The Top Government Lies About The Health Care Bill

I am not going to try and list all of the lies and misinformation that Shifty & Gang have been espousing to the populace through their propaganda machine aka. the "main stream media".
As always the facts speak much louder than the regurgitated rhetoric of the mindless minions that they represent.

The first lie we will bust is the most important of them all!

1. The Changes to Medicare this bill creates and their timeline: http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/113xx/doc11379/Manager
This is directly from HR#3590

Calendar 2010 changes:
Medicare cuts to inpatient psych hospitals. (7/1/10)

Calendar 2011 changes:
Medicare Advantage cuts begin.
Medicare cuts to home health begin.
Wealthier seniors ($85k/$170k) begin paying higher part D premiums.
Medicare reimbursement cuts when seniors use diagnostic imaging like MRIs, CT scans etc.
Medicare cuts to ambulance services, ASCs, diagnostic labs, and durable medical equipment.
Health plans required to spend a minimum of 80% of premiums on medical claims. (Eventually driving them out of business)
Prohibition on Medicare payments to new physician-owned hospitals.
Seniors prohibited from purchasing power wheelchairs unless they rent for 13 months.
New Medicare cuts to long-term care hospitals begin. (7/1/11)
New tax on all private health insurance policies to pay for government subsidized option and to research its competitive effectiveness.(plans become effective in 2012) The 3.8% Medicare surtax would hit average, middle-class investors who happen to sell real estate for a significant gain in any particular year. Also being taxed are IRA’s, Annuities, and pension plans.

Calendar 2012 changes:
Medicare cuts to dialysis treatment begins.
Medicare to reduce spending by using an HMO -like coordinated care model.
New Medicare cuts to inpatient psych hospitals. (7/1/12)
Medicare cuts to hospitals with high readmission rates begins.
Additional Medicare cuts to hospitals and cuts to nursing homes and inpatient rehab facilities begin.
Medicare cuts to hospice begins

Calendar 2013 changes:
Eliminate deduction for part D retiree drug subsidy employers receive.
Medicare cuts to hospitals who treat low-income seniors begins.

Calendar 2014 changes:
More Medicare cuts to home health begin.
Medicare payment cuts for hospital-acquired infections begins.

Calendar 2015 changes:
More Medicare cuts to home health begin.

One other note, with the loss of Medicare Advantage where will the early enrollees into Medicare ie: the disabled get affordable coverage? While only 27% of seniors use Medicare Advantage plans the utilization rate with early enrollees is 97%!

What all this means is that if you are a senior and will be forced to purchase another supplemental health insurance plan in lieu of Medicare Advantage you will not only have to pay a higher premium on the policy but in addition will be taxed on that plan. The limits being placed on reimbursement for seniors using advanced diagnostic methods will result in higher out of pocket costs or being denied the service.

Regardless of what Obama says you will be limited in your choice of physicians and hospitals as a result of prohibitions contained in the bill. Should you be fortunate enough to be considered a “Wealthy Senior” you will be penalized for your Medicare Part D coverage. Just another attempt by the socialists to redistribute what little wealth our seniors have accumulated through hard work all their lives.

Reading between the lines the message is loud and clear; “seniors no longer contribute, so their value to society should be proportionate to the health care they receive under Medicare”. This Law creates for seniors equals higher costs, limited access to services and ultimately rationed care.

As a health insurance agency owner that has helped hundreds of people through the decision making process of what Medicare coverage and plan fits best I have tried to provide planning and guidance. The federal government will provide neither!

Now what are the real costs for the above changes to Medicare well here is the Director of the CBO in his own words!
http://cboblog.cbo.gov/

I began by reviewing the budget estimates done by CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT):
In combination, the initial legislation and the subsequent reconciliation act that modified it will generate changes in direct spending and revenue that will reduce federal deficits by $143 billion during the 2010-2019 period.

The legislation will increase the size of the federal budget by increasing outlays by $411 billion and revenues by $525 billion over the next 10 years (excluding the provisions of the reconciliation act related to education, which will reduce spending by about $19 billion over that period).

The legislation will increase the federal budgetary commitment to health care (the sum of net federal outlays for health programs and tax preferences for health care) by $390 billion over the next 10 years.
The legislation will reduce federal deficits during the decade beyond the 10-year budget window relative to those projected under current law—with a total effect in a broad range around one-half percent of GDP.

Then I discussed a number of challenges to those estimates:

Some observers have asserted that CBO and JCT have mis-estimated the effects of the changes in law. Concerns have been expressed in different directions—for example, some believe that subsidies will be more expensive than we project, while others maintain that Medicare reforms will save more money than we project.

o Our estimates reflect the middle of the distribution of possible outcomes based on our careful analysis and professional judgment, drawing upon relevant research by other experts. Nevertheless, estimates of the effects of comprehensive reforms are clearly very uncertain, and the actual outcomes will surely differ from our estimates in one direction or another.
Some observers have asserted that budget conventions hide or misrepresent certain effects of the law, such as its impact on future discretionary spending, its effect on the government’s ability to pay Medicare benefits, and its effects on the economy.

o The estimates I discussed above focus on direct spending and revenues because those are the figures that are relevant for the pay-as-you-go rules and those effects will occur without any additional legislative action. As CBO’s estimate noted, the legislation will lead to some increases in discretionary spending (that is, spending subject to future appropriation action) that are not included in the deficit figures cited above.

o The legislation will improve the cash flow in the Hospital Insurance trust fund (that is, Part A of Medicare) by more than $400 billion over 10 years. Higher balances in the fund will give the government legal authority to pay Medicare benefits longer, but most of the money will pay for new programs rather than reduce future budget deficits and therefore will not enhance the government’s economic ability to pay Medicare benefits.

o Following standard procedures for the Congressional budget process, the estimates do not include any effects of the legislation on overall economic output, although CBO wrote last summer about possible effects of health reform proposals on output.
Some observers have asserted that the law will be changed in the future in ways that will make deficits worse.

o CBO estimates the effects of proposals as written and does not forecast future policy changes. As is the case for many pieces of legislation, the budgetary impact of the health reform legislation could indeed be quite different if key provisions are ultimately changed.

o In fact, CBO’s cost estimate noted that the legislation maintains and puts into effect a number of policies that might be difficult to sustain over a long period of time. For example, the legislation reduces the growth rate of Medicare spending (per beneficiary, adjusting for overall inflation) from about 4 percent per year for the past two decades to about 2 percent per year for the next two decades.

It is unclear whether such a reduction can be achieved, and, if so, whether it would be through greater efficiencies in the delivery of health care or through reductions in access to care or the quality of care. The legislation also indexes exchange subsidies at a lower rate after 2018, and it establishes a tax on insurance plans with relatively high premiums in 2018 and (beginning in 2020) indexes the tax thresholds to general inflation.

In addition, some observers believe that, whether CBO and JCT’s estimates of the effects of the health reform legislation are accurate or not, the law misses critical opportunities to reduce future deficits. For example, some say that the legislation will hamper future deficit reduction by using spending cuts and extra revenues to pay for a new entitlement rather than existing entitlements, or that the legislation should have reformed health care delivery more significantly.

Of course, CBO does not make policy judgments or recommendations. However, we have frequently noted the long-run unsustainability of the nation’s current budgetary policies and indicated that using savings in existing programs to finance new programs would necessitate even stronger policy actions in other areas.

In December 2008, CBO released a report that included a wide range of options for changes in health policy, and in 2009, we published a volume presenting a variety of options for policy changes in other areas.
Posted in Budget Projections, Health Comments Off


Now here are facts about how they are going to pay for this atrocity or " How no one who earns under 200K will be taxed" is a LIE!

This is directly copied from the Joint Committee on Taxations evaluation of the bill's effect on all taxpayers: http://www.jct.gov/publications.html?func=startdown&id=3672

With the enactment of an enhanced federal role in medical care comes the need for revenue enhancement. The age of the Obama tax hikes has officially begun. The big news for high-income folks is a new 3.8% "Medicare" tax on investment income and an additional 0.9% Medicare tax on wages, both of which are to take effect in 2013.
But workers at all income levels could be squeezed by new limits on medical flexible spending accounts and medical deductions.

The 3.8% investment tax, combined with the expected (and Obama- favored) Jan. 1, 2011 expiration of the Bush tax cuts for high-income taxpayers, would produce a 2013 top federal income tax rate of 23.8% on long-term capital gains from the sale of securities, up from 15% now. The top rate on interest, rents, royalties and certain "passive income" would rise to 43.4% from 35%. (Neither 2013 rate includes the return next year of the phaseout of itemized deductions for the better off, which can add one percentage point to both rates.)

Even more significantly, beginning in 2013, the amount you can shelter pretax in an FSA will be restricted to $2,500 a year, an amount that will then be indexed for inflation. (Currently there's no legal limit, and 78% of large employers set it at $5,000 or higher, according to Hewitt Associates ( HEW - news - people ).) That means you should plan to put aside pretax money in 2011 or 2012 for such big-ticket items as orthodontia and Lasik surgery. You must have the procedure done that same year, since any pretax money not used each year is forfeited.

Note that it will also become more difficult as of 2013 to write off out-of-pocket medical costs on your 1040--taxpayers under 65 will be able to deduct such costs only to the extent they exceed 10% of adjusted gross income, up from 7.5% now. (Older taxpayers can still use the 7.5% threshold through 2016.)


But the above taxes alone will not achieve the needed funds to pay the real costs for the additional 157 new bureaucratic office and oversight committees created in this bill and we will address that in a later posting:

On numerous occasions I've pointed out how President Shifty's pledge not to raise taxes on person's earning under $250,000 was, to use a subtle and technical term, a total, absolute, and utter, lie.
Saturday Obama said that he kept his promise not to tax families making less than $250,000 per year. So it was nice to see the Joint Committee on Taxation say yesterday that this was... how do I put it... a lie.
As The Hill reports:
Taxpayers earning less than $200,000 a year will pay roughly $3.9 billion more in taxes — in 2019 alone — due to health care reform, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress's official scorekeeper...Once the law is fully implemented in 2019, the JCT estimates the deduction limitation will affect 14.8 million taxpayers — 14.7 million of them will earn less than $200,000 a year. These taxpayers are single and joint filers, as well as heads of households.
Working families will suffer, the economy will continue to stagnate, and this President will continue to say the exact opposite of what he is doing.
I have stated this over and over and will continue until everyone gets it. They have stolen all of your tax monies paid into SSI and Medicare for social programs and it is now broke! They will continue to destroy the free market in order to capture any and all revenue they can to recreate these funds!

In the fight for Constitutional Rights,

Dr. Keith C. Westbrook PhD.