The Inescapable Allure of the Public Option

As we near the finish line on health care "reform" legislation, the Dems are converging on various flavors of "public option." The pundits are all weighing in on the political considerations driving this move (mollify the MoveOn wing of the party), and no doubt that has its role. But the real reason it has come down to the public option is that the public option is the only type of plan that Congress can rig to appear as if it is saving the taxpayer money. Only in a public option can Congress get the CBO to score fictitious savings that are written into law by fiat. For example, legislating a schedule of reimbursement decreases to health providers year after and then counting those "savings" as offsetting the massive costs of their plans.

I think almost all Americans know that such savings will never materialize. And in case anyone had any doubts just look at the "Doc Fix" bill that went down to defeat last week. The Doc Fix bill was a brazen attempt by the Dems to buy off doctors by cancelling out years of legislated reductions (aka "savings" of $250B) in payments to health providers. Year after year, Congress backs out the phony savings promised when they passed the bill, under pressure from reality as well as from special interests:

"Since its enactment in 1997 the so-called 'sustainable growth rate' mechanism [aka "savings'], which uses a complex formula to establishes annual target costs for physicians' services under Medicare, has not kept up with actual costs.

That's required Congress to step in almost annually with one-year fixes to prevent doctors from facing ever-bigger potential cuts in payment rates. The cut that loomed for doctors in 2010 was 21 percent. Without a permanent redo of the payment formula, Congress would presumably have had to continue to do one-year fixes, something that would also have cost money and that doctors hated because of the uncertainty involved."

Rural legislators hated these legislated "savings" because it had the effect of greatly diminishing the supply of and access to quality health care in their rural districts.

For the "savings" to ever become real would require Congress and the President, year after year, to have the discipline and the integrity to follow through with the painful choices that need to be made, and resist the temptation to cave to special interests or to buy votes by reneging on their responsibilities. The sad history of our Congress clearly argues against our ever seeing any savings.

The Congress is not serious about fiscal responsibilities. It is telling you so by cancelling out Medicare "savings" at the same time it is telling you its new health care plan will be paid for through "savings" in Medicare. And the President is going along with this charade, all the while accusing his opponents of intellectual dishonesty. How stupid do they think we are?

Let's Cancel The Porkulus Before it Buries Us

The Pelosi-Obama Deficits - WSJ.com: "We've never fretted over budget deficits, at least if they finance tax cuts to promote growth or spending to win a war. But these deficit estimates are driven entirely by more domestic spending and already assume huge new tax increases. CBO predicts that debt held by the public as a share of GDP, which was 40.8% in 2008, will rise to 67.8% in 2019—and then keep climbing after that. CBO says this is 'unsustainable,' but even this forecast may be optimistic."

Here's why. Many of the current budget assumptions are laughably implausible.

Need a good belly laugh? Read the assumptions behind the conclusion that we will have ONLY $9 TRILLION in deficits over the coming decade.

It is amazing that Obama's economic advisors had the gall to get on TV yesterday and try and pin these deficits on George Bush. Shameful.

We are burying our children and their children in debt. Disgraceful.

I Didn't Know That!

Charles Krauthammer - Obama Will Settle for Less on Health Care - washingtonpost.com: "The CBO put in writing the obvious: In its second decade, Obamacare significantly bends the curve upward -- increasing deficits even more than in the first decade.

This is obvious because Obama's own first-decade numbers were built on arithmetic trickery. New taxes to support the health-care plan begin in 2011, but the benefits part of the program doesn't fully kick in until 2015. That excess revenue is, of course, one time only. It makes the first decade numbers look artificially low, but once you pass 2015, the yearly deficits become larger and eternal."

Doesn't it make you nostalgic for a straight-talking President like Bill Clinton?

Surprising - A Government Program That Seems Dazed and Confused

U.S. Effort to Modify Mortgages Falters - WSJ.com: "An Obama administration effort to reduce home foreclosures by lowering the mortgage payments of struggling borrowers before they fall behind is failing to help as many people as expected.

Among the problems: Some homeowners are being told they must be behind on their payments to receive help, which runs counter to the aim of the program. In other cases, delays are so long that borrowers who are current on their payments when they ask for a loan modification are delinquent by the time they receive one. There is also confusion about who qualifies."

Let's sign this crew up to decide which sorts of cancer protocols have the best efficacy/dollar. That'll be good.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words, or A Picture Can SAVE A Thousand Words...

This YouTube video is awesome. It's true, the President inherited a mess. But he loves to throw around numbers and plans and agencies and trillions of dollars in tax money based on bogus economic models and projections like the ones lampooned in this video. We all knew the stimulus wouldn't work as advertised by the President. In fact, we knew that the stimulus wasn't a stimulus at all, just long litany of pay-offs to Democratic sacred cows, approved in a frenzy, under the cover of an economic crisis.

Another Rational Person SIghting in the Obama Administration

Memo exposes global warming dispute - Washington Times:

"A memo released Tuesday shows an agency within the Obama administration objected to a landmark Environmental Protection Agency ruling on global warming, arguing that it was not based on sound science and could prove costly to businesses."

Uh-oh, somebody's about to lose his job in the Obama White House!

Keeping Repeating the Big Lies to a Lap Dog Press Corps and EventuallyThey Turn to Accepted Truth

Charles Krauthammer - Barack Obama's 'New Foundation' - a Sting in Four Parts - washingtonpost.com:

"The Whopper: The boast that he had 'identified $2 trillion in deficit reductions over the next decade.' It takes audacity to repeat this after it had been so widely exposed as transparently phony. Most of this $2 trillion is conjured up by refraining from spending $180 billion a year for 10 more years of surges in Iraq. Hell, why not make the 'deficit reductions' $10 trillion -- the extra $8 trillion coming from refraining from repeating the $787 billion stimulus package annually through 2019."

If you need any more evidence that the media are in the tank for Pres. Obama, the fact that these ridiculous claims are not met by derision in the press corps is all you need.

Don't Distract Us With the Facts - We Have a Healthcare System to Destroy!

IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- How U.S. Health Care Really Stacks Up:

"'People in countries with more government control of health care are highly dissatisfied and believe reform is needed.' More than seven in 10 Germans, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders and Britons say their health systems need either 'fundamental change' or 'complete rebuilding.'"

A must read, this article gives lie to the leftist claims that America's health system is inferior and in need of nationalization.

The Big Lie - Tax Cuts Got Us Into This Mess, We Need Spending to Get Ourselves Out of It

IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- Taxing The Truth: "'We have tried that strategy time and time again,' the president said Monday of 'tax cuts for the wealthiest few Americans,' and 'it's only helped lead us to the crisis we face right now.'

Well, he's half-right: We have tried it again and again. But rather than create crises, economic growth has been restored. The evidence is pretty much beyond dispute."

But let's not confuse the Big Government folks with the facts.