mcmopar
Well-Known Member
Sen. Mitch McConnell Special to AOL News (May 7)
One of the unfortunate tendencies of certain Washington lawmakers is a reluctance to acknowledge mistakes and, if necessary, correct them.
The Obama administration argued last year, for instance, that the stimulus bill was needed to keep unemployment from rising above 8 percent. More than a year later, the jobs report released today puts national unemployment just a whisker below 10 percent.
But don't hold your breath for the administration to give taxpayers their money back.
The health care bill provides an even clearer example. Those who followed the health care debate closely will recall, for instance, that many of us said businesses would drop coverage and pay fines rather than comply with extensive new mandates. For this, we were called alarmists and enemies of change.
Well, this week we got the verdict when it was reported that some of the nation's biggest employers -- such as AT&T, Verizon, Caterpillar and Deere -- have been seriously considering cutting employee health care and paying the lower-cost penalties instead. This not only undercuts the claim Democrats made that employers wouldn't drop employees, it undercuts one of the president's most oft-repeated vows -- namely, that "if you like the plan you have, you can keep it." Soon it might not matter how much employees at these companies like the plans they have. They may get dumped anyway, as a direct result of this bill.
This is just one of the arguments we heard from the administration that's turned out to be as hollow as a CT scanner. Another was the claim that the health care bill would "slow the growth of health care costs for families, businesses and government," as the president put it in one of his most high-profile speeches on the topic. Here's the reality: An analysis last month by Richard S. Foster, Medicare's chief actuary, found that this bill will actually increase costs, and that national spending on health care alone could go up by $311 billion.
Want another?
The president and Democrats in Congress said time and again that their health care bill would strengthen Medicare. Yet the administration's own experts now say it could drive nearly one in six hospitals into debt and threaten access to care for seniors on Medicare. Proponents said the bill wouldn't raise taxes. Yet now the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress' own bipartisan scorekeeper on legislation, says middle-class taxpayers will pay billions more in taxes as a result of this bill. Millions more will get hit with a fine for choosing not to buy government-approved insurance.
They also said health insurance premiums would fall, but once the experts actually had a chance to study the bill in detail they concluded premiums are likely to go up, not down. So when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said we'd have to pass this health care bill for people to find out what was in it, she knew what she was talking about. And what they're finding out is that Republicans were right all along.
The Democrats' reaction to all this bad news has been amusing to say the least. One top Democrat was recently quoted as saying he regrets sitting on the sidelines last year as Republicans "lied" about what this bill would do. All I have to say to that is that this particular senator should probably spend a little less time questioning the integrity of his colleagues and a little more time reading the latest headlines about the health care bill he worked so hard to pass.
The irony in all of this is that the American people never bought the arguments made by Democrats on health care in the first place. Recent events have only confirmed the public's view that more government wasn't the solution to out-of-control health care spending any more than spending money we didn't have on projects we didn't need was the secret to robust job growth.
Every day another argument in favor of the health care reform plan crumbles, the argument for repealing it and replacing it becomes stronger. And every time we hear of another crisis government failed to prevent, the Republican argument in favor of step-by-step, commonsense reforms sounds better. Government spending on health care is out of control. They say spend more.
The time has come for Democrats to either put the old big-government template aside or be straight with the American people about the real impact of the legislation they propose. Americans are tired of lawmakers telling constituents that legislation will achieve something it never could. And they're tired of the notion that somehow it's OK for lawmakers to say they'll do one thing, and then do another. Most of all, they're tired of elected representatives who won't own up to mistakes. After all, if the health care debate has shown us anything, it's that sooner or later the truth will come out.
Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is the Senate Republican leader.
One of the unfortunate tendencies of certain Washington lawmakers is a reluctance to acknowledge mistakes and, if necessary, correct them.
The Obama administration argued last year, for instance, that the stimulus bill was needed to keep unemployment from rising above 8 percent. More than a year later, the jobs report released today puts national unemployment just a whisker below 10 percent.
But don't hold your breath for the administration to give taxpayers their money back.
The health care bill provides an even clearer example. Those who followed the health care debate closely will recall, for instance, that many of us said businesses would drop coverage and pay fines rather than comply with extensive new mandates. For this, we were called alarmists and enemies of change.
Well, this week we got the verdict when it was reported that some of the nation's biggest employers -- such as AT&T, Verizon, Caterpillar and Deere -- have been seriously considering cutting employee health care and paying the lower-cost penalties instead. This not only undercuts the claim Democrats made that employers wouldn't drop employees, it undercuts one of the president's most oft-repeated vows -- namely, that "if you like the plan you have, you can keep it." Soon it might not matter how much employees at these companies like the plans they have. They may get dumped anyway, as a direct result of this bill.
This is just one of the arguments we heard from the administration that's turned out to be as hollow as a CT scanner. Another was the claim that the health care bill would "slow the growth of health care costs for families, businesses and government," as the president put it in one of his most high-profile speeches on the topic. Here's the reality: An analysis last month by Richard S. Foster, Medicare's chief actuary, found that this bill will actually increase costs, and that national spending on health care alone could go up by $311 billion.
Want another?
The president and Democrats in Congress said time and again that their health care bill would strengthen Medicare. Yet the administration's own experts now say it could drive nearly one in six hospitals into debt and threaten access to care for seniors on Medicare. Proponents said the bill wouldn't raise taxes. Yet now the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress' own bipartisan scorekeeper on legislation, says middle-class taxpayers will pay billions more in taxes as a result of this bill. Millions more will get hit with a fine for choosing not to buy government-approved insurance.
They also said health insurance premiums would fall, but once the experts actually had a chance to study the bill in detail they concluded premiums are likely to go up, not down. So when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said we'd have to pass this health care bill for people to find out what was in it, she knew what she was talking about. And what they're finding out is that Republicans were right all along.
The Democrats' reaction to all this bad news has been amusing to say the least. One top Democrat was recently quoted as saying he regrets sitting on the sidelines last year as Republicans "lied" about what this bill would do. All I have to say to that is that this particular senator should probably spend a little less time questioning the integrity of his colleagues and a little more time reading the latest headlines about the health care bill he worked so hard to pass.
The irony in all of this is that the American people never bought the arguments made by Democrats on health care in the first place. Recent events have only confirmed the public's view that more government wasn't the solution to out-of-control health care spending any more than spending money we didn't have on projects we didn't need was the secret to robust job growth.
Every day another argument in favor of the health care reform plan crumbles, the argument for repealing it and replacing it becomes stronger. And every time we hear of another crisis government failed to prevent, the Republican argument in favor of step-by-step, commonsense reforms sounds better. Government spending on health care is out of control. They say spend more.
The time has come for Democrats to either put the old big-government template aside or be straight with the American people about the real impact of the legislation they propose. Americans are tired of lawmakers telling constituents that legislation will achieve something it never could. And they're tired of the notion that somehow it's OK for lawmakers to say they'll do one thing, and then do another. Most of all, they're tired of elected representatives who won't own up to mistakes. After all, if the health care debate has shown us anything, it's that sooner or later the truth will come out.
Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is the Senate Republican leader.
