It's almost Christmas.
Last year, Congress was frantically putting the pieces together on the health care legislation- which wasn't pretty. This year they are frantically trying to put together the pieces for the omnibus spending and tax bills- ev
en less pretty. At a cost of over $850 billion and loaded with over 6,000 earmarks, this legislation is once again an example of cramming together what is politically viable instead of what is needed for the country. Before signing the omnibus spending bill in 2009, President Obama stated, "This piece of legislation must mark the end of the old way of doing business and the beginning of a new era of responsibility and accountability that the American people have every right to expect and demand." I guess he feels one more time won't matter. We'll really, really make this one the last time. I doubt it.
en less pretty. At a cost of over $850 billion and loaded with over 6,000 earmarks, this legislation is once again an example of cramming together what is politically viable instead of what is needed for the country. Before signing the omnibus spending bill in 2009, President Obama stated, "This piece of legislation must mark the end of the old way of doing business and the beginning of a new era of responsibility and accountability that the American people have every right to expect and demand." I guess he feels one more time won't matter. We'll really, really make this one the last time. I doubt it.Last week the House passed the Medicare and Medicaid Extenders Act of 2010 avoiding the 25% cut in Medicare physician payments and freezing provider reimbursement at the current levels until the end of 2011. Physicians breathed a sigh of relief- the Medicare budget was blown to hell. This marks the fifth time we have set aside the sustainable growth rate (SGR) model this year and the fifteenth time it has been set aside since 2001 accruing a liability of another $300 billion. Do you think the SGR model might need to be changed instead of continuing to simply push dealing with Medicare cost increases off in the future?
A few days ago the first judge ruled against the individual mandate included in the health reform legislation signed earlier this year. Republicans celebrated as they felt this supported their calls for repeal. Democrats simply ran (or continued running- they have been running from this for a long time). In the meantime, the $2 trillion spent on health care costs continues to climb and our life expectancy compared to the rest of the world (one measure of how effective our system is) declined.
The Debt Commission report released a few weeks ago stressed we are nearing the edge of the cliff. We heard it, we know it, but we simply continue to put our hands over our ears and yell, "I'm not listening, I'm not listening, I'm not listening," hoping it will all just magically go away and we can return to the way things were. Ain't going to happen.
While stabilizing the economy in the short-term is important, considering the long-term impact of all of this on our debt is more important than ever. We all know we're in a very precarious situation as a nation; we just don't like to sacrifice anything if we don't have to. We're big into "screw-avoidance." Whenever sacrifice is mentioned, we think we're getting screwed. A hint; fixing our financial and health care structure is going to require some shared sacrifice from everyone whether we like it or not.
Or, we can just continue to kick the can down the road as we've always done and enjoy the scenery as we're falling off the cliff. We don't have very far to reach the edge.
Happy Holidays.
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