Now that health-care bills have passed in both the House and the Senate, Democrats just can’t seem to stop themselves from rhetorical excess. Just before Christmas, as the bill sponsored by Majority Leader Harry Reid was clearing its final hurdles in the Senate, Democrats took to the chamber floor and cable television shows to trumpet the “historic” nature of the legislation they were about to vote on — legislation that would, at long last, move toward their long-sought goals of “universality” and a government-guaranteed right to health care.
But is it so?
Yes, both the House and Senate would provide essentially free health insurance, through the Medicaid program, to many millions of low-income people. But, even so, enrollment in Medicaid is a far cry from getting good care when it’s needed. For starters, about 40 percent of the nation’s physicians don’t see Medicaid patients because the payment rates are too low, which also means certain hospitals have very low rates of Medicaid admissions. The truth is that current Medicaid enrollees already have trouble getting access to high-quality care when they need it because the network of providers willing and able to see them is constrained and over-burdened. The House and Senate bills would add 15 million or more people to this program’s rolls without any guarantee whatsoever that there will be doctors and hospitals that can see them.
Ironically, the very Democrats who most frequently tout “universality” as the goal are also the ones who ensure it will never actually come about by insisting that America’s lower-income families enroll in government-run insurance — with no other options.
Beyond the Medicaid expansion, Obamacare is really an obligation, not a right. Every citizen would be required to sign up with a government-approved health-insurance plan or pay a tax penalty for going without coverage. According to the Lewin Group, households with at least one uninsured member and an income between $50,000 and $75,000 per year would see their costs rise for health care by $2,133 under the Senate bill. “A new tax on the uninsured” isn’t exactly a catchy slogan for Obamacare — but that’s essentially what it is. There would be a lavish new entitlement program to offset some of the premium for some households, but the vast majority of working Americans would get no additional help. They would just get the unfunded mandate, and that’s it.
Meanwhile, despite all of the talk of painlessly slowing the pace of rising costs with more efficient care, the Democrats’ bills would cut costs mainly by imposing arbitrary rate reductions in the Medicare program — pushing it more and more toward the Medicaid model. In fact, at the end of December, the Mayo Clinic announced that it would no longer see Medicare patients at one of its clinics in Arizona because the program’s payment rates are simply too low to cover its costs. A small glimpse into our Obamacare future.
In the coming days and weeks, we will hear a great deal more about how close the nation is to making history. Readily available health care for all, without limit — that’s what the overheated rhetoric will imply. But the public figured out months ago that the reality under Obamacare would be very different. There would be higher costs, higher taxes, and more regulation. Worst of all, clumsy governmental “cost-control” efforts would put the quality of American medicine at risk for everyone. Which is why public sentiment has hardened in opposition, and why the debate is not over yet.
Congressional budget analysts have given House leaders cost estimates for two competing versions of their plan to overhaul the health-care system … The report from the Congressional Budget Office, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post, puts the cost of one plan at $859 billion over the next decade and the other at $905 billion. … The cheaper version would rely heavily on a more dramatic expansion of Medicaid, the government health plan for the poor that is funded partly by the states — meaning already-strapped governors would have to pick up more of the cost of reform.
As we detailed this morning, the Senate Finance Committee bill attained its sub $1 trillion CBO report by shoving 14 million Americans into Medicaid. Medicaid is a convenient method for hiding the true cost of Obamacare because state and local governments pick up part of the tab.
Worse, Medicaid pays doctors and hospitals 20-25 percent less than does the private sector and as a result Medicaid patients often have trouble finding willing providers. In a 2008 survey of the 51 Medicaid directors conducted for the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, 17 reported some or significant problems with access to primary care, and 36 reported some or significant problems with access to specialty care. Americans are in for a rude awakening when they realize Obama’s health care reform means they have to participate in a welfare program.
In June, President Obama told Senate Democrats, “As we move forward on health care reform, it is not sufficient for us simply to add more people to Medicare or Medicaid.”
This is precisely what first the Senate, and now the House, is turning Obamacare into.