Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SmoothSail who wrote (354443)	3/19/2010 4:00:22 PM
From: KLP	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 794117

Health Care Fraud Posted 03/18/2010 06:59 PM ET Health Reform: What did it take for Congress to schedule a vote on its awful health care reform package? Not much, just a phony low-ball "score" on what the plan would cost from the Congressional Budget Office. By presenting the CBO with incomplete, inaccurate and misleading data, the Democrats in Congress were finally able to come up with a cost score they like: $940 billion. That's the estimate the CBO arrived at. Like a used car dealer pricing a car at $9,999 instead of $10,000, the hucksters in Congress were anxious to get the official cost below the scary $1 trillion level at which things suddenly sound very unaffordable. Using the rigged $940 billion estimate, Democratic leaders now hope to force a health care bill through as early as Saturday, seizing 17% of the U.S. economy by simply "deeming" the bill is passed — rather than actually passing it in an up-or-down vote. This is not democracy. Nor is it constitutional. And it will do real violence to the Democrats' promise to leave 72 hours to debate the health care bill's contents and to let the public see what's in it. Transparency? This is legislating through a glass, darkly. But what really bothers us, as we've noted before, is the use of a phony cost estimate to justify it all. The $940 billion figure the CBO came up with is almost wholly bogus. So is the laughable estimate that deficits will be cut by $138 billion over a decade. And the Democrats know it. That's why they're trying to pass this bill using questionable parliamentary maneuvers and outright trickery. Those who agree to this backroom scheme are part of a massive fraud perpetrated on the American people. As frauds, they should expect no sympathy from voters. We can't blame the CBO. It can only produce a score, or cost estimate, at the behest of Congress based on the data it is given. As the saying goes in the tech world: Garbage in, garbage out. In this case, they were given 10 years of revenues, but only six years of costs. So of course the "cost" looks reasonable. And even the CBO, in releasing what it made clear was an unofficial estimate, warned: "This estimate is ... preliminary, pending a review of the language of the reconciliation proposal ..." In short, they want no part of this farce. In fact, the real cost of this health care takeover is more like $2.5 trillion over 10 years —That's off by, oh, 166%. investors.com