OK, so Senator Max Baucus has given the world his bill to transform American health care. It omits one of the most toxic proposals, the so-called “public option,” that Obama and other left-wing politicians favor, but it is still a horrible, economy- and freedom-devouring proposal.
For one thing, it will cost $856 billion — that is, that’s what the Senator is admitting to: who knows what it will really cost. One thing we do know: insurance premiums will skyrocket, since the bill would forbid insurance companies from denying coverage for preexisting conditions. It will also require all citizens and legal residents to obtain health insurance whether they want it or not: just think of the bureaucracy the government will need to enforce that!
There a lot more one could say about this silly and malevolent bill, but Jay Rockefeller, Democrat from West Virginia, let the proverbial cat out of the bag when he observed that, were this bill to be enacted, it would mean that
virtually every single coal miner is going to have a big, big tax put on them because the tax will be put on the company and the company will immediately pass it down and lower benefits because they are self insured, most of them, because they are larger. They will pass it down, lower benefits, and probably this will mean higher premiums for coal miners who are getting very good health care benefits for a very good reason. That is, like steelworkers and others, they are doing about the most dangerous job that can be done in America.
A big, big tax. It’s “not really a smart idea,” Rockefeller said, “In fact, it’s a very dangerous idea, and I’m not even sure the coal miners in West Virginia are aware that this is what is waiting if this bill passes.”
That of course is exactly what Sen. Baucus is counting on. It’s what Obama is counting on, too. “Tax cuts for everyone making less than $250,000 a year!” Remember that campaign promise? It was, seen from one angle, hilarious when Obama first said it. But that was before his $7, make that $9, oops, I mean make that $12 trillion deficit. That was before he got the ball rolling on paying for socialized medicine without — presto chango — adding a “dime” to the deficit. Even former Obamacons like David Brooks found that too much to stomach. (The House bill, Brooks mordantly observed, “would add $220 billion (that’s 2.2 trillion dimes) to the deficit over the first 10 years and another $1 trillion [10 trillion dimes] to the deficit over the next 10 years.” Buddy, can you spare ten trillion dimes?
It’s been clear since before Obama took office that he and his fellow Democrats believe the American public are made up of two groups: themselves and the rest of us, who are, they think, chumps. Are we?
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