During his health care speech last night, President Obama incorrectly guaranteed that no public money would go toward abortion, and that illegal immigrants could not get coverage under his plan. He cannot make either promise, based on the existing legislation.

Obama also made the deeply misleading promise that "not a dollar of the Medicare trust fund will be used to pay for this plan." Of course it won't. That's because the Medicare Trust Fund is already running an operating deficit and will do so indefinitely, according to last year's report from its trustees. Every single dime of the fund, plus some, is going to pay Medicare claims, leaving nothing for any other purpose. It's as if he just promised that no one will ever get lost in Belgium by driving across the Brooklyn Bridge. As a promise to senior citizens, it is meaningless, deceptive and disingenuous. He still plans to cut Medicare expenditures by half a trillion dollars over ten years, and it's anyone's guess whether he can do that without significantly affecting seniors' care.

The president also said that 14,000 people lose their insurance each day. By his math, 15 million more Americans will lose their insurance before his bill goes into effect in 2013, an increase of 50 percent. Really?

More to the heart of the matter, though, Obama continues to conflate cause with effect as he presents a the rationale for his proposal.

"When health care costs grow at the rate they have, it puts greater pressure on programs like Medicare and Medicaid."
A major reason for the increase in medical costs is the fact that Medicare and Medicaid, which are unsustainable financially in their own right, underpay for most services, forcing the doctors that treat their patients to gouge private insurers in order to make up the difference. President Obama mentioned a $1,000 annual "tax" of sorts that uninsured people cause others to pay in increased medical costs. Medicare and Medicaid, through underpayments, actually impose a $1,788 annual "tax" on health care for the privately insured.

Under HR 3200, the House Democratic plan, the government-run public option health plan would pay the same Medicare rates that already make care more expensive for non-Medicare patients. If this were to become law, then Obama's public option plan would exacerbate the problem by expanding the underpayments.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/No-cure-58480702.html

Top Five Tax Fibs
From Obama's Health Speech
From Ryan Ellis on Thursday, September 10, 2009 4:26 PM

1. Middle class tax hikes: “The middle class will realize greater security, not higher taxes.”

This would be a big departure from the House bill and the Baucus draft. The House bill has four tax increases on families making less than $250,000. President Obama himself endorsed another when he called for an individual mandate with a tax penalty. Earlier this week, he again floated the idea of a “soda tax.” The Baucus draft, like the House bill, contains a new tax on over-the-counter medicines purchased with an FSA or HSA

2. Individual mandate tax: “Under my plan, individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance.”

What the President is not saying is that the “stick” forcing individuals to do this will be a tax increase. In the House bill, the tax penalty would be 2.5 percent of income. Under the Baucus draft, the tax would range from $750 to $3800, based on family size and income. Either way, it’s a new tax.

3. Deficit-neutral is not tax-neutral: “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits—either now, or in the future. Period.”

All “deficit-neutral” means is that taxes will go up at least as much as spending goes up. Under any version of government healthcare, taxes needed to make the plans deficit-neutral would easily exceed $200 billion per year once the plans are fully phased in, according to CBO estimates.

4. Tax code makes healthcare more expensive: “We spend one-and-a-half times more per person on health care than any other country, but we aren't any healthier for it. This is one of the reasons that insurance premiums have gone up three times faster than wages.”

One of the reasons healthcare inflation is 8 percent a year, while regular inflation is 3 percent a year, is because of the tax code. The tax code prevents most individuals from buying health insurance with pre-tax dollars. Only when insurance is obtained through one’s job or the government is there a tax benefit. There’s also almost no tax benefit to paying for medical expenses out of pocket. These combine to make people think that someone else—not they—are paying for their health care, which drives up the cost.

5. Tax cuts don’t “cost” money: “The plan I'm proposing will cost around $900 billion over ten years…less than the tax cuts for the wealthiest few Americans that Congress passed at the beginning of the previous administration.”

To make an obvious point, taxes are not the government’s money. They are money taken by force of law from the American people. To cut taxes doesn’t “cost” any family anything. In fact, it saves them money. When taxes are raised to increase government spending, that does cost money for families.

http://www.atr.org/top-five-tax-fibsbr-obamas-health-a3834