Die Obamacare, Die!

Sunday is the big vote in the House of Representatives that could (finally!) make or break Obama's health care reform package. Let us hope the People's outrage finally removes the brain from this undead zombie that keeps springing back to life. In one no-so-convincing argument I read in support of the bill, (not that any of them are convincing, this is just the one I chose to pick on)
Paul Krugman argues that the "myth" that "Obama is proposing a government takeover of one-sixth of the economy, the share of G.D.P. currently spent on health." is no reason not to pass the bill. Why, "if having the government regulate and subsidize health insurance is a 'takeover,' that takeover happened long ago. Medicare, Medicaid, and other government programs already pay for almost half of American health care"! (emphasis mine) In fact, he says, "The only part of health care in which there isn’t already a lot of federal intervention is the market in which individuals who can’t get employment-based coverage buy their own insurance. And that market, in case you hadn’t noticed, is a disaster". I just can't imagine why insurance rates would be so high and coverage so poor in the free market sector when the government-run programs are so efficient and cheap, can you? Oh wait, what was that about the health care providers having to make up for the under-reimbursed medicare procedures (and the piles and piles of paperwork required to get that reimbursement - which takes up valuable time), by overbilling the private sector? Well golly gee, Mr. Krugman, that sounds like a darned good reason to repeal the federal intervention that already takes up half of health care, not a reason for more intervention! But Mr. Krugman continues, "The [Medicare] actuary’s assessment of the Senate bill, for example, finds that it would raise total health care spending by less than 1 percent, while extending coverage to 34 million Americans who would otherwise be uninsured. That’s a large expansion in coverage at an essentially trivial cost. And it gets better as we go further into the future: the Congressional Budget Office has just concluded, in a new report, that the arithmetic of reform will look better in its second decade than it did in its first.". Well, that sounds just peachy doesn't it! Just one thing first, I want to see, by show of hands, who can remember the last time a government budget number was on target - no one? Oh, ok, they must always over-budget, so that when a project costs less than predicted, they can claim wild success - what's that? - oh, they have a long history of running way over the budgeted amount? Huh, that doesn't bode well does it? Okay now, back to you Mr. Krugman: "there’s good reason to believe that all such estimates are too pessimistic. There are many cost-saving efforts in the proposed reform, but nobody knows how well any one of these efforts will work. And as a result, official estimates don’t give the plan much credit for any of them.". Hey just a second, Mr. Krugman... hey can you, do you mind sharing that blunt with the rest of us? ....Wow, thats some strong stuff... here, you can keep smoking it... Okay, now where we? Let me clear my head here... um... oh, right. The proposal contains so many half-a**ed "cost-saving" efforts that even the budget office won't give them any weight, yet you base a significant portion of your argument on them? If there's no way to even come up with a half-educated guess as to how these proposals might work, what makes you think one of them actually will??

In closing, I'd just like to share a personal testament to how well one of Obama's previous championed reforms has worked for me. The C.A.R.D. act has caused several of my credit cards to raise interest rates and/or slash my credit lines, even though I have NEVER missed a payment, NEVER gone over a credit limit, and NEVER defaulted on a loan. I don't quite remember those consequenses being in the news before that legislation was passed... what are they hiding from us this time?