Last year, Gary Peters published a set of principles for health care reform on his official House web site, standards by which he promised he would judge health care reform legislation when it was debated on the House floor. Rep. Peters even said that if a health care reform bill met these principles he would vote for it and, if not, he would vote against it. So how did our representative stack up against his own standards, the so-called “Peters’ Principles”?
Peters’ Principle 1: Bring down health care costs for businesses and middle-class families.
In retrospect... Obamacare increases costs for all . . .
Insurance premiums: According to an August 18 Bloomberg Report, about 63% of businesses plan to make employees pay a higher percentage of their premiums starting in 2011, and most of them expect their cost for benefits to rise by 9%.
Administrative costs: Obamacare triples the number of tax forms that every small business owner has to fill out annually by requiring even the smallest firms to prepare and submit IRS 1099 forms to every vendor with whom they do more than $600 in business.
Small business costs: Obamacare does nothing to “bend down the cost curve” that small businesses face relating to health care insurance coverage. The increased costs of health insurance will cause many firms with 50 or fewer employees not to offer coverage, drop coverage if they currently offer it, layoff workers or limit hiring.
Peters’ Principle 2: Strengthen Medicare.
In retrospect: Obamacare weakens Medicare through . . .
Reduced coverage: Medicare’s chief actuary, Richard Foster, recently reported that cutting $575 billion from Medicare to implement Obamacare will result in Medicare recipients replacing Medicaid patients at the bottom of the healthcare ladder as early as 2019—that’s when fees Medicare pays to providers will be slashed to below Medicaid rates, which are already well below market prices.
Obamacare cuts $145 billion from Medicare Advantage plans, which Medicare’s chief actuary believes will cause up to 50 percent of seniors to lose their current health care coverage.
Higher prices: Obamacare includes $107 billion in tax increases on medical device manufacturers, prescription drug companies, and health insurance providers. Medicare’s chief actuary believes all these tax increases will be passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices. Seniors will pay the vast majority of these tax increases.
Obamacare includes a $210 billion 3.8 percent tax increase on unearned income for all Americans, which will hit seniors especially hard when they sell their houses to retire to smaller ones or use their homes for rental income.
Less access to medical services: Obamacare will cut $233 billion from Medicare Part A and B payments in order to pay insurance subsidies for 32 million new people, forcing one in seven hospitals, nursing homes, home health agencies and hospices out of business, according to the Medicare trustees April 2010 report.
Peters’ Principle 3: Be deficit neutral.
In retrospect: Obamacare adds to the deficit . . .
According to several analyses of CBO data, Obamacare does not control costs, and it does not reduce deficits. Instead, it adds an all new entitlement when we have no idea how to pay for the entitlements we already have.
Smoke and mirrors and financial gimmicks were used to pass the bill, which assumes 10 years of tax increases, about $500 billion, combined with 10 years of Medicare cuts, another $500 billion, to pay for only six years of spending which has been artificially reduced through the exclusion of the so-called Medicare “doctor fix”—the cost of which will eventually be paid anyway.
Recently published estimates place the true 10-year cost of Obamacare in ten years at $2.3 trillion, resulting in a $461 billion 10-year deficit—an amount which only Beltway insiders like Gary Peters would consider “deficit neutral”.
Peters’ Principle 4: Move through a thoughtful, transparent legislative process
In retrospect: Passage was anything but transparent and involved . . .
Just a few examples of how the will of the public was thwarted include: Last minute hyper-partisan deal making behind closed doors—no Republicans, no media allowed; Woefully insufficient time for legislators, media and the public to read, analyze and comment on the bill before its signing; Political gimmickry in which the House Democrats invoked “deem and pass” rules to bypass public debate, and the Senate entertained; using “reconciliation” to achieve passage, a tactic that has never been used for such a sweeping piece of social legislation; and “Vote buying” by Pelosi and Reid who coaxed needed House and Senate votes from Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, Carl Levin and others with partisan, pork-barrel tactics and promises.
What more needs to be said? Vote against Gary Peters this election and put someone in office who has principles and follows them.
