Today in Washington, D.C. - April 21, 2010 - Surprise Everyone: Health Law Won't Reduce Premiums

Yesterday, the Senate voted 78-19 to confirm Lael Brainard as an undersecretary in the Treasury Department. The Senate also voted 66-32 to confirm Marisa Demeo to be an Associate Justice of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.  Today, the  Senate   began consideration of the nomination of Christopher Schroeder to be Assistant Attorney General. They are expected to vote today on the nomination.  They will then take up the nomination of Thomas Vanaskie to the 3^rd Circuit Court of Appeals and again are expected to vote on the nomination today.

On Thursday, the Senate is scheduled to consider the nomination of Denny Chin to the 2^nd Circuit Court of Appeals.

Throughout the health care debate, Democrats said over and over that if passed, their $2.6 trillion health care takeover would lower costs. At the health care summit President Obama called in February, he even got in an argument with Senate Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander over whether the bill would reduce insurance premiums or not. Sen. Alexander was noting a CBO report from November which said premiums for individuals were likely to increase under the legislation. But Obama insisted “you're going to be able to get lower costs.”

Well, The New York Times reports today, “Fearing that health insurance premiums may shoot up in the next few years, Senate Democrats laid a foundation on Tuesday for federal regulation of rates, four weeks after President Obama signed a law intended to rein in soaring health costs.” So after a year of insisting that costs will go down if Democrats passed their unpopular bill, Democrats are apparently conceding that the health care legislation will not, in fact, keep premiums from going up.

According to the NYT, “After a hearing on the issue, the chairman of the Senate health committee, Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, said he intended to move this year on legislation that would ‘provide an important check on unjustified premiums.’ Mr. Harkin praised a bill introduced by Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, that would give the secretary of health and human services the power to review premiums and block ‘any rate increase found to be unreasonable.’” Do Democrats have so little faith in their health care plan that they feel the HHS secretary needs the power to review and block premium increases?

Perhaps Democrats think it’s inevitable that there will be premium increases. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durban said as much back in March: “Anyone who would stand before you and say, ‘Well, if you pass health care reform, next year's health care premiums are going down,’ I don't think is telling the truth. I think it is likely they would go up, but what we're trying to do is slow the rate of increase.” And a New York Times story from last weekend pointed out that similar regulations and restrictions in the Empire State have resulted in premiums spiraling out of control. “Premiums for individual and small group policies have risen so high,” The Times wrote, “that state officials and patients’ advocates say that New York’s extensive insurance safety net for people … is falling apart.”

After months of insisting that their health care bill would lower costs, Democrats seem to be laying the groundwork to prevent inevitable premium increases brought on by their ill-considered law. This once again shows that Democrats were simply ignoring smart policy in their rush to “make history.” Americans aren’t fooled, though. A Quinnipiac poll out today shows that 53% still disapprove of the health care law (only 39% support it). Fifty-five percent of respondents disapprove of Obama’s handling of health care and a stunning 71% disapprove of how the Democrat-controlled Congress is doing its job.

Republicans warned many times of the consequences of passing the partisan health care bill, but spurred on by the White House and Democrat congressional leaders, Democrats voted for it anyway. Now even those who cheerlead for it appear to be admitting it won’t work as advertised. The law needs to be repealed and replaced with commonsense reforms.

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Tags: Washington, D.C., US Senate, US House, US Congress, judicial nominees, health care, higher premiums
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