Health Wars (10/6/09)

Whenever Barack Obama tells us that something "can't be done," take that as prima facie evidence that his heart isn't in it.  Because when something really can't be done that he wants with all his flinty, black heart, he'll pursue it to the gates of hell and beyond anyway:

But now, senior administration officials are holding private meetings almost daily at the Capitol with senior Democratic staff to discuss ways to include a version of the public plan in the health care bill that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, plans to bring to the Senate floor later this month, according to senior Democratic congressional aides…

At the same time, Obama has been reaching out personally to rank-and-file Senate Democrats, telephoning more than a dozen lawmakers in the last week to press the case for action…

“The challenge is to go to the (Senate) floor, hold the deal,” said Steve Elmendorf, a lobbyist who was chief of staff to former House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt. But “they are more involved than people think. They have a plan and a strategy, and they know what they want to get and they work with people to get it.”…

He has met repeatedly in private with Senator Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, who has floated a proposal to allow states to set up government plans as a fallback if commercial insurers do not control premiums.

That would be the same Olympia Snowe that walked away from Max Baucus's table weeks ago.  What, pray tell, would have brought her back when the same leftward drift that has beset his one-time "moderate compromise" is why she broke with it in the first place?

Also, remember that we're (still) talking about a president with approval ratings south of 50%.  The Barack Obama of May and June would have clout with the Donk rank & file because his "honeymoon" prestige could still shield them to some degree from voter wrath.  Now he represents what has dozens of Blue Dogs and "McCainocrats" quaking in their boots vis-a-vie the 2010 midterms.  What's in it for them if they commit political suicide on Dr. Chicago's behalf?

This Cylonesque "they have a plan" spin has become a recurring mantra amongst the hardcore Obamunist Left as the chances of actual passage of BarryCare have waned.  Crazy Nancy has claimed to have the votes, even for a public option; so has Tom Harkin and "Dirty Harry" Reid.  Yet they're all still stuck in amber and for the very same reason: voters don't want it and will turn 2010 into a GOP tsunami of biblical proportions if the majority forces it on them.  Redundant hectoring from a steadily more unpopular president isn't going to change that equation because the bottom line interests from the White House and Donk Politburo and those Dems whose asses are hanging out to wind have, quite simply, diverged.

I'm sure Team Messiah had a "plan and strategy" for bringing the 2016 Olympics to Chicago, too.  How'd that one turn out, Steve?

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Apart from the aforementioned Sith mind tricks, it's pretty much settled fact that the only version of BarryCare that has (or has had) a legit shot at passage - which is to say, can amass at least sixty votes in the Senate to break a filibuster - is the Baucus/Senate Finance Committee version.  The reason why is (or was) straightforward: it came the closest to (on paper) being "deficit neutral".  Which, of course, is one of Lucifer's principle BS talking points.

Robert Tracinski lays out the fundamental purpose of BaucusCare:

The Baucus bill includes an “individual mandate” that requires everyone to buy health insurance-but not inexpensive, high-deductible catastrophic health insurance. Instead, it imposes a requirement for pricier comprehensive coverage that pays for routine costs like annual checkups. The bill then requires that insurance companies provide coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, and that they charge customers at high risk of medical problems the same rates as those with lower risks-which means that these extra expenses will have to be paid for by raising everyone else’s premiums.

And then the Baucus bill delivers the knock-out punch: after forcing us into expensive comprehensive insurance plans and driving up the cost of those plans, the bill would impose a massive 40% tax on “gold-plated” plans-which turn out to include the health-insurance plans of many in the middle class. So that drives up the cost of insurance even higher.

You can see why it doesn’t much matter whether or not we have a “public option” in the original bill. Everything else in the bill is designed to make private health insurance unaffordable-so that in a few years, people will clamor for a government-subsidized “public option,” and the same politicians who destroyed private health insurance can make a big show of coming to the rescue of their victims.

It is, in other words, the penultimate incremental step to the leftwing unholy grail of single-payer nationalized health care.  The individual and insurance carrier mandates finish the inflationary spiral job previous government interventions started, the private health insurance market collapses, the "health care crisis" that liberals have chicken-littled for decades finally becomes reality by their own design, and in they ride to the "rescue" with the government takeover of which they've wet-dreamed all their lives.  And the best part is, it will finally pass because We, The People, will finally have nowhere else to go.

There is a purpose to incrementalism, gentles.  Democrats used to understand that.  But today's Dems just can't muster the patience to wait just a few more years for the consummation of their communist nuptuals.  They've worn down Baucus by forcing him to add "sweeteners" like subsidies and additional taxes that have inflated the price tag of his bill.  Even though a public option amendment got shot down last week, the "rumor" was that Senate Finance was going to try to ram the bill through anyway "in the dead of night," in hopes of evading Congressional Budget Office scoring the cost of the bill.

They might as well start calling these things "Copenhagen maneuvers":

Senators learned Monday that a committee vote on health-care reform will be pushed back to later this week, and perhaps into next week, as they await an estimate on how much the overhaul would cost.

But if the news of the delayed vote disappointed them, Democratic leaders in the Senate took heart from pro-reform statements from some high-profile Republicans, including former Senate majority leader Bill Frist and former health and human services secretary Tommy G. Thompson.

The Senate Finance Committee wrapped up work Friday on a reform bill, but committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) promised his members that before voting they would have a “reasonable” amount of time to review the bill’s price tag, as assessed by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. That report, committee aides said Monday, will arrive later than expected.

The panel’s vote is expected to be close, and passage could hinge on a handful of senators who have indicated that the CBO’s report may sway them.

Now, about those subsidies:

Furthermore, the exchange credits — by which taxpayers get subsidized for purchasing health insurance — become a problem in themselves.  As Thomas Barthold explains in a letter on the subject to the committee, 72% of the refundables will exceed the total tax liability of the recipients.  That means only $130 billion of the $463 billion lowers taxes — and $330 billion gets spent by Treasury as an outlay.

Maybe my abacus is warped, but that number looks like it exceeds even the fantasized $259 billion supposedly raisable from Baucus's vaunted "Cadillac plan" excise tax.  Which most likely helps explain why SFC Obamunists wanted to end-run around CBO.  Which makes it more likely that the "new & improved" BaucusCare will bounce back a budget-buster, which will presumably "sway" that "handful" of Dem senators.

Whether that's enough to defeat the bill in the Finance Committee is conjectural.  Whether it's enough to make a filibuster insurmountable pretty much isn't.

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Indiscretion, thy name is Speakerette Funbags:

“I would say, Put everything on the table and subject it to the scrutiny that it deserves,” Pelosi told Rose when asked if the VAT has any appeal to her…

Pelosi argued that the VAT would level the playing field between U.S. and foreign manufacturers, the latter of which do not have pension and healthcare costs included in the price of their goods because their governments provide those services, financed by similar taxes.

“They get a tax off of that and they use that money to pay the healthcare for their own workers,” Pelosi said, using the example of auto manufacturers. “So their cars coming into our country don’t have a healthcare component cost.

“Somewhere along the way, a value-added tax plays into this. Of course, we want to take down the healthcare cost, that’s one part of it,” the Speaker added. “But in the scheme of things, I think it’s fair look at a value-added tax as well.”

Eurosocialist countries (plus Canada) all languish under state-controlled health care; Eurosocialist countries (plus Canada) all have VATs.  So OF COURSE one "plays into" the other.  Shrieker's not saying anything ground-breaking here.

She's just saying it TOO BLOODY SOON.  Because, you know, she's an idiot.

Parenthetically, I wonder what "fair tax" proponents on the center-right think of the Pelosi proposal.  Hey, guys, this gets you halfway home - right?

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And to think some people nickname Adolph Ahmadinejad "Dinnerjacket":

President Obama yesterday rolled out the red carpet — and handed out doctors’ white coats as well, just so nobody missed his hard-sell health-care message.

In a heavy-handed attempt at reviving support for health-care reform, the White House orchestrated a massive photo op to buttress its claim that front-line physicians support Obama. …

The physicians, all invited guests, were told to bring their white lab coats to make sure that TV cameras captured the image.

But some docs apparently forgot, failing to meet the White House dress code by showing up in business suits or dresses.

So the White House rustled up white coats for them and handed them to the suited physicians who had taken seats in the sun-splashed lawn area.

That's Red Barry for you - subtle as a sledghammer to the groin, as unimaginably more dishonest.

A useful perspective restorer:

And voters, please pay no attention to the IBD poll that revealed that 45% of physicians would consider giving up the practice of medicine should the democrats’ reforms go through.

Half as many doctors to treat 14% more patients.  As with the costs of this atrocity, these numbers just do not add up.  All the white lab coats in the world can't cover that up.

UPDATE: From a Jay Nordlinger reader and one of the aforementioned 45%:

I would never have gone in the first place. The people who attended were obviously signing up to be stage props: They would probably have dressed as clowns or Napoleon or Captain Jack Sparrow if asked.

 

Hard to know why any self-respecting physician would sign up to glorify the (very bad) plans of a man who has a manifest distaste for our profession. Maybe I should have attended wearing a necklace of tonsils that I had removed for ill-gotten profits.