“I've also pledged that health insurance reform will not add to our deficit over the next decade, and I mean it...
President Obama July 22, 2009 (Footnote 1)
I believe this is a laudable and praiseworthy goal and I hope it is true. However, in what reasons, assurances and truth do I have to hope?
The American people have no basis upon which to believe anything from Washington D.C. when spending money is concerned. If you need proof of that, as of the moment this post was being written, our National Debt was $11,889,652,785. What does that look like? According to CNBC.com, “If denominated in $1 bills, the cash would stack as high as the tallest building in the world, the 2,683.7 foot Burj Dubai skyscraper… 1,474,918 times. At this height, it would create a block of bills with a base approximately twice the size of the Empire State Building's, which is just under the size of three American football fields.
If consolidated into a single stack of $1 bills, it would measure about 749,666 miles, which is enough to reach from the earth to the moon twice (at perigee), with a few billion dollars left to spare... It is also interesting to note that this number is approximately 13 times the amount of US currency in circulation, according to the Treasury bulletin, which lists the amount at $853.6 billion as of December 31, 2008 (Footnote 2).”
If you need further proof, think of the Iraq War, Medicare, Medicare Part D, and the War in Afghanistan. Almost all of this debt is from former administrations and we cannot blame the current president for past errors. Our national debt and recent events however show a long train of abuses when it comes to the public purse. Even now, President Obama continues to fund our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq through supplemental bills just as President Bush did so he can say how his budget cuts the deficit when it really doesn't. Four weeks ago he touted on Prime Time TV how he had cut the deficit by $2,200,000,000,000 (Footnote 1). Yesterday the White House announced that they had reduced it by only $200,000,000,000 (Footnote 3). That is a two trillion dollar error in a matter of weeks.
The President said, “I'm not going to sign a bill that, for example, adds to our deficit.” However, this year the Federal Government has spent $1,580,000,000 that it didn't have (Footnote 3). Granted, a lot of that was emergency spending for things that many believe may help our economy in the short term. However, not all of it has been helpful and some would argue that none of it was necessary or helpful - including the non-partisan congressional budget office (Footnote 4).
So, on what grounds do we have to believe the current President's projections for how much health care reform will cost? We have no such grounds. Those who do believe the government's projections are disregarding not just history, but the present reality.
If we can't trust the cost projections, how can we trust the President when he says “health care reform is not going to add to that deficit”?
Reality has proven to us that costs are always higher than they tell us. The president tells us that health care reform will cost $1,000,000,000,000 over the next 10 years (Footnote 5). Is that all? Some project health care reform to be $8 trillion over 10 years…60% as large as our current national debt (Footnote 6). Even the current house bill has a projected budget shortfall of $13,600,000,000,000 (Footnote 7) – far more than the $1 Trillion being discussed. According a Walt Street Journal article last year, Medicare alone has an unfunded liability of $74,000,000,000,000 (Footnote 8). How will all of this be paid for? It will be paid for by deficit spending – that is, taxing the unborn to pay for expenses today.
The fact of the matter is, they are not being honest with us regarding the costs of the bill in an effort to pass it. This will cost much, much more then they are telling us because a) it always does, and b) government programs always expand over time. We have to account for this.
To not be honest about the costs and what this means for us in the near and long term is irresponsible and misleading at best, reckless and dishonest at worst. In either case, it is a far cry from good government and representative democracy.
The right way to do this would be to be open and honest about the costs and the reality of what it will take to pay for it. But we're dreaming if we think that will happen...
The president and those who are pushing for this change and trying to sell it with these cost projections are peddling dreams – not reality. And even worse, their dreams will become our financial and economic nightmare in the not too distant future as the public becomes straddled with the true costs of government health care reform and are forced at all levels and in more than one way to pay for it.
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Footnotes
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/07/22/transcript_of_obama_prime-time.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE57K4XE20090821
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/04/cbo-obama-stimulus-harmful-over-long-haul/
http://moneywatch.bnet.com/economic-news/article/health-care-reform-what-it-will-cost-you/330206/
Health Reform 2009: Watershed or Waterloo? A Lockton Benefit Group Webcast
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