Update III: Obama's Route To Economic Revival (A Stake Through The Heart Of The Economy)

Barack Obama,Debt,Democrats,Healthcare,Media,Socialism

            

A straitjacket is where this man and his followers belong. And where Bush before him should have been placed. For as much as the beaus and bimbos of FoxNews and their loyalists wish to forget, Bush paved the way for Barack’s Bacchanalia—“The unconstitutional campaign finance-reform bill and ‘Sarbanes-Oxley Act’ (a preemptive assault on CEOs and CFOs, prior to the fact of a crime); the various trade tariffs and barriers; the Clintonian triumph of triangulation on affirmative-action; the collusion with Kennedy on education; the welfare wantonness that began with a prescription-drug benefit that would add trillions to the Medicare shortfall, and culminated in the Kennedy-countenanced ‘New New Deal’ for New Orleans, for which there was no constitutional authority; the gold-embossed invitation to illegals to invade, and the ‘camouflaged amnesty'”—Barack wishes he’d done all this, but these were Bush’s babies.

Back to the bastard du jour : The New York Times editorializes approvingly on what Obama’s health care “reform” will accomplish:

It will “require virtually all Americans to carry health insurance or pay a penalty. And it would require all but the smallest businesses to provide health insurance for their workers or pay a substantial fee. It would also expand Medicaid to cover many more poor people, and it would create new exchanges through which millions of middle-class Americans could buy health insurance with the help of government subsidies. The result would be near-universal coverage at a surprisingly manageable cost to the federal government.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that by 2015, 97 percent of all residents, excluding illegal immigrants, would have health insurance. The price tag for this near-universal coverage was pegged by the budget office at just more than $1 trillion over 10 years — at the low-end of the estimates we’ve heard in recent weeks.

The legislation would pay for half that cost by reducing spending on Medicare, a staple of all reform plans. It would pay for the other half by raising $544 billion over the next decade with a graduated income surtax on the wealthiest Americans: families with adjusted gross incomes exceeding $350,000 and individuals making more than $280,000.” …

Update I: Republicans on the Joint Economic Committee (led by Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX), who, as far as I know, did less than nothing to highlight the evils of their Boy Bush’s prescription drug program, have developed the following organizational chart to illustrate the efficiencies built into to the Democrats’ healthscare politburo. Since the image, never the program, is quite small, check it out here.

HC

Update II (July 17): “In total, CBO estimates that enacting [Obama’s healthscare) provisions would raise deficits by $1,042 billion over the 2010-2019 period.” But the CBO and the JCT hope that the net increase in the federal budget deficit of enacting H.R. 3200 will be only a meager $239 billion over the 2010-2019 period. That’s because of some “savings” the Act affords.

“That estimate reflects a projected 10-year cost of the bill’s insurance coverage provisions of $1,042 billion, partly offset by net spending changes that CBO estimates would save $219 billion over the same period, and by revenue provisions that JCT estimates would increase federal revenues by about $583 billion over those
10 years.”

Douglas W. Elmendorf, Director of the CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE, who conducted the analysis of “H.R. 3200, America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009,” summarizes the Act’s mandates:

The legislation would establish a mandate to have health insurance, expand eligibility for Medicaid, and establish new health insurance exchanges through which some people could purchase subsidized coverage. The options available in the insurance exchange would include private health insurance plans as well as a public plan that would be administered by the Secretary of Health and Human
Services. The specifications would also require payments of penalties by uninsured individuals, firms that did not provide qualified health insurance, and other firms whose employees would receive subsidized coverage through the exchanges. The plan would also provide tax credits to small employers that contribute toward the cost of health insurance for their workers.

I must say, I’m quite impressed with the CBO. Just the facts, ma’am.

Update III (July 18): Warns economist Peter Schiff: “the economy is walking dead anyway, and this measure is the equivalent of a stake through the heart.” From “Prescription for Disaster”:

“[T]taxing the rich to pay for health care for the uninsured is the wrong way to think about tax policy and is an unconstitutional redistribution of wealth. While the government has the constitutional power to tax to “promote the general welfare,” it does not have the right to tax one group for the sole and specific benefit of another. If the government wishes to finance national health insurance, the burden of paying for it should fall on every American. If that were the case, perhaps Congress would think twice before passing such a monstrosity.

In the second place, the bill is just plain bad economics. For an administration that claims to want to create jobs, this bill is one of the biggest job-killers yet devised. By increasing the marginal income tax rate on high earners (an extra 5.4% on incomes above 1 million), it reduces the incentives for small business owners to expand their companies. When you combine this tax hike with the higher taxes that will kick in once the Bush tax-cuts expire, and add in the higher income taxes being imposed by several states, many business owners might simply choose not to put in the extra effort necessary to expand their businesses. Or, given the diminishing returns on their labor, they may choose to enjoy more leisure. More leisure for employers means fewer jobs for employees.

More directly, mandating insurance coverage for employees increases the cost of hiring workers. Under the terms of the bill, small businesses that do not provide insurance will be required to pay a tax as high as 8% of their payroll. Since most small businesses currently could not afford to grant 8% across-the-board pay hikes, they will have to offset these costs by reducing wages. However, for employees working at the minimum wage, the only way for employers to offset the costs would be through layoffs.”

Read the complete column on Taki’s.

10 thoughts on “Update III: Obama's Route To Economic Revival (A Stake Through The Heart Of The Economy)

  1. Myron Pauli

    As a Fed employee on government health care, I recently got $ 5000 of colonoscopy – for something like $ 150 out of pocket – for the 1 in 1000 or so chance of spotting colon cancer. Had I instead just had a catastophic insurance that kicks in at $ 5000, I doubt I would have placed that much money on the roulette table and gone through the trouble with no other intestinal symptoms. Just an example of the type of bad spending that will further propagate when no one has any financial responsibility. John Stossel writes extensively on this obvious BAD use of the “health care” system – as well as the usual “coverage mandates” such as fertility treatments, viagras, and other necessities of life. We are heading over the finacial cliff – FULL STEAM AHEAD!

  2. Roy Bleckert

    I am glad you have and continue to point out to all the G W Bush followers, all the goof ball policies Bush promoted during his 8 years, and may i also add Bush supporting Kennedy and McCain on S 2611
    The Bush-Kennedy-McCain Senate Amnesty/Immigration Acceleration Bill, although it died in 2007, i wonder when original sponsors Specter, McCain, Graham and Kennedy will bring this back up.

    One good thing about Barry getting elected is that now at least some of the Bush loyalists are starting to acknowledge some off the socialist policies Bush advocated .

    On health care, will someone please show me in the constitution where congress or the prez. have any authority to force anyone to provide or pay for yours, mine or any one else’s health care, and if they have no constitutional roll to play in health care, why are they even wasting tax dollars discussing it!

  3. Jack E

    “It will “require virtually all Americans to carry health insurance or pay a penalty”

    Does anybody know how that is to be enforced? Will we have to provide our policy number when we file our income taxes like we do when we renew our auto tags? Or will they expect doctors and hospitals to report you if you seek treatment without insurance?

  4. M. B. Moon

    “A beastly bureaucratic feeding frenzy cannot awaken the slumbering beauty that is the private economy.” Ilana

    Alright, Ilana.
    You finally forced it out of me:

    Brilliant!

  5. Barbara Grant

    If the government desires to kill small businesses, this is the way to do it.

  6. John Danforth

    According to one neocon radio host, the plan will also sunset all individual policies by prohibiting any new ones from being written. Thus forcing everyone to use the government option eventually. This will protect the quasi-governmental carriers from competition.

    The corrupt carriers that already administer the fascist Medicare program (BCBS) are largely behind this and have been bribing, err, lobbying for years to get something like this pushed through. There’s a lot in it for them. Free money forever and not a little power.

  7. Robert Glisson

    “The result would be near-universal coverage at a surprisingly manageable cost to the federal government.”
    That reporter must have lottery tickets for the ‘Brooklyn Bridge raffle’ on hand too.
    When I was in the military, one of the men I worked with had a saying. “Remember that we are trusting our lives to a piece of equipment built by the lowest bidder.” Nothing has changed.

  8. Roger Chaillet

    Ilana forgot that it was Governor Bush who restored state provided health care benefits to legal immigrants.

    He was praised for this by Raul Yzaguirre, recently retired head of La Raza.

    By any measure Bush is a hard core leftist.

  9. M. B. Moon

    “By any measure Bush is a hard core leftist.” Roger

    Why should the very rich be anything but leftists or fascists? You don’t think they got that way without direct or indirect government privilege, do you?

    Government backed fractional reserve banking, for instance, is an effective and subtle way to loot the poor for the sake of the rich.

    Thanks, Roger for the softball.
    outta of the park!

  10. Bob Schaefer

    “A straitjacket is where this man and his followers belong.”

    Anyone care to wager on who has the better handle on reality?

    “While the Senate continues to struggle over its approach to health care reform, House Democratic leaders have unveiled a bill that would go a long way toward solving the nation’s health insurance problems without driving up the deficit.” (NY Times Editorial Writer)

    “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think I could win.” (Tom Watson, current leader of the British Open)

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