Tom Daschle Admits Health “Reform” Will Not Contain Costs
The New York Times reports on its Prescriptions blog that in a speech to a group of investors in San Francisco yesterday, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle – the man whom President Obama wanted to be his HHS Secretary – admitted that the health “reform” bills being considered have cost containment provisions that “would be of ‘minimal value’ at the beginning.” This analysis remains consistent with reports from the Obama Administration’s own actuaries, which found that the House and Senate bills would each raise overall national health expenditures, as well as an analysis from the Congressional Budget Office finding that the legislation would raise the federal budgetary commitment to health care by hundreds of billions of dollars in the first decade alone.
The Obama Administration allegedly wants to focus on controlling costs – not least to keep the President’s campaign promise to cut Americans’ health insurance premiums by $2,500 for a family. Yet Daschle is just the latest former Congressional leader to warn about the problems of creating new – and unsustainable – entitlements without tackling cost growth. As early as last April, former House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt told the New York Times that “the way to get to [universal coverage] is to show that we can deal with some of these [cost] problems first.”
Even as the Administration’s closest advisors admit their proposals will not contain health costs, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi continue to work on a government takeover of health care costing nearly $2.5 trillion. When will Democrats scrap their risky experiment and work to build bipartisan support for solutions that can help all Americans struggling with rising health care expenses?