ObamaCare will Fail

As I write this, many in Washington are predicting a successful vote this week in the House of Representatives. And while this may occur, nearly all democrats know that no legislation can get passed by either house without a "fix-it" bill that no one has seen and no one knows the costs of.

Am I making an amazing, and possibly wrong, prediction on the votes in Congress on health care reform? No. I am saying that even if legislation passes called "health care reform" ("ObamaCare"), it will in fact fail.

1. First, the "ObamaCare" legislation could not get passed in any conventional way. So far, we have a bill passed in by the Senate and one passed by the House that are significantly different. Neither House of Congress is willing to pass the other's bill. Even the President said he want's fixes to both. The only way "ObamaCare" gets through Congress is with political bribes, chicanery and trampling of rules that have existed for decades. Everyone agrees that this bill will have substantial affects on the health care sector of the economy. Everyone also agrees the financial impact of the proposed legislation is far reaching. The Simple Truth is that any bill that has such pervasive impacts on Americans and the US economy should not pass as a result of such trickery. And it could not pass without it.
2. Even if the legislation passes, it will result in years of litigation on multiple fronts. From issues of basic constitutionality (forced coverage) to inequal treatment of groups and states. We will never know the impact of this "ObamaCare reform" as it will be in flux for years if not decades in the courts. This too is failure.
3. Third, even if this legislation passes, it will not accomplish the goals that have been stated by its strongest advocates. It is equally likely to leave us with the same or more uninsured Americans. It is more likely to result in increased health insurance premiums and costs. And, it is likely to blow a huge hole in the side of the financial ship of America.

The Simple Truth is that this is the worst legislation ever. It deserves to fail. And if it passes... it will still fail.

The Simple Truth is that America WANTS health care reform. This legislation is not it.

CBO - "Show Me the Money"?

The new Democrat device to obscure the abysmal ObamaCare from Americans is a false premise about concerns with CBO analysis. They are insisting that Republicans are rejecting CBO analysis because they just don't like the result.

The largest problem with CBO numbers are inherent in any CBO analysis and the context of that analysis. Even the CBO would acknowledge these limitations. This problem is related to the untested assumptions and the long-term nature of the projections. They are particularly important here because the huge size of the health care sector (1/7th of the US economy) and the very long term nature of the alleged impacts.

As one commenter said about the CBO analysis of Obamacare:

"They don't pass the smell test."

Key business decision analysis rarely places reliance on projections that extend more than 5-10 years. The analytical problems include:

• The projected deficit reductions are over long periods of times and rely on many unreliable assumptions on impacts.
• The CBO estimates do not include all the provisions because the "fix bill" has not been described or analyzed. In fact, no one has even seen the fix bill or know the interaction of its provisions against the Senate Bill whatever may be included in it.
• The projected impacts presume a few years of costs in the 10 year horizon, and full 10 year taxes. Therefore analytical apples and oranges.
• The projections simply mush together service cuts (Medicare - HMO programs), tax increases (different in each bill) and alleged cost curve impacts.
• The stated deficit reduction in the first 10 years presume cuts, taxes and savings, while not comparing those to the entire health care bill for the full 10 years or the increased costs over the 10 years, both to the economy, and to the federal government.
• Many of the alleged cost curve savings make many presumptions about the impact while ignoring the small effect and limited basis for the assumption. Many of the cost curve changes are quite modest changes.
• Not discussed in the CBO savings are the full impact of the costs in insurance premiums. There is reasonable concern that insurance costs could increase substantially due to the incentive for adverse selection due to the modest penalty for choosing to be uninsured versus the benefit of "must carry".
• A very important limitation of the CBO analysis is that it seems to hide a new entitlement program that is all cost. Rarely do we discuss the specific and likely underestimated costs of the federal government subsidies of health insurance for those "in need". This cost is likely to be higher for many reasons and will not be offset by hopeful assumptions.
• The CBO analysis does not compare the costs/savings against other alternatives that might be more effective with much less analystical risk and much less cost. Any analysis has uncertainty.

The snuck out the $200 billion medicare doctor fix of the health bill and are running it through the jobs bill... so much for CBO integrity.