Today in Washington D. C. - June 15, 2009 - Obama's Government Run Health Care

Tomorrow, the Senate will vote on cloture on the motion to proceed to S. 1023; CQ reports the bill would “create a privately run nonprofit corporation to market the United States as a travel destination abroad.” Gee just what we need; another NPR / US Post Service type corporation to waste money. Like the U.S. needs to market the US as a travel destination. If there was money in promoting the U.S. a travel destination, don't you think a non-profit would have been created without the US government? Another sinkhole for future tax dollars!

Government Run Health Care: President Obama is set to address a skeptical crowd at the American Medical Association today in an attempt to sell his health care reform, including a government-run health care plan.

The AP writes today, “The nation’s doctors, like many other groups, are divided over the president's proposals to reshape the health care delivery system.” Just last week, the AMA released a statement opposing the creating of a government-run health care plan, saying it “threatens to restrict patient choice by driving out private insurers, which currently provide coverage for nearly 70% of Americans.”

According to the AP, “Obama planned to tell the American Medical Association's annual meeting in his hometown on Monday that overhaul cannot wait and that bringing down costs is the most important thing he can do to ensure the country's long-term fiscal health, a senior administration official said.”

But Robert J. Samuelson makes an important point in this Washington Post column today. “The main aim of health-care ‘reform’ being fashioned in Congress is to provide insurance to most of the 46 million uncovered Americans,” Samuelson writes. “But the extra coverage might actually worsen the spending problem. . . . The one certain consequence of expanding insurance coverage is that it would raise spending. When people have insurance, they use more health services. That's one reason Obama's campaign proposal was estimated to cost $1.2 trillion over a decade (the other reason is that the federal government would pick up some costs now paid by others). Indeed, the higher demand for health care might raise costs across the board, increasing both government spending and private premiums.”

In his weekly address, Obama announced plans to cut $313 billion in Medicare and Medicaid payments to hospitals and providers as a way to pay for some of his new spending. But Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell pointed out on Face the Nation yesterday, “The Medicare cuts that the president was talking about [Saturday] were not in the context of making the current program more sustainable… We have an unsustainable Medicare and Medicaid now.” Why add hundreds of billions in new spending on a potentially unsustainable new government health plan when the existing programs are already unsustainable? Wouldn’t it make sense to use the savings Obama is looking for to plug the existing holes in Medicare and Medicaid?

President Obama still hasn’t made clear how he intends to pay for a massive new government-run health care plan. Even if he gets the $313 billion in Medicare and Medicaid cuts (likely in the face of fierce opposition from hospitals) and the $300 billion he thinks we can save from cutting waste, that still fall short of projections of a $1.2 trillion price tag for his plans. Is this something the U.S. can afford at a time when the deficit for this year alone already exceeds $1 trillion? I doubt it - What do you think?

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