by Daniel T. Zanoza, Executive Director
As Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi promised, Americans would learn more about the health care reform bill after it was passed. Yes, most have learned about the 16,500 new IRS agents who will be hired to act as the health care police. Seniors are learning more about the drastic cuts to Medicare, including the decrease in funding of home health care, hospice care and funding for medical equipment. In fact, there were so many terrible things in the thousands of pages this bill entailed, opponents didn't know where to begin to fight it.
Most Americans were clearly against the Democratic version of health care reform. Republicans were grossly outmanned in their unified opposition to the bill and it was also hard to choose what aspects of the legislation to focus on. Should the GOP have concentrated on the budget-busting impact this new law would have on the nation for generations to come? Should Republicans have zeroed in on the decrease in the quality of health care that would be provided to most Americans, if the bill was passed? Or possibly the way to have fought the bill was to point out that comprehensive health care reform had nothing to do with health care, but was all about control of a significant portion of the public?
However, President Barack Obama's strategy regarding health care reform is consistent with his radical political agenda. The modus operandi was, and is, to throw everything against the political wall and see what sticks. Obama began with the stimulus package which we were told was necessary to save the struggling American economy. Congress passed the legislation which we are now learning is filled with waste and pork-filled projects totaling billions of dollars. Then came Cap and Trade which, if passed into law, would have resulted in drastically higher energy costs for every American.
But the country quickly caught on. It took the entire first year of Obama's administration to pass health care into law and, hopefully, this has put a crimp in a leftist vision that many in our nation are now rejecting. In fact, the Cap and Trade bill, also referred to as Cap and Tax, was never taken on by the U.S. Senate (after the U.S. House of Representatives passed it) because it was so politically toxic.
With the midterm elections coming up in November, the far left wing of the Democratic Party has been stymied in their efforts to pass bills, including comprehensive immigration reform, card check and gays in the military, which are high on their list of priorities.
But Republicans have to be very careful regarding a political trap which has been set for them. In order to pass the health care reform bill, so-called blue dog Democrats had to be convinced the health care reform legislation would reduce the national debt during the next ten years. The argument was: If nothing was done, rapidly escalating health care costs would far exceed the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) calculated cost of Obamacare, which was projected to be $940 billion for the next decade. However, most economists realize the cost of adding 30 million Americans to the rolls of those to be covered by mandatory health care will probably by closer to $2.4 trillion. But the Democrats played a very skillful game which had an impact on the CBO's original projections because the majority party left out something called the "Doctors Fix" in this equation.
Physicians will have to be paid for their services to include the expanding rolls of those on Medicare and Medicaid. Money was not allocated for this provision in the health care reform law. The Democrats left these costs out of the bill on purpose. They knew if the "Doctors Fix" was included in the new law, the true costs would rise between $150 billion and $200 billion for the next decade. But leaving the "Doctors Fix" out of the equation gave so-called conservative Democrats political cover, leaving them able to vote for the bill's passage.
Here's the catch. The "Doctors Fix" and the money needed to fund it will have to be passed by Congress. In a way, Republicans have been painted into a corner. They can't oppose the "Doctors Fix" because the Democrats would scream from the rooftops that members of the GOP are against paying physicians the money they deserve for services rendered under the new law. Republicans will have to go along with the expenditures that should have been included in the costs of the original health care bill. The sad fact is the establishment media knew the "Doctors Fix" was necessary in order to make health care reform viable; yet the press paid little, if any, attention, to the issue.
So, essentially, Republicans will have to swallow a spoonful of medicine which has a terrible taste. The only strategy Republicans now have is to point out the American public was duped by Obama, Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the Democratic Party who did anything and everything to pass health care reform, the least of which was fudging the numbers on its true costs. Perhaps from the beginning the GOP should have focused more on the fact the cost of the "Doctors Fix" was not written into the original health care reform legislation which was passed by Congress and signed into law by Obama, but it's too late to do so now.
The worst thing Republican legislators could do would be to fight against the "Doctors Fix" on principle. The only thing members of the GOP can say is the Democrats intentionally deceived the country. But what else is new?
RELATED ARTICLES:
Health Care Reform: Nothing To Do With Health Care: It's About Control by Daniel T. Zanoza [March 12, 2010] http://rffm.typepad.com/republicans_for_fair_medi/2010/03/health-care-reform-nothing-to-do-with-health-care-its-about-control.html
Food, Water and Energy = Control of Americans by Joyce Morrison [July 18, 2008]
http://rffm.typepad.com/republicans_for_fair_medi/2008/07/food-water-and-energy-control-of-americans.html
http://rffm.typepad.com/republicans_for_fair_medi/2008/07/food-water-and-energy-control-of-americans.html
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Politicians do not have to be stupid to be crooked. These are rather skillful politicos.
Posted by: Charlie | April 07, 2010 at 04:34 PM