John Baer: Will health reform wreck us? Hardly.
I KNOW, I KNOW, Democracy's dead, the Union's crumbling and "big guvment" is knocking down your door to deliver forced proctology exams - without latex gloves.
I KNOW, I KNOW, Democracy's dead, the Union's crumbling and "big guvment" is knocking down your door to deliver forced proctology exams - without latex gloves.
You want to follow Limbaugh and leave the country for medical care. If you have insurance you know your benefits are about to be taxed. And every Democrat just committed suicide.
All this because the U.S. House last night passed health-care legislation making the country communist.
Well, my friends, get a grip.
What really happened, finally, is a House elected by a majority decided to act in the majority's interest. What happened is the start of an effort to fix a problem that sooner or later touches everyone. And what happened is a step toward ending America's moral deficiency as the sole industrialized Democracy not offering health care to its people.
So much for Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown's election in January ringing a death knell for health care, which suggests that projected Democratic destruction could prove an equally errant guess.
The legislation passed despite Washington's politically acrid atmosphere and dire predictions that its provisions surely will bring us down.
Really?
Because it serves citizens and cuts the deficit? Because it forces insurers to cover sick kids and adults, regardless of pre-existing conditions?
Because it changes rules and allows small business and middle-class families to join larger insurance pools to get better-priced coverage?
Because it allows parents' policies to cover children up to age 26? Or ends lifetime caps on benefits? Or offers free preventive care?
Or maybe because its $940 billion price over 10 years buys protection for millions without it, and, daggummit, I don't want my taxes helping them that don't help themselves!
Again, get a grip.
Who do you think pays for "those people" now? The government, health-care providers and the insured; and since those with no coverage often end up in ERs, their care costs more.
Insurance for those who can't afford it is good policy, ethically and fiscally.
Oh, no, the bill's too big, we can't pay for it!
Yes we can, according to the Congressional Budget Office, Congress' independent fiscal ref, which says that it cuts the deficit by $13.8 billion a-year.
It's paid for with taxes on the wealthy - households making $250,000 and up (which is 2.6 percent of us, according to the national Tax Policy Center) - and cost-savings in Medicare, Medicaid and other health programs.
And, yeah, some "Cadillac" benefits get taxed. But if your plan costs less than $27,500 a year (and I'd note U.S. Census data shows Philly's median income at $37,090) it won't be. And for those that will, the tax doesn't kick in until 2018, by which time everything could change.
You don't buy any of this? You think it'll sink us? That's what they thought in '92 when a Democratic Congress pushed President Clinton's tax hike/deficit-reduction through. Instead, there was an economic boom.
The bill's imperfect, has pork and government can screw up anything. But it's mostly about better access, lower costs and helping fellow-citizens.
Why does it draw such anger?
I don't recall rage over budgeting $144 billion more last year for two wars halfway around the world. Or over foreign-aid costs, which grew from $17.5 billion in 2000 to nearly $42 billion in 2007, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development.
I don't pick up similar sniping over spending on the misguided, seven-year-old folly in Iraq, the long-term cost of which the Congressional Budget Office puts at $2.4 trillion - enough to twice pay for the health-care bill, with $520 million left over for, say, children's cancer research.
No, siree, Bob. So focus, people. The only thing to be angry about regarding health-care reform is that it took so long to get it started.
Send e-mail to baerj@phillynews.com.
For recent columns, go to
