Now That We Know A Little More About Health Care: How Will It Play Out?

The health care bill was passed under the greatest veil of secrecy of any major legislation in modern times. More special deals, most lawmakers unaware of its contents, hence less debate, more arm-twisting and a near blackout of public awareness.

Now that it is law, it is coming under more opposition than could be mustered in the Houses of Congress and as the States become increasingly aware of the impacts it has made to their fiscal budgets, the bill will face new legal challenges in the judicial branch as well. Unknown until the past few days are the impacts on individual Americans and how it will affect their lives.

Those new questions are just now coming to the forefront:

Will the young Americans who normally take the position that they don’t need health insurance get with the program?      Or will they opt for the fine instead?

Will the higher pay for Medicaid payments for primary care doctors attract new practitioners into the field and slow the      doctors’ refusal to take on new Medicare patients?

How will the States cope with this new intrusion into their health care programs?

Jonah Goldberg, in a recent editorial, called attention to an interview President Obama had with George Stephanopoulos of ABC news where Stephanopoulos actually read the dictionary definition of a tax to the President: “a charge, usually of money, imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes.” He asked the President how he could not call the health care bill a tax. Barack Obama waved the definition aside. Other observers have wondered the same thing, especially since the Internal Revenue Service is going to be the agency responsible for collecting the “fines” for non-payment. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, usually you can bet it is a duck.

Let’s call a spade a spade:

The Health Care Bill,

collected by the IRS,

is a TAX.

The gamble that the Democrats have made, with the support of the Congressional Budget Office, is that their assumptions are all right regarding the health care bill. You all know the definition of an assumption! First of all, historical precedent tells us that the programs launched by the government ALWAYS dramatically cost more than they were supposed to. Secondly, government has a dismal track record in any economic venture. All we know at this point is that we all are going to pay more so that the 30 million uninsured can have health care. It doesn’t take much imagination to see European-style taxes coming next over the transom to support this latest “tax” – indeed, a tax upon a tax. This doesn’t even take into account the externalizations that we cannot even anticipate yet.

Critics point out that not just the States will be bankrupted by this monstrous intrusion and interference on our economy. Our AAA credit rating is becoming more suspect every day. Banks are in the process of coming under the control of Washington, which means our entire free market is in jeopardy due to the lack of credit and capital flows. The automobile industry is now partially owned by the government. Unemployment still is a major problem. The housing market has yet to show any signs of shaking off the foreclosures which experts say will plague it until 2012. Now, here comes health care adding another one-sixth of our economy to the portfolio of businesses that Washington wants to control. It is very possible that if the Progressives are wrong, guess wrong, make the wrong moves, or have just plain lied to the American people that our nation itself will face bankruptcy.

That is, unless the rest of the world takes the position that The United States is just too BIG to fail. Somehow, I don’t think we have that many friends in other countries to pull that off and instead they will gladly watch the cost over-runs and debt load which are sure to come with the new health care bill bankrupt us and our way of life will wash down the drain.