Oh hell yeah! :) Must get this imported before Christmas

'Deficit Neutral' Health Plan Is Impossible

Albuquerque Journal--> By Micha Gisser
Professor Emeritus of Economics
          In fiscal 2009 the federal-budget deficit hit $1.42 trillion — 10 percent of our gross domestic product — the highest since World War II.
        And, predicts the Congressional Budget Office, in 2019 the federal debt is expected to nearly double to an unsustainable level of 67.8 percent.
        In view of the looming fiscal calamity, team Obama declared that the proposed health plan will remain "deficit neutral," an impossibility given Mr. Obama's campaign promises not to tax those below $250,000. The main issue is that President Obama and his supporters plan to jam a health plan program through Congress, and for that they must demonstrate to Americans an unattainable "deficit neutrality."
        Sen. Max Baucus, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, to seduce some unenthusiastic Democrats to vote for his version of a health bill, cut deals with those recalcitrant senators who insisted on special favors. To illustrate the fraudulent nature of "deficit neutrality," consider one of the many deals Sen. Baucus cut with special friends.
        The committee proposes a 40 percent tax on insurance plans that cost more than $21,000 a year. But Sen. Charles Schumer of New York and others, who represent states with union members with "Cadillac" health plans, reached an arrangement by which the threshold for this tax will be $25,000 in their states — not the $21,000 for the unconnected in other states.
        And we can bet that even if it passes with special favors for the privileged union members, this tax, if it becomes law, will indirectly weigh down on those earning less than $200,000, and consequently most of them will avoid buying "Cadillac" insurance.
        Team Obama's intention to cut the Medicare and Medicaid budget by more than $400 billion on grounds of corruption is a fantastic mirage. Seniors will be able to keep their current plans, alas, at much higher premiums. Also, the Democrats reliance on cutting doctors' Medicare reimbursements by 21.5 percent —"the doctor fix"— and then reduce it further by 2 percent annually is another disingenuous attempt at achieving fiscal balance by employing gimmickry: Fortunately, our doctors are too powerful to allow it.
        Moreover, one doubts the wisdom of penalizing our physicians for the end of improving our health care. Punishing physicians will cause the supply of physicians to shrink.
        Notice that without that cut the cost of the health bill easily goes beyond $1 trillion: Goodbye deficit neutrality.
        And now to the most shameful gimmick: Medicare Advantage was created by the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 as a private alternative to Medicare. Basically, under Medicare Advantage, Medicare outsources its administrative duties to competing private insurance companies.
        The initial doubts in the wake of its creation notwithstanding, Medicare Advantage has evolved to become a great success mainly because seniors in the program enjoy an unprecedented level of personal freedom in choosing health care options. It also offers seniors additional benefits unavailable to traditional Medicare enrollees. The health-insurance reform proposal approved by the Senate Finance Committee threatens to cut benefits to millions of American seniors, including 68,000 New Mexico seniors, who are enrolled in Medicare Advantage programs.
        The excuse offered by most Democrats is that, nationwide, Medicare Advantage costs taxpayers $1.14 for every dollar spent on traditional Medicare. While the statistic per se is correct, this is another disingenuous story. In fact it is a coverup for dire economic predicament facing President Obama and his supporters who created fiscal deficits and national debts of enormous sizes for the foreseeable future. The planned cuts in Medicare Advantage are an assault on 20 percent of seniors in Medicare.
        The mother of all gimmicks by team Obama was to consider offering each senior a gift of $250 as compensation for the cost-of-living adjustment they will not receive. This is beyond fantastic: The adjustment is for inflation compensation, not political bribery.
        In the future, when the economy is out of the recession and the fiscal crisis subsides, a bipartisan commission should consider a comprehensive Medicare reform that should first address the challenge of some $36 trillion of unfunded liabilities, and only second, the merits of Medicare Advantage.
        Micha Gisser is a professor emeritus of economics at the University of New Mexico.

Interesting, one of #UNM's economics professors takes a look at President Obama's "deficit neutral" health care program.