The Republicans' introduction of the Act to Kill the Profit-Eating, Marxist Health Care Law (O.K, actually the Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act) is being backed up by reports in the right-wing press that health care reform will be too expensive.
Opponents of health care reform in Congress are arguing the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would cost the nation $2.6 trillion when fully implemented and add $701 billion to the deficit in the first 10 years, according to a recent analysis by people working for House Speaker John Boehner.
This assertion ignores a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report finding that repealing ACA would add $230 billion to the deficit.
To maintain their charade about fighting the high cost of health care, opponents of reform would have us believe the cost of annual modifications to the formula for reimbursing doctors is a cost to be charged to health care reform. They know this would be a cost of repealing ACA but are sticking to the fiction that it would be a result of leaving the ACA in place.
Among other claims, the Republican report says that ACA would result in $115 billion in health care spending, despite the fact that almost all this is money would have to be spent with or without reform.
Why bother arguing with people whose minds were made up before ACA was even enacted? They know repeal would never be accepted in the Senate, so all this report amounts to is posturing. Top Republicans just want some data to help them blow smoke about lost jobs, as if that were an issue they cared about. I guess blowing smoke is what politicians do, even those who got elected in November on the claims they would change things in Washington.
Just about all politicians make phony claims about what they can accomplish in office. But the claims we heard from the right last year that they would be able to cut taxes while still balancing the budget–all without harming important programs–just do not add up. Now the right-wing war on logic brings us this nonsensically named repeal bill.
Republicans better hurry up and get their proposed repeal act off the table before the public gets wise. Already the latest Associated Press poll on Americans' view of health care reform shows almost as many support the ACA as oppose it.
Back when the Republicans had the White House, they had all the opportunity they needed to enact their own version of healthcare reform. Instead, they left the citizens of this great country struggling to pay for health care out of their own pockets, if they could not get it through their employers.
Now Republicans are complaining because someone actually did something about health care.
The CBO calculates the ACA would actually save money for taxpayers. Its math shows that the ACA would reduce the deficit through a combination of various tax increases and cuts in expected Medicare spending, while providing new benefits such as financial support to help lower-income people buy insurance.
The CBO reckons that federal deficits would be cut by $143 billion through 2019 and perhaps by more than $1 trillion over the next 10 years due to reforms in the ACA. It is quite possible that individuals, businesses and the government might save even more, if reforms result in improvements in the practice and administration of health care in the U.S.
The ACA would reduce the deficit through a combination of assorted tax increases and nearly $500 billion in cuts to Medicare spending. (Such cuts could conceivably drive some health care providers out of business and so are not assured.)
Let the opponents in Congress cast their votes for repeal. They will ultimately have to explain their vote and their questionable arithmetic.
The real concern of Congressional opponents of the ACA is for the profits of their corporate donors, not the well-being of citizens at large. They are counting on the fact that most of the cuts and new taxes start early while most of the spending called for by the ACA does not begin until 2014. They are hoping most taxpayers will not figure out until then that the ACA would actually cut deficits.
There are signs taxpayers are already wising up, however.
A recent Associated Press poll finds only slightly more Americans oppose the ACA than support it. That is well down from the levels of opposition found right after the November elections.
It is easy to understand why producers who make their living on health care insurance would oppose a law that unfortunately is likely to cut into their income. Health insurers, too, may see a decline in profits, although that is by no means certain. Such concerns are legitimate.
My own view of the ACA is it represents the greatest good for the greatest number of people. It could be improved, but it is a start.
