TEA PARTY TO AMERICA: NOW WHAT?!

WASHINGTON — Despite what Republicans say, the 2010 health care law isn't necessarily a job killer.

Republicans have titled their effort to overturn the law the "Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act," and that's their favorite talking point against it. The House of Representatives will start debate on repeal Tuesday and probably vote Wednesday.

Saying that the law is a job killer doesn't necessarily make it one, however, and independent experts say that such a conclusion is at least premature, if not unfounded.

"The claim has no justification," said Micah Weinberg, a senior research fellow at the centrist New America Foundation's Health Policy Program.

Since the law contains dual mandates that most individuals must obtain health insurance coverage and most employers must offer it by 2014, "the effect on employment is probably zero or close to it," said Amitabh Chandra, a professor of public policy at Harvard University.

House Republicans defend their job-killer claim in a 19-page Jan. 6 report, "ObamaCare: A Budget-Busting, Job-Killing Health Care Law." But some of its points are out of date or omit offsetting information that would weaken the argument.

The War on Logic
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: January 16, 2011
Source

My wife and I were thinking of going out for an inexpensive dinner tonight. But John Boehner, the speaker of the House, says that no matter how cheap the meal may seem, it will cost thousands of dollars once you take our monthly mortgage payments into account.

Wait a minute, you may say. How can our mortgage payments be a cost of going out to eat, when we’ll have to make the same payments even if we stay home? But Mr. Boehner is adamant: our mortgage is part of the cost of our meal, and to say otherwise is just a budget gimmick.

O.K., the speaker hasn’t actually weighed in on our plans for the evening. But he and his G.O.P. colleagues have lately been making exactly the nonsensical argument I’ve just described — not about tonight’s dinner, but about health care reform. And the nonsense wasn’t a slip of the tongue; it’s the official party position, laid out in charts and figures.

We are, I believe, witnessing something new in American politics. Last year, looking at claims that we can cut taxes, avoid cuts to any popular program and still balance the budget, I observed that Republicans seemed to have lost interest in the war on terror and shifted focus to the war on arithmetic. But now the G.O.P. has moved on to an even bigger project: the war on logic.

So, about that nonsense: this week the House is expected to pass H.R. 2, the Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act — its actual name. But Republicans have a small problem: they claim to care about budget deficits, yet the Congressional Budget Office says that repealing last year’s health reform would increase the deficit. So what, other than dismissing the nonpartisan budget office’s verdict as “their opinion” — as Mr. Boehner has — can the G.O.P. do?

The answer is contained in an analysis — or maybe that should be “analysis” — released by the speaker’s office, which purports to show that health care reform actually increases the deficit. Why? That’s where the war on logic comes in.

First of all, says the analysis, the true cost of reform includes the cost of the “doc fix.” What’s that?

Well, in 1997 Congress enacted a formula to determine Medicare payments to physicians. The formula was, however, flawed; it would lead to payments so low that doctors would stop accepting Medicare patients. Instead of changing the formula, however, Congress has consistently enacted one-year fixes. And Republicans claim that the estimated cost of future fixes, $208 billion over the next 10 years, should be considered a cost of health care reform.

But the same spending would still be necessary if we were to undo reform. So the G.O.P. argument here is exactly like claiming that my mortgage payments, which I’ll have to make no matter what we do tonight, are a cost of going out for dinner.

There’s more like that: the G.O.P. also claims that $115 billion of other health care spending should be charged to health reform, even though the budget office has tried to explain that most of this spending would have taken place even without reform.

To be sure, the Republican analysis doesn’t rely entirely on spurious attributions of cost — it also relies on using three-card monte tricks to make money disappear. Health reform, says the budget office, will increase Social Security revenues and reduce Medicare costs. But the G.O.P. analysis says that these sums don’t count, because some people have said that these savings would also extend the life of these programs’ trust funds, so counting these savings as deficit reduction would be “double-counting,” because — well, actually it doesn’t make any sense, but it sounds impressive.

So, is the Republican leadership unable to see through childish logical fallacies? No.

The key to understanding the G.O.P. analysis of health reform is that the party’s leaders are not, in fact, opposed to reform because they believe it will increase the deficit. Nor are they opposed because they seriously believe that it will be “job-killing” (which it won’t be). They’re against reform because it would cover the uninsured — and that’s something they just don’t want to do.

And it’s not about the money. As I tried to explain in my last column, the modern G.O.P. has been taken over by an ideology in which the suffering of the unfortunate isn’t a proper concern of government, and alleviating that suffering at taxpayer expense is immoral, never mind how little it costs.

Given that their minds were made up from the beginning, top Republicans weren’t interested in and didn’t need any real policy analysis — in fact, they’re basically contemptuous of such analysis, something that shines through in their health care report. All they ever needed or wanted were some numbers and charts to wave at the press, fooling some people into believing that we’re having some kind of rational discussion. We aren’t.

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on January 17, 2011, on page A23 of the New York edition.

And the statistics are plain that far more people die from accidents with guns
than ever use them to prevent crimes.

Your logic, David, is as always circular.

You do your damnedest to see that everybody has guns.

Then you justify owning a gun by saying that everybody should have one (or many)
because they are needed to defend yourself.

From the people you've just insured would have guns.

Accidents are part of life, Jack. Thay have been since before the first dinosaur was hatched.
That is not a surprize. There are a lot more kids hurt in vehicular collisions or by drownings,
than by accidental gunfire. If thay 'd fallen from a ski lift or a tree, u 'd have been silent, right??

Gunz r NOT supposed to be safe.

Accidents are part of life, Jack. Thay have been since before the first dinosaur was hatched.
That is not a surprize. There are a lot more kids hurt in vehicular collisions or by drownings,
than by accidental gunfire. If thay 'd fallen from a ski lift or a tree, u 'd have been silent, right??

Parents PUT their kids in cars an on ski lifts and let them near trees. There is a difference between knowing the risks and accepting them and having someone have an accident with a gun that they shouldn't have had in the first place.

OmSigDavid wrote:

Gunz r NOT supposed to be safe.

And there is your circular argument David..

People would be safer if they armed themselves
Why would they be safer?
Because armed people are safer.

But David..
You failed to take into account that far more people are intentionally killed with guns
than are killed by drowning.

And far more people are intentionally killed with guns then are intentionally killed with cars.

In fact guns are the most common tool used to kill other people intentionally.

and last year two separate hiker groups were beaten up and robbed in the Pa trail.

WHY? There are bears along the trails and these bears often look on people as an opportunity for a qwuick snack. Its relatively rare, but it occurs several times a year and I dont wanna get mauled (or my family or any one ele accompanying me).

Its relatively rare, but it occurs several times a year and I dont wanna get mauled (or my family or any one ele accompanying me). Also, the AT has become of concern in the last two decades. They still ahvent found the killers of the two girls in W Va. and last year two separate hiker groups were beaten up and robbed in the Pa trail.

You sound as paranoid as OmSig, Farmer.