United Liberty

As has been noted here a few times recently, President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress plan to use reconciliation to move forward on health care reform, at least what they like to call “reform.” The Wall Street Journal explains that this use of the controversial legislative procedure is abusive to the system:

The vehicle is “reconciliation,” a parliamentary process that fast-tracks budget measures and was created in 1974 as a deficit-reduction tool. Limited to 20 hours of debate, reconciliation bills need a mere 50 votes in the Senate, with the Vice President as tie-breaker, thus circumventing the filibuster. Both Democrats and Republicans have frequently used reconciliation on budget bills, so Democrats are now claiming that using it to pass ObamaCare is no big deal.

A new study from Jeffery Anderson at the Pacific Research Institute shows that government-run programs already in place, such as Medicare and Medicaid, spend more per patient than private health insurance:

Since 1970, Medicare and Medicaid’s combined per-patient costs have risen from $344 to $8,955, while the combined per-patient costs of all other US health care have risen from $364 to $7,119.

Medicare and Medicaid used to cost $20 less per patient than other care. Now they cost $1,836 more. (And that’s even without the Medicare prescription-drug benefit.)

But not because of the reasons you may believe

Part I - “The False Claims” can be found HERE.

Part II - “Hoover’s Socialism” can be found HERE.