Bait and Switch: D.C. style

Governors both Democrat and Republican are freaking out over the unfunded mandates they see being imposed on the states by federal health care reform. And even the promise of more funding doesn’t appear to be buying off anyone as people are becoming more and more hip to the structural flaws in arcane, bureaucratic-ridden systems like Medicaid.

"Medicaid is a poor vehicle for expanding coverage,’’ said Bredesen, a former healthcare executive. “It’s a 45-year-old system originally designed for poor women and their children. It’s not healthcare reform to dump more money into Medicaid."

Phil Bredesen is Tennessee’s Democrat governor.

And check this out:

Under the House bill, Medicaid would be expanded to cover all non-elderly people with incomes at or below 133 percent of the poverty level, or $29,300 for a family of four. The federal government would pay 100 percent of the costs for those newly eligible. Medicaid would also cover newborns, for up to 60 days after birth, if they did not have insurance from other sources.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 11 million additional people would receive coverage through Medicaid under the House bill, and that it would increase federal Medicaid spending by $438 billion over 10 years. Medicaid thus accounts for a huge share of the bill’s effects: about 40 percent of the cost and 30 percent of the people who gain coverage.

(italics, ours)

Ooh, boy. Now we’re really confused. Was not the White House proposing cuts to Medicare and Medicaid to help fund health care reform? Why, yes they were. Cuts to the tune of $313 billion dollars to be exact.

At the time the administration floated this idea, we were curious as to why there was not a peep of protest coming from AARP, the highest profile group that represents the demographic that would be hit the hardest by these cuts. By now, one would assume that it’s crystal clear why there was no objection put up by the AARP as they were most likely informed via back channels that the administration’s proposal was just a smoke screen and that, in fact, the House bill was actually going to expand coverage. Thanks for listening and thanks for your endorsement.

In what’s becoming a trend with this administration and its big ticket legislative items, the White House makes the popular rhetorical flourishes and then the sausage grinders in Congress go and move out in exactly the opposite direction.

Recall the White House telling us the carbon credits in cap and trade were going to be offered on a “carbon market” (“see, you free market-types… they’re being sold on an open market”) , but in reality the resulting legislation out of the House has them being given away, link by link, out of the back of Henry Waxman’s Gremlin hatchback.

B-Daddy has a nice round-up here of why this particular edition of health-care reform must be vigorously opposed.

Exit question: How long will it be before those opposed to this health care legislation will be called unpatriotic as those who opposed cap and trade?