Math Reform

While they are at it, Congress should go ahead and deem us all millionaires – that would be wildly popular in November, and we could afford their Health Care Bill.

Where to begin…..you can’t reduce the cost of something by 3,000 percent, even if you are the President of the United States. Once you hit 100%, the thing is free.

After promising a 3,000 percent reduction in our health care premiums in Ohio (apparently that sealed the deal for Rep. Kucinich), the President also promised us our employers will use that found money to give us a raise. I am an employer, and can assure you that there will be no raise. Just deem yourself to have received one – it’s apparently the same thing now.

The President’s handlers quickly tried to fix his goof, asserting that he meant to say $3,000 dollars, not 3,000 percent. Recognize that that is a 40-50% reduction in premium costs for the average employer plan, which is equally ridiculous.

Everyone understands that insurance premiums go up when the cost what is insured goes up, right? If you want $2 million liability coverage on your auto insurance it will cost you more than $1 million coverage does, agree?

Ok, then – let’s do the math. The Health Care Reform Bill eliminates caps on lifetime payouts. Will your premiums go up or down when your $2 million lifetime cap turns to infinite?

The Bill mandates adding coverage for children with pre-existing conditions. Will your premiums go up or down?

The Bill mandates adding five more years of dependent children coverage to age 26. Will your premiums go up or down?

The Bill mandates insurers to provide free preventative care, increasing coverage costs. Will your premiums go up or down?

If you are one of the millions of Americans who choose not to buy insurance, you will be forced to – your premiums have no where to go but up.

Let’s think about the other nonsensical claim that this Bill will save you money by reducing the deficit. The Bill is estimated by CBO to cost the government $940 billion, and it reduces the deficit by $130 billion. News reports described Democrats as “giddy” when they were told the cost to the taxpayers would be under $1 trillion.

I won’t even comment on a morality of being “giddy” at the thought of spending nearly a trillion more dollars of someone else’s money. But since the deficit is the difference between cost and tax revenue, reducing the deficit by $130 billion means new taxes must exceed the new costs. 940+130=1,070.

That is a cool $1.07 trillion in new additional taxes you will pay in addition to your increased premiums – over the giddy line, I’m sorry to report. There are about 105 million people working in the private sector these days, so that works out to $10,000 each. In reality, you can double it; nothing ever costs what they say it will.

Oh, but only the rich will pay, you might say. Think again. Who makes over $250,000 per year? Doctors do.

Where do they get the money to pay their taxes? You and your insurance company pay it to them one procedure at a time.

When they charge more to cover the added costs of their new taxes, do you think your premiums will go up or down? And so will the costs of everything else you buy, because for the most part, it is rich people that produce it and sell it to you.

Bend over; you might feel some discomfort……..

Here is more ugly math: an astonishing poll over the past weekend found that 46.3% of general practitioners said that if Congress passes the Bill, they would be forced or would elect to leave their practice. No wonder Tammy Baldwin’s team is scared to record their vote for this sop to the big insurance companies, drug companies, unions, and trial lawyers.

And what business person will continue to provide insurance coverage at 15-20% of payroll cost when they can drop coverage and pay an 8% fee? None that I know. And don’t count on a raise from your employers’ “windfall” just yet, as it will not quite cover the cost of all the other tax increases levied on businesses this year. Maybe we can just deem them paid.

Still the President insists you will keep your employer-provided insurance and will not have to change doctors. Unfortunately, he is not your doctor or your employer, and can only fulfill that promise by putting a lot of guns to a lot of heads.

Advocates for socialized medicine claim this Bill will increase coverage, expand benefits, reduce costs, lower the deficit, expand choice, leave your current plan unchanged, and give you a raise.

That would be math reform, not health care reform.