I & I Editorial BoardDemocrats have done a great job of making someone who is not even on the ballot, President Donald Trump, a major issue in the midterm elections. But they’ve done an even better job of hiding their plans to vastly expand our already bloated federal spending on healthcare and, with it, government control over your life, if they win.
Haven’t heard about this?
We only know of it because of a memo boringly titled: “Cost-of-Living Healthcare Working Group Memo on Democratic Healthcare Action for the First 100 Hours, First 100 Days, and First Year of the 120th Congress.”
Asleep yet? There are literally modernist poems shorter than that title. But it’s what it represents that is a danger. And it’s far from just about “healthcare.”
“The document is revealing,” Christopher Jacobs, author of “The Case Against Single Payer,” writes in The Federalist. “In the span of an 84-page paper, Democrats use the word ‘establish’ (as in ‘create new programs’) 64 times, some variation of ‘expand’ (as in ‘enlarge existing programs’) more than 100 separate times, and some variation of ‘require’ (as in ‘impose new federal mandates’) over and over. These word choices speak volumes as to the party’s philosophy of (big) government.”
In short, more spending, more bureaucracy, less choice, higher costs, and lower quality healthcare. This is what Obamacare has already delivered, despite solemn promises that health insurance premiums would decline $2,500, and quality care would be available to all.
In fact, 28 million people still lack insurance. And premium costs have exploded.
“The ACA raised premiums for individuals by amounts ranging from $2,524 for those aged 31 to 40, to $12,040 for families headed by someone over age 60,” according to Insurance Informant, a website that covers insurance markets.
No wonder that in a recent Gallup Poll, only 44% of Americans rated U.S. healthcare either “excellent” or “good,” the lowest in 24 years.
What Democrats would do if they win will make things far worse.
Medicare is already essentially bankrupt, but what they plan doubles down on bankruptcy: “Medicare for all.”
“Single-payer health care is back on the political agenda, pushed by Democratic Socialists and their leftist allies as the answer to Americans’ frustrations with private medical insurers,” writes Sally Pipes, president of the Pacific Research Institute. “But while excoriating insurance companies may be good politics, forcing everyone into a government insurance monopoly would be disastrous policy.”
And, of course, Democrats have other long-cherished goals within their grasp: publicly funded abortion on demand, open borders, insurance bailouts, amnesty for illegals, expansion of the Supreme Court, and, no doubt, the blanket reimposition of leftist DEI rules across society.
In typical fashion, Democrats have no plan to debate their ideas, which are already unpopular. Rather, if they win the midterms by blaming Joe Biden’s “affordability” crisis on Trump, they plan a blitzkrieg of legislation, with 18 separate bills to be passed within the first 100 hours of taking control.
The cost? Untold trillions in new spending in coming years. Even without the added spending of the Democrats’ plans, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office already anticipates $33.6 trillion in federal subsidies for healthcare over the next decade, a massive amount at a time of soaring deficits.
The U.S. is even now running $2 trillion budget deficits on $7 trillion in annual spending. But that will get a lot worse when Medicare’s bankruptcy begins in 2033, and it will only be able to pay 89% of its promised amounts for care, resulting in an automatic 11% cut in payments.
“That cut would grow to 16% by 2040, likely leading to a large disruption of services for seniors and individuals with disabilities who rely on Medicare,” argues the Committee for a Responsible Budget in a recent report.
“Medicare isn’t just facing a trust fund shortfall — it’s threatening America’s entire fiscal future,” the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute argues.
And remember, that grim scenario is without the Medicare expansion the Democrats hope to pass next year if they win the midterms. The Mercatus Center figures that “Medicare for all” would add $32 trillion in federal spending in just the first decade.
Because that’s the Dems’ plan. And it’s just a start, since the Democratic Party’s embrace of its ascendant socialist faction has turned the one-time centrist party of the working-class American into a full-on neo-Marxist party, with all that entails.
It’s not sexy, but Republicans perhaps should be asking voters if that’s what they want. Larger government, less control over your own life and healthcare, and permanently higher taxes.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
Support Independent Journalism
Issues & Insights was founded by seasoned journalists from the IBD Editorials page. Our mission is to provide timely, fact-based reporting and deeply informed analysis on the news of the day -- without fear or favor.
We’re doing this on a voluntary basis because we believe in a free press and because we aren't afraid to tell the truth, even if it means being targeted by the left.
We are 100% reader supported!!
If you like what you see, please feel free to donate.
And be sure to tell your friends!
All their expansion plans will come to naught for the next two years because they will have to be laws passed by Congress and signed by the president to go into effect. With Trump as president – fat chance.
This column gives a preview of a once great nation which has fashioned itself into an imploding civilization.
Many great civilizations self collapsed internally (eg Western Rome, Byzantium, Maya).
Our Founders were afraid that a complete democracy would turn into a mobocracy. The House, the Senate (Constructed to rein in the directly elected House) and the NGOs have done it. The NGOs should have been strangled at birth-they have nearly all turned into anti-American and pro-Socialist/Communist megaphones.
Unfortunately, the Government didn’t know how to deal with their sabotage of our system. The Dems/DSAs see “not enough democracy” as the problem; however, the problem is them and their viewpoint.
This is a Republic not a full democracy. The states, though, aren’t strong enough to reign in the Federal Government.
At the beginning there was Responsibility in our Government. The Founders made sure of that. Then when they died, there was the tradition that Congress must be responsible.
Today, Responsibility has “magically” turned into Demagoguery. Why? Because many of the people supported the demagogues, because these demagogues promised things- if only we (the middle class and the rich) gave them (the demagogues) more money.
We have, as this I&I column points out, been hoisted on our own petard. Today’s Congressional Democrat is just too stupid to see it.
The midterms are the presage of the beginning of the end.