A healthcare reform expert says Democratic leaders in Congress who are seeking to pass healthcare legislation before Thanksgiving are "deceiving themselves into thinking they know what's best for the American people."
The Senate Finance Committee is expected to vote today on a healthcare reform bill authored by Senator Max Baucus (D-Montana) that would create new taxes and regulations to pay for a massive expansion of the Medicaid entitlement program. Although the Baucus proposal has been billed as the most "moderate and reasonable" of five committee healthcare bills, a new study prepared by Price Waterhouse Coopers estimates that by 2019 the plan will raise the cost of healthcare for an American family of four by $4,000 each year. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the measure will insure only 94 percent of Americans -- leaving 25 million people uninsured. Politico reports that in an effort to pass healthcare reform before Thanksgiving and avoid conference committee, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) and other Democratic leaders are considering attaching the entire healthcare bill to a shell of a House tax bill that passed earlier this year. Grace Marie Turner, president of the Galen Institute, says if Democrats use such a parliamentary maneuver, they risk an enormous political backlash from American taxpayers. "Last time around during the 'ClintonCare' debate, [Democratic] Senator [Jay] Rockefeller was quoted by one of the newspapers in West Virginia, his home state, saying 'We're going to pass health reform whether the American people like it or not,'" Turner recalls. "You know, I'm really thinking right now that that seems to be the approach -- 'we're going to pass this bill whether the American people like it or not.'" Turner says proponents of ramming healthcare legislation through Congress quickly are attempting to justify their strategy by saying that in Canada, healthcare reform was not tremendously popular before it was passed, but the elite and the political class decided to enact socialized medicine anyway, and now all Canadians love it. However, Turner says Canadians love their healthcare system "if they're not sick" enough to need medical treatment in the U.S.
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