High Noon in Health Care

   It's coming up on noon in Washington and everything's gotten real quiet. As Pres. Obama says, the politicians have said everything there is to say about healthcare. That leaves the rest of us waiting for the final showdown on healthcare which should come on Sunday. In this stare-down will the Democrats shoot quick and straight and take down one-sixth of the U.S. economy? Or will the conservatives in both parties get the drop on the Dems and once and for all kill of this charade known as ObamaCare?

  The president is correct in saying that the time for talk is over. But the time for understanding is just beginning. Once the president sits down in the Rose Garden with a pocket full of pens and signs this disaster the American people will just begin to understand how a crowd of venal Chicago pols could conspire with a cadre of septugenarian Congressional leftists out for their Last Ride and pull off what amounts to a coup d'etat on American government.

  These proponents of ObamaCare will have trampled on the Constitution in a mad rush to get to the Rose Garden before Americans begin understanding what's happening. They will have resorted to multiple bribes in Congress, parliamentary tricks, smear tactics, obfuscation, and plain old lies to avoid the truth on this bill.

But the truth is unavoidable. There are really only three justifications currently given for adopting this disasterous piece of legislation, and the truth about each is inescapable:

• "My proposal would bring down the cost of health care for millions-families, businesses, and the federal government."
• So says Pres. Obama. But the reality is starkly different. Small family businesses that purchase their own insurance without the benefit of group plans will see their costs escalate. That's because ObamaCare will be forced to accept all policy seekers without regard to pre-existing health conditions. That means insurers will have to spread the cost of caring for these less healthy people over all their policy holders.
• The president's plan will add millions of people to the existing Medicaid program. Saying that the additional cost of caring for these people will reduce cost defies logic.
• This bill is "fully paid for."
• Again, this defies logic. The government is running record deficits and is deeply in debt. It can't pay for what is has on the books, let along add a new entitlement.
• Here's the truth the president is hiding: The only reason it looks fully paid for is because the Democrats have schemed to doctor the true cost of the bill. They've done this by removing the cost of certain Medicare reimbursements to doctors that they'll inevitably have to pay. This is like signing for a new $40,000 car, putting $5,000 down, and bragging that the car only will cost you $5,000. Anybody drawing breath will know that you still have $35,000 to pay on the car, the true cost of which is $40,000. Nobody would believe your alleged car-buying prowess. The president belittles and underestimates the American people by thinking he can fool them with the same scam in healthcare.
• This bill "brings down our deficit by up to $1 trillion over the next two decades."
• The real cost of this bill? About $2.3 trillion. Again, the logic-defying arithmetic is that the bill will reduce the deficit by $1 trillion by adding $2.3 trillion.
• Whatever cost savings are achieved in this bill come through legislative and budgetary sleight of hand. These include
• It takes $50 million in Social Security tax revenues and counts them as offsets to the spending bill. Either the Democrats have no intentioin of paying those benefits or they're counting them twice: in healthcare and in Social Security.
• The Democrats are sneaking into the healthcare bill their plan to socialize college student lending because they've tricked the Congressional Budget Office into blessing their claim that the lending takeover will save money. So by including these phantom savings in the healthcare bill they get to claim the savings for healthcare-even though they have nothing to do with healthcare.

Whether it's the "deem and pass" parliamentary trick that will let House Democrats pass this bill without having their dirty fingerprints all over it, or the voodoo math that they've used to trick the CBO into blessing it, this bill is a perfidy on the public trust. It is the poster child for what's wrong with Congress. The clock is ticking down to High Noon.

Just thought you might like to know.