Monday, November 2, 2009

Ridiculous health care reform bill statistics

Some alarming Statistics from: The Worst Bill Ever, by the Editors, Wall Street Journal
  • 1,990-page bill
  • The House program will cost $1.055 trillion over a decade
  • Most of the money goes into government-run "exchanges" where people earning between 150% and 400% of the poverty level—that is, up to about $96,000 for a family of four in 2016—could buy coverage at heavily subsidized rates, tied to income
  • The government would pay for 93% of insurance costs for a family making $42,000, 72% for another making $78,000, and so forth
  • It "pays for" about six years of program with a decade of revenue, with the heaviest costs concentrated in the second five years
  • The House also pretends Medicare payments to doctors will be cut by 21.5% next year and deeper after that, "saving" about $250 billion
  • ObamaCare will be lucky to cost under $2 trillion over 10 years; it will grow more after that
  • Unfunded liabilities of Medicare—now north of $37 trillion over 75 years
  • Steal $426 billion from future Medicare spending to "pay for" universal coverage
  • Gutting Medicare Advantage to the tune of $170 billion
  • As for Medicaid, the House will expand eligibility to everyone below 150% of the poverty level
  • Some 15 million new people will be added to Medicaid the rolls as private insurance gets crowded out at a cost of $425 billion
  • A decade from now more than a quarter of the population will be on a Medicaid program originally intended for poor women, children and the disabled
  • Even though the House will assume 91% of the "matching rate" for this joint state-federal program—up from today's 57%—governors would still be forced to take on $34 billion in new burdens
  • The House favors $572 billion in new taxes
  • Imposing a 5.4-percentage-point "surcharge" on joint filers earning over $1 million, $500,000 for singles
  • Raise the top marginal rate to 45% in 2011 from 39.6% when the Bush tax cuts expire—not counting state income taxes and the phase-out of certain deductions and exemptions
  • This surtax still won't be nearly enough. Even if Congress had confiscated 100% of the taxable income of people earning over $500,000 in the boom year of 2006, it would have only raised $1.3 trillion
  • Under another new tax, businesses would have to surrender 8% of their payroll to government if they don't offer insurance or pay at least 72.5% of their workers' premiums
  • The U.S. already has one of the highest corporate income tax rates in the world
  • Meanwhile, a tax equal to 2.5% of adjusted gross income will also be imposed on some 18 million people who CBO expects still won't buy insurance in 2019
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703399204574505423751140690.html

1 comment:

  1. Sounds like our paternalistic overlords got everything we need.

    Or did they miss something?

    ReplyDelete