The True Intent of Health "Reform"
Friday, December 25. 2009
Posted by Karl Denninger
There are two interesting articles in the WSJ relating to the "Health Reform" bill, one by Karl Rove and the second coming from The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
Let's first talk about Karl Rove:
The Real Price of the Senate Health Bill http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...538946528.html
Taxes start going up now, Medicare cuts begin after next fall's election, and spending for subsidies commences in five years. The price tag is not the first decade's announced $871 billion cost: It is $2.4 trillion. That's the cost of the tax credits in insurance exchanges, and the additional Medicaid costs the reform generates, over the first 10 years it's fully up and running, according to Congressional Budget Office numbers compiled by Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee.
Take the partisanship out and what you have is the above, basically. On this Mr. Rove is exactly correct.
The tax increases come now, Medicare cuts come after the next election
but in point of fact the spending will come never.
I'll explain after I provide some of the second article:
Why the Personal Mandate to Buy Health Insurance Is Unprecedented and Unconstitutional http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...304945580.html
The purpose of this compulsory contract, coupled with the arbitrary price ratios and controls, is to require many people to buy artificially high-priced policies to subsidize coverage for others as well as an industry saddled with other government costs and regulations. Congress lawfully could enact a general tax to pay for these subsidies or it could create a tax credit for those who buy health insurance, but that would require Congress to "pay for" or budget for the subsidies in a conventional manner. The sponsors of the current bills are attempting, through the personal mandate, to keep the transfers entirely off budget or--through the gimmick of unconstitutional taxes or penalties they dub "shared responsibility payments"--make these transfers appear to be revenue-enhancing.
This "personal responsibility" provision of the legislation, more accurately known as the "individual mandate" because it commands all individuals to enter into a contractual relationship with a private insurance company, takes congressional power and control to a striking new level. Its defenders have struggled to justify the mandate by analogizing it to existing federal laws and court decisions, but their efforts do not withstand serious scrutiny. An individual mandate to enter into a contract with or buy a particular product from a private party, with tax penalties to enforce it, is unprecedented-- not just in scope but in kind--and unconstitutional as a matter of first principles and under any reasonable reading of judicial precedents.
Congress has a responsibility, pursuant to the oath of all Senators and Representatives, to determine the constitutionality of its own actions independently of how the Supreme Court has previously ruled or may rule in the future. But it is very unlikely that the Court would extend current constitutional doctrines, or devise new ones, to uphold this new and unprecedented claim of federal power.
Got that second part?
Good, because here's my prediction.
Continues: http://market-ticker.denninger.net/a...th-Reform.html