chief Actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services says that the percentage of the Gross Domestic Product spent on health care would rise from 17 percent today to 21 percent by the end of 2019. Nationwide health care costs would be $234 billion higher than under current law. How's that for "reform"?


 Maybe Senator Whitehouse, it has nothing to do with the taxes, could it be that people oppose the bill because of the health care rationing?
Section 10304 (p. 152) empowers the Secretary of Health and Human Services to impose "efficiency measures," in addition to the "quality measures" provided for under the Reid Substitute, on health care providers. These measures are to be incorporated "in workforce programs, training curricula, and any other means of dissemination determined appropriate by the Secretary." Section 3014(b) adding Social Security Act Section 1890A(b)(1)(A) (p. 709). They are to be used in the calculation of value-based purchasing from hospitals, and renal dialysis services must abide by them or be penalized. Health care providers, including hospices, ambulatory surgical centers, rehabilitation facilities, home health agencies, physicians and hospitals must provide reports, generally made publicly available, based on these measures. Consequently, they exercise considerable influence on how health care providers practice medicine, and consequently on what treatment patients do – and do not – receive.

In the medical and bioethical literature, quality and efficiency measures are often based on "quality of life" standards that discriminate on the basis of age and disability. See http://www.nrlc.org/news/2009/NRL07-08/CompEff.html . Accordingly, during the period when the group of six Senators were negotiating in an attempt to achieve a bipartisan health care bill, agreement was reached to make anti-discrimination language applicable to the results of comparative effectiveness research. See note 1 at http://www.nrlc.org/HealthCareRationing/SenFinCommBill.html . This language remains in the Reid Substitute, Section 6301( c), adding Social Security Act Section 1182 (c), (d) and (e) , pp. 1685-87.
Sorry Senator, but there are many reasons to hate Obamacare, the Aryan support groups are not one of them. Maybe they just aren't as inclusive as the last time you joined one.

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