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5/16/2010
Rep. Huebsch: Majority of Americans Question ObamaCare for Good Reason
When U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Barak Obama bullied and bribed their way to a government takeover of our nation’s health care system, they promised lower prices, better quality, more choices and a reduction of the record-setting $1.7 trillion federal deficit. After some double-talk and backtracking, they also promised that their social engineering wouldn’t stand in the way of Americans who wanted to keep their current health care plan.
But, just a few short weeks after the passage of ObamaCare, rationing and price controls are being talked about by the same administration officials and lawmakers who said that putting the federal government in charge of health care was enough to contain costs and lower insurance premiums. The president’s budget director recently verified that the unelected commission created by the bill will have “an enormous amount of potential power” to shift the government’s focus from paying for quantity to paying for what he called “quality and efficiency.” Last month, the Senate health committee held a hearing on legislation that would allow states to stop increases in insurance premiums by simply deeming them “unreasonable.”
As if that’s not enough bad news, the Obama Administration’s Medicare actuary predicts that national health care spending in 2019 will be $47 billion more than it would have been without ObamaCare. And the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says that the plan will cost at least $115 billion more than its March estimate of $940 billion, explaining that it didn’t have sufficient information for a comprehensive estimate when Congress passed the bill. These increased costs nearly wipe out the $143 billion reduction in the federal deficit touted by the Obama Administration, assuming it was real to begin with.
At the same time, AT&T has notified the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that ObamaCare’s health care mandates and new taxes will reduce earnings by $1.1 billion annually. Deer & Co. said its cost is $150 million; Caterpillar, $100 million; AK Steel, $31 million; 3M, $90 million; and Valero Energy, up to $20 million. According to Fortune magazine, if AT&T scrapped the health care benefits that cost the company $2.4 billion a year, the resulting fines under ObamaCare would total $600 million. Since $600 million can’t buy those families the health care coverage they have today, higher insurance premiums and more taxes would have to fill the gap. What does all of this mean? It means that, as predicted, we will be paying more for reduced access and lower quality while the president and Congressional Democrats continue to run up our country’s debt. It means middle class families across the country are in danger of losing their health insurance despite President Obama’s pledge that “if you like your health care plan, you keep your health care plan.”
A majority of Americans who see through the empty promises of the president and Washington Democrats have already reached these same conclusions. According to a Rasmussen Reports survey released this week, 63% of likely voters believe ObamaCare will increase the federal deficit. Only 12% think the deficit will decrease. Fifty-eight percent expect the cost of health care to increase thanks to the bill and only 17% expect it to cost less. Fifty-six percent think Congress should repeal ObamaCare.
At least fourteen states have filed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of ObamaCare and elected officials around the country are considering laws or constitutional amendments aimed at preventing the law’s implementation. But in Wisconsin, Governor Doyle and Democrats who run the state Assembly and state Senate blocked similar legislation and prohibited our attorney general from filing suit.
The governor signed Wisconsin’s own public option into law last week and he’s already created a new government office to implement ObamaCare. Two days before Democrats adjourned this year’s legislative session, Sen. Kathleen Vinehout (D-Alma) proposed creating the federally mandated health insurance exchange in Wisconsin. Even as fatal flaws of ObamaCare are exposed, Wisconsin Democrats soldier on with their mission to hand health care over to the government.
In Wisconsin, where more people have insurance than all but four states, we’ll be paying more federal taxes and higher insurance premiums to bail out the states that haven’t made this same kind of commitment. Then, we will have to pay for the federally mandated expansion of Wisconsin’s already chronically underfunded Medicaid programs for those under the age of 65, known as BadgerCare Plus.
According to the Heritage Foundation, Medicaid will cover 18 million of the 34 million people who Democrats say will now have access to health care under ObamaCare. When the non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau (LFB) released a summary of the new federal law and its effect on Wisconsin this week, it couldn’t estimate our costs because there are still too many unknowns: How many more Wisconsinites will be eligible for BadgerCare Plus? How much will the yet-to-be-established mandatory state health insurance exchange cost to operate? How will not-yet-written federal rules implementing at least 40 separate provisions in the federal bill affect costs in Wisconsin? How many people will drop their existing coverage and seek government health care and how many companies will reduce health care benefits for employees?
Thanks to Governor Doyle and legislative Democrats, Wisconsin is already well down the expensive, dead-end path of expanding government health care programs that taxpayers can’t afford. According to the LFB, ObamaCare means even more expansion and higher costs to be borne by the state. Today, 40,000 adults without children are on the BadgerCare Plus waiting list because the state can’t afford to provide benefits. ObamaCare prohibits a waiting list, but covers only a portion of the cost of adding 40,000 people to the government health care rolls.
The federal law also increases payments to doctors, but only for three years. When the federal funding dries up, Wisconsin taxpayers will be on the hook for those payments or face the possibility of doctors refusing to treat BadgerCare Plus patients. While the American Medical Association supported ObamaCare, only 17% of our nation’s physicians are members of that organization. Most doctors are understandably skeptical about the benefits of ObamaCare and fear it will meddle in the treatment decisions they make with patients. According to an Athena Health and Sermo survey, 79% are less optimistic about the future of medicine than they were before the law passed and 66% indicate that they will consider dropping out of government health programs.
According to the Rasmussen poll, 55% of Americans think our current health care system is good or excellent, and they are right. Wisconsin has led the nation in quality reporting initiatives and many of our providers are recognized for their outstanding health care value.
But, President Obama and Congressional Democrats believe that the only way to improve upon a system that is the envy of the rest of the world is to put government in charge of it. Nothing about Social Security, Medicare, the United States Postal Service or countless other government offices and programs backs them up. As President Reagan pointed out decades ago, “the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I'm from the government and I'm here to help.’”
Rep. Huebsch is a Republican and represents the residents of the 94th District, the Coulee Region, east of La Crosse.
COMMENTS
"improve upon a system that is the envy of the rest of the world"
Ha ha, good one, the rest of the world envys our system? Where? What world are you living in?
Dean Weichmann (Mon May 17 07:25:13 2010)
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