House Passage of Health Care Reform Now Appears Imminent by Gregory Hilton

The American people are the clear losers tonight. There were excellent alternatives to improve health care but the Democrats were not interested in compromise. Democrats admit the bill costs at least $1.3 trillion but they still say this will reduce health care costs. Speaker Pelosi and her allies are creating a bureaucratic beast that will end the American health care system as we know it. It will kill millions of small business jobs at a time when our nation’s unemployment rate has exceeded 10%. It will also cut Medicare, pile massive debt on future generations, and increase costs.
Our health care system does need revamping, but we do not need to reinvent the wheel. The House bill ignores tort reform and insurance companies will not have the ability to provide coverage across the United States.
If the Pelosi plan is so good then why doesn’t the Congress adopt it for themselves rather than keeping their Cadillac Plan?
This bill will cut reimbursements to physicians and hospitals, and the backlash will be fewer primary physicians or, those who take Medicare/Medicaid will cease to do so. If reimbursements to hospitals decrease, the far reaching effect will be lay offs for nurses. There are already nursing shortages, nurse patient ratios are now unacceptable to the point of being dangerous.
Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH), the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, today commented on the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) more detailed cost estimate of the House health reform bill.
Senator Gregg stated, “The CBO estimate released last night finally sheds light on the smoke and mirrors game the majority has been playing with the cost of their health care reform proposal. Over the first 10 years, this legislation builds in gross new spending of $1.7 trillion – and most of the new spending doesn’t even start until 2014. Once that spending is fully phased in, the House Democratic bill rings up at more than $3 trillion over ten years.
“Additionally, this bill cuts critical Medicare and Medicaid funding by $628 billion, accounts for nearly $1.2 trillion in tax and fee increases and will explode the scope of government by putting the nation’s health care system in the hands of Washington bureaucrats. The $3 trillion price tag defies common sense – we simply cannot add all this new spending to the government rolls and claim to control the deficit.
“If we continue to pile more and more debt on the next generation, they will never be able to get out from under it. The health care system needs reform, but this massive expansion of government, financed by our children and grandchildren, is the wrong way to proceed.”