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drscottAmong those who think independently, this Camille Paglia column is making the rounds. I think she's exactly right.
The Administration has given too much deference to Congress and bollixed up every major initiative as a result. A shocking lack of concern for financial discipline, coupled with what amount to lies and evasions about the stimulus bill, the budget, the cap-and-trade fiasco (which even Greenpeace disavows as having all the costs without most of the benefits to the environment) and this current disastrous healthcare effort, which fails to address the underlying issues driving up costs and pays off all the major healthcare-providing interest groups at the expense of young people and taxpayers. (One example: younger people will be forced to buy policies, but since the rates for older people are capped at 5x the rate for younger people when the true cost of their healthcare is much higher, younger people's rates must be that much higher to cover the difference. So, as with Social Security, young people with modest incomes will be forced to subsidize older people with, in many cases, far greater financial resources.)
The Administration gets that Medicare is a financial time bomb that will bankrupt the country unless costs can be controlled, but in pretending that they can save $billions on it while no one will have any of their care reduced and only a few wealthy people will end up paying for it, they sink their credibility. It does not help that Democrats in the past demagogued efforts to cut Medicare costs and reform Social Security as threatening to the helpless elderly -- now those old folks think any change to anything that benefits them is a plot.
Is it too late to fix this reform? Probably. It's very complicated, with many moving parts and many ways people can be hurt. Trying to rush it through without majority public support will not work.
The Administration has given too much deference to Congress and bollixed up every major initiative as a result. A shocking lack of concern for financial discipline, coupled with what amount to lies and evasions about the stimulus bill, the budget, the cap-and-trade fiasco (which even Greenpeace disavows as having all the costs without most of the benefits to the environment) and this current disastrous healthcare effort, which fails to address the underlying issues driving up costs and pays off all the major healthcare-providing interest groups at the expense of young people and taxpayers. (One example: younger people will be forced to buy policies, but since the rates for older people are capped at 5x the rate for younger people when the true cost of their healthcare is much higher, younger people's rates must be that much higher to cover the difference. So, as with Social Security, young people with modest incomes will be forced to subsidize older people with, in many cases, far greater financial resources.)
The Administration gets that Medicare is a financial time bomb that will bankrupt the country unless costs can be controlled, but in pretending that they can save $billions on it while no one will have any of their care reduced and only a few wealthy people will end up paying for it, they sink their credibility. It does not help that Democrats in the past demagogued efforts to cut Medicare costs and reform Social Security as threatening to the helpless elderly -- now those old folks think any change to anything that benefits them is a plot.
Is it too late to fix this reform? Probably. It's very complicated, with many moving parts and many ways people can be hurt. Trying to rush it through without majority public support will not work.
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Date: 2009-09-09 09:14 pm (UTC)http://www.its.caltech.edu/~erich/misc/ivins_on_paglia