Bend It Like Barry
Posted on July 17, 2009
Bend It Like Barry
In the movie “Bend it Like Beckham”, the star of the movie tried to imitate her favorite soccer star by curving the ball as she kicked it towards the goal, just like David Beckham.
President Barack Obama has put a new spin on the Beckham shot. In his health care proposal, instead of curving health care costs towards the goal, the Obama plan bends it away from the goal.
The goal in this case is reduced health care costs, and according to CBO Director Doug Elmendorf, the President’s plan, as envisioned by Senate Democrats, would rapidly expand them. As the CBO Director put it, “In the legislation that has been reported, we do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount and, on the contrary, the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health care costs.”
In other words, the President’s plan will make the dire fiscal situation in this country even worse.
It stands to reason that when the government decides to pick up the tab for those Americans who don’t want or can’t get health insurance, that the price tag would put an extraordinary burden on the federal budget.
The Democrats say that having the government take over health care is the best way to control costs. But there is no evidence that the government can successfully spend less than the private sector, and there is a lot evidence that it will spend a lot more in bureaucracy, waste, fraud and abuse. Check out the fraud in Medicaid and Medicare if you don’t believe me.
The bigger question is can the government afford to add another entitlement to its already shaky budget.
To this point, the President has said that doing so is the only way to get control over health care costs, but now we know that this assertion is just another case of rhetorical fiction.
As the non-partisan (although Doug Elmendorf is a Democrat) Congressional Budget Office has said, the President’s bill will bend the costs the wrong way.
We can’t afford the President’s plan. And that is the bottom line.