The CBO Analysis Of Dingy Harry's Healthcare Scam

The CBO, Congressional Budget Office has released their analysis of the healthcare plan submitted to them for scoring from Sen Harry Reid. His plan appears to incorporate some of the same shady accounting measures that the Nancy Pelosi plan has, meaning that they are passing along huge expenses and costs to local and state governments, in excess of current levels established for what are called unfunded mandates. This takes the cost off of the federal government, allowing the Dems to tout their rhetoric about cost savings.

CBO and JCT have determined that the legislation contains several intergovernmental and private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA).
The total cost of those mandates to state, local, and tribal governments and the private sector would greatly exceed the thresholds established in UMRA ($69 million and $139 million, respectively, in 2009, adjusted annually for inflation).

While a lot of attention has been given to the elected officials in Washington, it is time for folks to start rattling the cages of their state elected officials like governors and insurance commissioners. It is their voice that needs to be heard on this. They can not allow the federal government to impose even more financial burdens on the cash strapped states. Unlike the federal government the states have to live within a budget.

Also in Harry Reid's plan is the provision to tax people who have expensive health insurance plans. This just seems so tyrannical to me. Punishing people for buying better coverage. It is the same liberal mindset built around socialist principles of so called fairness. Of course that fairness stops at their door since they are exempt from following the draconian legislation they lay on the rest of us.

Another nugget.

By 2019, CBO and JCT estimate, the number of nonelderly people who are uninsured would be reduced by about 31 million, leaving about 24 million nonelderly residents uninsured (about one-third of whom would be unauthorized immigrants). Under the legislation, the share of legal nonelderly residents with insurance coverage would rise.....

Now it has gone from illegal aliens, to undocumented workers and now in the latest Orwellian speak they are unauthorized immigrants.

Anyway the CBO analysis is only 36 pages long, well worth checking out, and a hell of a lot easier to read then the 2,000+ pages that Reid sent to them.

UPDATE: The Republican Governors Association, which had gathered for a meeting in Texas, have come out with a statement denouncing the Senate bill. Good for them.

Mr. Daniels asserted that Democratic governors shared their views, but many were afraid to cross the White House publicly. And Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, who is considering a run for the presidency in 2012, said he agreed that there was a need to revamp the health care system, but the ideas being proposed in Washington would “trample on the rights of states.”