Steven Pearlstein has a great tongue-in-cheek article in today's Washington Post about what doing nothing about health care costs would mean for America.
Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, this week revealed a secret Republican plan that would end up eliminating all federal farm subsidies; closing down Yellowstone and Yosemite national parks; selling off the interstate highway system; and canceling Head Start, subsidized school lunches and the entire college loan program.The plan came to light as a result of an op-ed piece this week in The Washington Post in which the party chairman committed the GOP to spending an ever-increasing share of the federal budget, and the national income, on Medicare. When combined with other Republican promises -- to balance the budget, protect defense spending and never, ever raise anyone's taxes -- the inescapable inference is that the government would run out of money for every other domestic program sometime around 2035. Steele's stunning announcement brings the conservative strategy of "starving the beast" to a new level. Under the guise of protecting the elderly, Republicans hope to realize their dream of eliminating half a dozen Cabinet agencies, firing tens of thousands of government workers and ending government regulation as we know it.
Pearlstein says that the Republican alternative reamins a closely-guarded secret but that their "Seniors' Health Care Bill of Rights" gives a hint at their strategy:
Steele promised that under the Republican health plan, runaway Medicare spending would continue unabated. Not only would that mean no cuts in benefits, but it would ensure that reimbursement rates to doctors, hospitals and drugmakers would continue to rise faster than inflation, regardless of how much they earn or how unnecessary or wasteful the services they provide. Any effort to contain future spending growth, Republicans now believe, is nothing more than a "raid" on Medicare, the government-run health plan that Republicans were against before they were for it. The country's top Republican official also vowed to cut off all federal funding for research to determine what are the most effective treatments for heart disease, cancer, diabetes and even that new scourge, restless leg syndrome. Left unclear was whether he prefers to have such research done by the pharmaceutical and medical-device industries, but one suspects that is the case.
Steele says the GOP will seek to "outlaw any effort to ration health care based on age," a proposal sure to appeal to sexually precocious seventh-graders seeking Viagra.
Republicans are determined to preserve health care rationing based on employment status, ability to pay, or being over 65, a market-based approach that preserves the lives of the GOP base.
Pearlstein goes on to wonder if the GOP has gotten hold by illegal break-in of some top-secret Democratic plan to take over national health care, since they claim to know that Obama wants to federalize all health plans.
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