Today in Washington, D.C. - May 14, 2010 - ObamaCare Breaking All Of Dems' Promises

Yesterday,Republican House Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) announced a new initiative project called YouCut. It is a first-of-its-kind project is designed to defeat the permissive culture of runaway spending in Congress. It allows the citizen to vote, both online and on your cell phone, on spending cuts that you want to see the US House enact. Read More about YouCut.

The Senate resumed consideration of S. 3217, the Dodd financial regulation bill. No votes are scheduled today. Yesterday, the Senate rejected by a vote of 42-58 an amendment from Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) to create bankruptcy proceedings for large financial institutions. Also rejected, by a vote of 40-55, was an amendment from Sen. John Thune (R-SD) to sunset the controversial and far-reaching consumer protection bureau created in the law after 4 years. Also yesterday the Senate approved amendments to the bill from Sens. Al Franken (D-MN), Dick Durbin (D-IL), and George LeMieux (R-FL).

Before the House voted on President Obama’s $2.6 trillion health care takeover House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (in)famously said, “[W]e have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it . . . .” Pelosi and the White House managed to twist enough arms to get the bill passed, but little did she know just how much we’d be finding out about the bill after it passed. There has been a steady stream of news stories and government reports over the last two months on the health care bill revealing that none of the promises that Democrats made about it will be kept. Thus, Americans are left with one basic question for Democrats in Washington: now that we’ve found out what’s in it, would you still vote for this?

One of the key selling points of the ObamaCare was that it will lower health care costs, was blown away by a study from the Obama administration’s own Health and Human Services Department. The analysis from the chief actuary at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services “found that the law falls short of the president's twin goal of controlling runaway costs, raising projected spending by about 1 percent over 10 years,” according to the AP. Indeed, “[t]he overhaul will increase national health care spending by $311 billion from 2010-2019.”

Democrats also spent a great deal of time touting the purported deficit reduction aspects of the bill. A number of House Democrats essentially based their vote for the bill on the promise that it would reduce the deficit. But this week a Congressional Budget Office report predicted the bill will cost “about $115 billion more in discretionary spending over ten years than the original cost projections,” according to Politico. This all but wipes out the deficit savings over ten years that Democrats were bragging about. Also, Politico noted, “The additional spending — if approved over the years by Congress — would bring the total estimated cost of the overhaul to about $1 trillion.”

Also this week, another HHS estimate said that another highly-touted provision of the bill, allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ health insurance until the age of 26 “will nudge premiums nearly 1 percent higher for employer plans,” according to the AP. Even Senate Democrats seem to recognize that health insurance premiums are going to go up despite their health care law (Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) admitted as such before the bill passed). The New York Times reported last month, “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.”

And what about President Obama’s oft-repeated promise that “If you like your current plan, you will be able to keep it”? Well, Fortune Magazine reported that according to documents Democrats in Congress demanded from companies noting how much the health care law will cost them, many companies are considering dropping health coverage altogether and simply paying a penalty instead, as it may be cheaper.

Meanwhile, taxes will be going up. The Hill reported last month, “Taxpayers earning less than $200,000 a year will pay roughly $3.9 billion more in taxes — in 2019 alone — due to healthcare reform, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress's official scorekeeper.” And according to the AP, “Nearly 4 million Americans will have to pay a penalty if they fail to get health insurance when that element of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law kicks in . . . .” And of course, “The vast majority of people paying the fine will be middle class, which would violate Obama's 2008 campaign pledge not to raise taxes on individuals making less than $200,000 a year and couples making less than $250,000.”

And to top it all off, the health care law is proving to be a jobs killer, just as Republicans warned it would. The AP reported a couple of weeks ago, “A new law that cuts banks out of the federal student loan business is costing 2,500 workers at Sallie Mae their jobs.” Recall that Democrats decided to add the student loan provisions to the health bill in part to entice more of their members to vote for it. But that’s not the only aspect harmful to employment. The Boston Herald reported recently, “A dire warning from Bay State medical-device companies that a new sales tax in the federal health-care law could force their plants - and thousands of jobs - out of the country has rattled Gov. Deval Patrick, a staunch backer of the law and pal President Obama.” And local news stations across the country have noted that new taxes in the bill are already hurting small businesses.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said this week, “Day after day, Republicans said the health care bill would raise taxes, raise premiums, and cut Medicare for seniors. We said it would increase costs, because it didn’t take an actuary to figure that you don’t save money on health care by spending more on it. And yet even in the face of the clearest proof that we were right on every single count . . .  all these headlines are only confirming what the American people already believed, and what Republicans said, all along: that more government isn’t the solution to out-of-control health care spending any more than spending money we didn’t have on projects we didn’t need was the secret to robust job growth.”

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