Dem Healthcare Numbers Won't Add Up

There is an immutable reason why centralized socialist policies don’t work over time: government, unlike the private sector, has no incentive to maintain the fiscal discipline needed to stay on budget.

Here’s an interesting tid-bit from the Washington Post dated April 24, 2007 in which it predicts that: “By 2017 Social Security will start to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes.”

Yet just today I look and see from the AP that the government must borrow to pay back  some of the $2.5 trillion in IOUs being cashed in by Social Security because: “This year…the retirement program is projected to pay out more in benefits than it takes in.”  Wow is it 2017 already?  Gosh how time flies!

And herein lies a telling illustration of why I am opposed to the healthcare bill now being hammered out by the Democrats in congress.   It is not because I don't think healthcare is broken.  It is because such a massive shift in the economy, such an enormous transfer of power to the federal government, is based upon projections of something that simply cannot be predicted with any degree of accuracy needed for such a program to work.  If these guys are off their numbers (and they always are) we will be in serious financial quick-sand down the road.

There is an immutable reason why centralized socialist policies don’t work over time.  Government, unlike the private sector, is not incentivized to maintain the fiscal discipline needed to stay on budget.  It is in fact hardwired to be inefficient.  When you run a business as I do — one that is not “too big to fail” at least — you have no endless revenue stream to draw from.  No taxpayers to stick up again and again if my costs run out of control.  I am rather a closed system and if I run deficits for very long a la our friends in D.C. the verdict of the market is swift and final… we run out of cash, shutter our doors and yours truly goes broke.  Game over.  So I am constantly monitoring my operation.   My very livelihood and that of my family depends on my diligence and accuracy.   And trust me, I have had to make some gut-wrenching calls in the past, including terminating employees and reducing my own compensation, to keep this ship afloat during some tough times at the outset.  But government has no such obligation to be fiscally responsible.

So when you hear Democrats promise that middle class taxes will not go up, that this will cost under $1 trillion, or that this program will be “deficit neutral” do yourself a favor and just turn off your TV.  They are not being truthful… not with themselves and not with you.   And they are setting this country up for a financial meltdown while insulting our collective intelligence along the way.

Look, I just got our firm’s insurance renewal notice from Oxford.  Our premiums are going up by 20%+.  So I am on the front lines of the healthcare debate and will be the first to admit that the system needs reform.  But this is not the way to do it.  Once it is turned over to the federal government to manage, it will be all over.  Empty promises aside, everyone’s taxes will skyrocket.  (There are only so many “rich” people to soak before the tax man comes knocking on the middle class door when this monster’s cost overruns spiral out of control.)  And what will we get for it in return if we even make it to the 2014 launch date?  Another bloated entitlement already charging headlong towards insolvency.

Democrats and their supporters look to my Oxford bill and say: “You see Brad?  This is exactly why we have to do something.  And doing something is better than nothing.”  Something maybe, but not anything.