I’m very concerned about Obamacare for a number of reasons. To be fair, there is much about it that I don’t understand, so I’m hesitant to debate on many aspects of it. One thing I’m completely certain of is that it is not, nor could it possibly be, the silver bullet that Obama has promised. He has told us (in various stages and at various times) that it will insure millions not currently covered, improve health care, remove waste in the system, get the economy going again and, somehow, bring down our national debt. If I believed a bill could do that, I’d support it, so my complaint is not the aim of the bill but the fact that I simply don’t believe it will do all of these things. In fact, I suspect that it will have the opposite of the intended effect on most of those counts.
But one part of it that just depresses me is the accounting gimmick that makes it appear budget neutral. As I understand it, the bill collects funding for four years before the benefits kick in. This, apparently, makes the bill appear to be budget neutral. So, to be clear, the bill is set up to pay for 6 years of operation with 10 years of fund collection. But the bill is set up to run indefinitely, right? According to math (whatever that’s worth), the bill costs 166.6666….% of its funding in a given year (10 divided by 6). As I understand it, our leaders have voted in a bill that, by design, will only pay for itself for the first 10 years, and cost 166.6% more than it collects every year after that.
What’s more, I suspect the 10-year budget neutral claim is overly-optimistic. Has any other major entitlement ever cost as little as proposed or run according to its proposed budget? As far as I understand, every single one (social security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.) is completely insolvent or rapidly approaching it. Seeing how Obamacare only proposes to pay for itself for 10 years, are we not simply accepting its insolvency from the start?
Robert Samuelson writes today:
When historians recount the momentous events of recent weeks, they will note a curious coincidence. On March 15, Moody’s Investors Service — the bond rating agency — published a paper warning that the exploding U.S. government debt could cause a downgrade of Treasury bonds. Just six days later, the House of Representatives passed President Obama’s health care legislation costing $900 billion or so over a decade and worsening an already-bleak budget outlook.
That’s a scary thought. Republicans failed miserably to address the deficit. Democrats have put the problem on steroids. It feels to me like democrats are thumbing their noses at our alarming debt, and despite the claims of budget neutrality with Obamacare, I wonder: Does anyone actually believe that this bill will evade the fate of social security, Medicare and Medicaid and not add even more crushing debt to our national deficit (much less decrease it)?
Mark
Greg
Elijah
Pete
Michael
Josh
The divide between what I think America stands for and should be like vs. What many Americans who voted for Obama and support the government safety net is so large that I wonder if it can be bridged; barring a second revolution or civil war (which I do not advocate), how can these two disparate groups be reconciled? I would propose that each citizen be allowed the ability to opt out of the safety net, and the associated costs. Many who are inclined towards individual liberty such as myself would be glad to sign away rights to the funds we have paid into social security in the past in exchange for opting out of payroll taxes in the future. Those of us who subscribe to “Plan B”, as I call it, would still pay sales tax and property taxes to support and participate in local government, but would have no claim on federal services. Personally, I’d like to be able to have a citizen level line-item veto; I’ll pay my fair share of the defense budget, but want nothing to do with funding the EPA, NEA, or other bureaucracies I fundamentally disagree with. Why should the government conscript my income to fund programs which run counter to my beliefs? Doesn’t this conflict with my god-given right to pursuit of happiness? The percentage of my wages which the federal government confiscates and wastes would allow my wife to stay home with our kids; I would rather have this than all of the government benefits in the world. Instead we both work, and an even larger percentage of her wages is consumed in the federal bonfire. In fact, even though we have paid confiscatory taxes all our working lives, somehow the government has spent even more, so we are told that we are in debt and our children will have a greater burden than we have had, all in the name of progress. This should not stand.
Ted, your wife doesn’t work because of taxes. Your wife works because other people’s spouses do. As a result, the cost of living has increased to the point that she needs to work in order to acquire a similar standard of living. If taxes were lower for you, they’d be lower for other people as well and the cost of living would follow.
If your wife wants to stay home, she should. My wife did it for 7 years, and it was worth it. We made sacrifices to our standard of living, but none of those sacrifices were greater than sacrificing our child’s upbringing. Oh and by the way, our income bracket was such that taxes had nothing to do with it. We paid no federal income taxes during that time. What killed us was the price of health care.
One more point of interest, Ted. This year our taxes went down from 6.5% to 2.5% thanks to President Obama’s middle class tax cuts. So it may be a good time for your wife to make the leap.
Pete, I’m also concerned about the cost of the health care law and the deficit in general. I do agree with the president, Tim Geithner, Ben Bernanke, and Hank Paulsen that the government couldn’t allow the economy to slip into a depression, and that government action was necessary. That action, along with sharply declining revenues has led to ballooning deficits. It now seems evident that the bleeding has stopped, so I hope that we’ll see some shrinking of the deficit. Keep in mind that critics said the same thing about Clinton around this period of his presidency, but history shows that he had actually shrunk the deficit by this time. So be patient.
Mike, which action are you referring to when you speak of the government action that Obama, Geithner, Bernanke, and Paulsen agreed on? If you are speaking of TARP, then I’ll plead ignorance. But that has nothing to do with the $1 trillion “stimulus” which has failed to meet any of its proposed goals or Obamacare. You say be patient, but you are not addressing my question- do you think that Obamacare will add to our debt problem or not? If you agree that it will, then why do you think more time will help?
Mike, you are presumptuous to tell me why my wife works. Like your wife, mine stayed home for 7 years as well, until we determined that we wouldn’t be able to do the things we want to do, like pay for our kids college education, if she didn’t go back to work. We are reconsidering that decision in light of the ridiculous taxes we pay on her income. Are you saying that my wife should stay home from work and I should pay 40 percent of my income in taxes and not be able to contribute to my kids college funds so that you can have cheaper healthcare? That’s what it sounded like. I’m not saying you shouldn’t be able to have government subsidized healthcare if you want it, but why compel me to pay for it? Why shouldn’t I be able to opt out of that and the rest of the government programs not specifically authorized in the constitution? Are you afraid that there aren’t enough people like you to pay for everything you want the government to do? Well, you’re right. There aren’t enough people today, even with 100 percent of us being forced to contribute. I hope you’re right about Obama ending up like Clinton, I would love to have a Newt Gingrich leading the Republicans to some form of fiscal control, but I am skeptical, because Obama is not Clinton, he is a true believer who wants to fundamentally change the thing I love most about our country; the right to be left alone to pursue happiness.
Ted, I think you are right on, and I’d love to see that line-item veto for citizens. Opting out of things meant for the “public good” doesn’t carrying any weight at the beginning of an organized society – how can gov’t know and react to who wants to opt out of fire and police protection, or building roads? Those are the foundation of what taxes are meant for and I have no problem.
But in later stages of society when the “public good” has come to mean that taxes are for departments of education, and the arts, and welfare programs, or condom distributions at elementary schools (being sarcastic – I hope) then I would love to be able to opt out.