Straight from the Blue Dog’s Mouth
Congressman John Spratt
Congressman John Spratt (D-SC, head of the House Budget Committee) was being interviewed on Charlotte’s Morning News on WBT (1120 AM) yesterday morning while I was driving in the car. He made a statement that, to me, was so shocking that I just had to listen to the podcast when I got home to make sure I heard it right. In the course of the conversation, he mentioned that the federal government presently pays for about half of all the medical care that’s delivered in the United States. Half! Jaw-dropping! Naturally, I wanted to know just how much that is, so I googled and found at the National Coalition on Health Care that total spending was $2.4 trillion in 2007, or $7900 per person, and they expected expenditures to rise by 6.9% in 2008. That’s about $2.6 trillion. If it increased by the same amount this year, that would be about $2.8 trillion. Getting pretty close to $3 trillion! So, this year the federal government is paying for nearly $1.5 TRILLION dollars in health care expenses. Wow! That’s a lot of money, folks!
Congressman Spratt had been at a meeting on Thursday of “Blue” Dog Democrats (fiscally conservative Democrats – an oxymoron if I ever heard one!), pressing Democratic leaders to make significant changes to the health care reform bill. He said that there was a good deal of disagreement among them, but the one thing they could agree on was that whatever is done “must be paid for and must be affordable.” Okay, that sounds good, but just who is going to pay for it, I ask? You know the answer – all of us taxpayers, that’s who!
According to Spratt, the reform is not going to be a complete overhaul of the system, but “a change in the system so that we can reach the 46 million people that don’t have coverage. And I would say to those who do have coverage, don’t you want your fellow Americans to have the same total security you have with medical insurance if we can afford it?” Way to try to heap condemnation and make us feel guilty, Congressman Spratt! Well sure, it would be nice if everyone had insurance, but I shouldn’t be forced to pay for anyone else’s insurance. The Congressman obviously thinks otherwise. And who is this “we”? “If we can afford it?” I don’t recall joining hands with him or anyone else to pay for this program. And anyway, we can’t afford it. Remember the huge deficit and the economic crisis?
Okay, then Stacey Simms read a question from a listener to Congressman Spratt: “Congressman Spratt said that the President wanted a revenue neutral health care bill. Now the Congressional Budget Office says it will cost trillions of tax dollars and will require the same rationing of health care that we see in Canada. How can Spratt justify these spending increases and takeover of health care in these economic times?” Good question, I thought.
Spratt’s answer: “The issue is not revenue neutrality. It’s deficit neutrality. Whatever we do has to be fully offset. If you’re going to expend the benefits, then you’ve got to pay for them. You’ve got to cut out other benefits elsewhere. The reason we can do that without having to pay completely for the total cost of it is that the federal government today pays or provides for about 50 percent of all the medical care that’s delivered in this country anyway. With some move-arounds amongst those different elements of care – Tricare, Medicare, Medicaid, FEHB – with some move-arounds, as we call it, from coverage that’s provided now to coverage that’s extended to others, we can pay for a significant portion of it.”
Way to evade the question, Congressman Spratt! What does “a significant portion” mean? Just how much money are we talking about? And what about the other portion? How’s that going to be paid for? Lots of questions and, unfortunately, no real answers from the Congressman. Politics as usual, I’m afraid. Whatever they end up with, it’s going to be bad news. Unless, of course, they decide to drop the whole idea, but you know that’s not going to happen. These power hungry politicians are dead set on destroying our economy and our way of life. House leaders are pushing to finalize the bill by the end of July. I don’t know about the Senate version. So keep sending those emails and making those phone calls!
