Who Saw This Coming: Health Care Bill Will Increase Deficit

A few weeks ago, Congress passed the health care reform. This issue has been discussed at length, and the main argument boils down to whether or not our government, already with a staggering national debt, can afford this kind of bill.

Democrats were quick to claim that not only was the bill affordable, but that it would even reduce the deficit.

However, a new report, from CNN of all places, questions the Democrats’ numbers. The story reveals that neutral think tanks and organizations believe that the forced increased coverage of health insurance will cause premiums to skyrocket by thirty-four million dollars. The report also warned that such government spending is unsustainable, and that the bill will raise it by one percent over ten years. This percentage is bound to increase over time as well.

One of the primary sources for funding of the new healthcare bill came from Medicare. The report also believes that the bill will “drive about 15 percent of hospitals and other institutional providers into the red, ‘possibly jeopardizing access’ to care for seniors”.

Members of the Obama administration look down on such analyses, but I have a challenge for them: name one government welfare program that has maintained its budget.

It makes sense that such increases will occur. The bill does not address concerns over rising medical costs, but instead subsidizes them to people who could not afford it. The upside is that more people will have coverage; the downside is that nothing in this world is free. Somebody will be paying for it. Guess who that will be. The bill also forces insurance companies to cover patients who would otherwise be denied. With these two factors alone, premiums will be driven upward.

In other words, the bill does little to reform the actual health insurance system. It does not tackle rising costs by reforming malpractice suits, changing health care protocol, or adding competition to the markets. Instead, the bill simply subsidizes the system. In an economic time such as this, when even CNN is stating that this health care bill cannot be afforded, should Congress be promising so much to so many people?

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Chris Buchheit

Chris Buchheit was born under the hot Floridian sun during some year in the 1980s. There he studied school matters until moving to North Carolina in 1999. Possibly due to the fact that his mom had enough of him being inside all the time, he quickly got involved in community affairs via the Boy Scouts of America, where he learned the values of citizenship, morality, duty to God and country, and that the biggest kids get to boss around the smaller ones. Chris attained the rank of Eagle Scout in 2004, and still values the rank as one of his proudest achievements. Beginning in 2006, Chris began attending the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he quickly learned the value of basketball and poplar trees. Since attending UNC, Chris has been double majoring in Asian Studies, with a concentration in Chinese, and Political Science. When he isn’t slaving over his honors thesis, looking up a bunch of Chinese Characters, volunteering, or mindlessly browsing the same websites over and over, Chris enjoys writing short stories and novels. Much to his roommates’ annoyance, he also spends his free time learning to play the guitar. Above all else, though, Chris values God, his family, and his friends. For the future, Chris plans to apply to Georgetown to further his studies in Political Science, hopefully with a concentration on China. Pending acceptance into Georgetown, Chris would like to study while gaining professional experience in a government job in Washington DC.

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