Monday, December 21, 2009

The Healthcare Bill: Sausage-Making, or Three-Card-Monte-Playing?






















Politico's "Arena" section asks if the Senate bill is sausage-making. My answer:

It’s not sausage-making, it’s three-card-monte-playing.

As Politico observes, just about every Democratic Senator is pointing to some special provision that he or she inserted into the Senate bill, to help the folks back home. Thus, for example, Ben Nelson claims perpetual Medicaid funding for Nebraska, Chris Dodd will soon be taking credit for a new hospital in Connecticut. But, we might observe, if every Senator claims a special deal, then they can’t all be good deals. Someone will eventually figure out the fiscal net, to and from each state, as a result of this bill, and by definition, a lot of states will be net losers.

I suspect, for example, that Minnesota will come out behind; Amy Klobuchar said on “Fox News Sunday” yesterday that she had secured a 50 percent cut in the new tax on medical equipment--a tax that would fall heavily on manufacturers in her state. So a $40 billion tax is now a $20 billion tax. So is that a $20 billion tax cut, or a $20 billion tax increase? It’s both. But $20 billion is still a lot of tax. Sorry, Gophers, and Hoosiers, and Bay Staters.

Moreover, as Kent Conrad also pointed out yesterday on “Fox News Sunday,” this Congress can’t bind future Congresses. And so, for example, when the federal government starts looking around for ways to reduce spending--to avoid, as President Obama warns us of, the “bankruptcy” of the federal government--those standout special spending items Senators are using now as a kind of “public finance” to their own re-election campaigns will be easy targets.

But the whole point of three-card-monte is not to build an enduring monument of some kind--the point is to get the money away from the rubes. Or, in this case, the votes away from the voters.

We’ll see in 11 months how this game plays out.

12 comments:

  1. >But the whole point of three-card-monte is not to build an enduring monument of some kind--the point is to get the money away from the rubes. We’ll see in 11 months how this game plays out.

    SADLY, very well put!

    Probably the most onerous aspect is the requirement that everyone is forced to enroll in and pay for healthcare or be fined. We will have to see how final legislation comes out on this, but the end-game is the government hydra wants even more money to flow through their fingers, control over it, control over each and every life--that is power!

    Oh and look for next up, ala the climate change model, globalists one-size fits all health care. This commentary "There'll Be Nowhere To Run From The New World Government" lays out nicely the underpinnings http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/janetdaley/6845967/Therell-be-nowhere-to-run-from-the-new-world-government.html

    This was tried with The League of Nations post WWI, and failed, but this time the world is much smaller due to travel-communication changes, and far more populated. Not clear how it will play out.

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  2. Yes, in 11 months "The Hill People" aka "Corrupt Bastrds" will wake up and remember, "ELEPHANTS" don't forget!

    I can't wait to see their unemployed keisters on Pennsylvania Avenue so we can say: "Can you hear us now?"

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  3. I do not think that the United States will ever go bankrupt, we are the most powerful country in the world and if we should experience maybe 6 months of a GNP hot streak, we can make a big dent in the deficit. We are seeing no public option, effectively keeping our plans and I am sure we will not cut doctor's fees because that is worse than having a woman scorned. So some of the preliminary stuff that is going to go back to the house is a victory for the American people and their desires at the town meetings, the polls and the tea parties (organizing by any political group is legalized by permitting). At 58, what happens to Medicare affects my mother at this point, more than myself.We are not out of the woods yet because this is a massive piece of legislation and only a select few know all the caveats within. So far we have achieved what was absolutely essential to our country but their still exists some important and implicative issues that could be successfully resolved but more likely will continue as discussion into perpetuity.

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  5. This isn't likely to happen since most of the people have different believes.

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  6. Once they will make all of the medical care with money people will change their mind.

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