Read it all here:
Our federal government is currently just flinging stuff against the wall, in trillion-dollar chunks, to see what sticks. Congress’s own budget office has said the current “federal budget is on an unsustainable path” and that the Democrats’ health plan does not reduce “long-term health costs facing the government.”
The House Democrats’ plan would have the following consequences:
• Most Americans would end up, over time, with government-run health care.
• The only folks who would be able to stave this off are the wealthy.
• The quality of our health care would diminish.
• Someone other than patients and doctors would make decisions on the treatments and medicines we can have.
• The taxes on the rich, otherwise known as employers, would further damage the economy and potentially drive up unemployment at a time we can least afford it.
If you like those outcomes, then by all means, support the House Democrats’ health care plan.
The shame of it all is that there really is an emerging consensus among the populace that we need reform that reduces costs, improves outcomes and puts patients in control.
Imagine if the president proposed a reform package that made health insurance portable, ended frivolous lawsuits, allowed for pooling, required insurance companies
to cover the sick, paid based on outcomes and not activity, used refundable tax credits to increase affordability and incentivized rather than penalized small businesses to provide coverage. Republicans would support those reforms, and the policy would benefit the entire country. True, it wouldn’t be the radical and exciting restructuring that Pelosi is pushing, but it would begin to move us toward common-sense, bottom-up solutions. Solutions! There’s an idea.
But wait, as the late Billy Mays would say, there’s more. Social Security and Medicare, our two biggest entitlement programs in this country, are perpetually underfunded and are always in danger of going bankrupt. Is it even remotely possible that we as a country are now considering adding an entire new entitlement program to our repertoire?
Would the last sane person in Washington please turn out the lights when you leave?
Bobby Jindal is the Republican governor of Louisiana.
'A trillion here, a trillion there' - Bobby Jindal - POLITICO.com
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