CEI on Obamacare debacle
by Christine Hall (3/22/10)
Gregory Conko: Doctor/patient relationship - “The great tragedy of today’s health care legislation is not simply that it seeks to exert more control over the provision of health insurance and medical services per se, but that by doing so, it takes us farther and farther into a future in which the relationship between physician and patient will be irreparably severed.”
Gov’t control means less power for consumers -
“The legislation seeks to cut hundreds of billions of dollars out of Medicare, while spending those “savings” and hundreds of billions more in new tax revenue to subsidize private sector health insurance coverage. The inevitable end result will be less and less decision-making power in the hands of American health care consumers.”Fatal conceit of central planners -
“As in any kind of economic transaction, someone needs to determine what’s worth paying for. When government picks up most of the tab, giving every patient every treatment that might possibly provide some benefit is a surefire way to bankrupt the public fisc. The fatal conceit of health care central planners is their belief that they can use cost-benefit or comparative effectiveness analysis to determine, with precision, which patients ought to receive which treatments.”Demise of innovation -
“In the near term this means that, in order to cut costs, countless patients are likely to receive inappropriate treatments. In the long run, this will put a drag on medical innovation, as R&D expenditures will shift to respond to the price signals sent by government. We won’t have the treatment innovations that patients want and need, but those that government bureaucrats find most appropriate for the median voter. Everybody else will be out of luck.”Read the full commentary by Gregory Conko
Hans Bader:
Obamacare means massive new taxes on investors & married couples -
“The new tax on investors is a classic example of the marriage penalty, since it kicks in at $200,000 if you are single - that is, $400,000 for an unmarried couple - but only $250,000 for a married couple.”Fallacy of CBO estimates -
Amazingly, the CBO, under orders from Democratic leaders, has understated the bill’s cost for the first decade by including the present fiscal year - in which ObamaCare is not yet law and thus has no costs - while excluding its last year from cost calculations. The result was to reduce the projected price tag for the bill from $1.2 trillion to $940 billion.Read all the latest CEI commentary on health care issues
|
Pursuant to Title 17 U.S.C. 107, other copyrighted work is provided for educational purposes, research, critical comment, or debate without profit or payment. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for your own purposes beyond the 'fair use' exception, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
Contributors, authors, columnists and editor are not paid.
Views are those of authors and not necessarily those of the USA Sentinel.
Content is Copyright ©2006-2012 the individual authors.
