October 15, 2009
Reuters Blog Cites Tax Foundation Report on Senate Finance Committee Health Care Reform Proposal
"Would Obama's new regulator ban ObamaCare?"
By James Pethokoukis
Would the Baucus healthcare reform plan pass muster with the Consumer Financial Protection Agency? That's the new regulator the Obama White House wants to create to protect Americans from deceptive or confusing mortgages, loans and credit card agreements that contain hidden fees, costs, rates or other time bombs potentially harmful to one's financial health. ...
The CBO projects $81 billion in savings over the first decade and then "the added revenues and cost savings are projected to grow more rapidly than the cost of the coverage expansion."
Great news. But those savings will materialize only if Congress actually cuts a projected $400 billion in government healthcare spending—including Medicare reimbursements to hospitals, doctors and other providers—over 10 years.
Skepticism here is warranted. Previous congressional promises to cut reimbursements haven't panned out. And Senator Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat, has just introduced a bill that would actually increase Medicare fees to doctors by $247 billion over the next decade. That $247 billion should, by all rights, be added to the cost of the Baucus bill. (Interestingly, if Congress actually stuck to the cuts, the tax increases would not be necessary, according to the Tax Foundation.)
