Denver Post: HHS audit says health overhaul will increase costs

[Brittain33]

Nonsense.  It was to give political cover to those "blue dog" Democrats who voted for the "health care" "reform" bill under the guise that it lowered costs.  It doesn't.  

The cover was about lowering the deficit, not the cost. And it certainly appears to lower per capita cost, as is discussed elsewhere.

Also, it's ludicrous to go haywire over a 1% increase in costs considering how easily that estimate could be off in one direction or another. Would you argue this is no big deal at all if it's off a little bit on the high end and the bill makes no change in costs, or a massive, massive scandal if it turns out to be slightly low and costs increase a skootch more? I should hope not.

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No, they don't. Being able to go to an emergency room and get whatever emergency coverage they supply is not "having health care."

[Brittain33]

This analysis was completed a week before the vote but suppressed by the Obama administration until late last week.  Gee.  I wonder why.

This turns out to be wrong, by the way.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_04/023543.php

[Brittain33]

It's not a conspiracy theory to point out that those who benefit under Obamacare - i.e. those who currently don't have health INSURANCE - tend to be Democrat-leaning groups. 

Yes, and don't forget people with pre-existing conditions and their families, they tend to vote Democratic too. At least after they get shafted by their insurance companies. This bill is a total payoff to them.

[Brittain33]

Democrat interest groups who benefited from things like the Cornhusker kickback and Louisiana purchase.

Which Democrat interest group benefited from the Cornhusker kickback? The Nebraska legislature is now a Democrat interest group? Can you even explain what the "Louisiana purchase" did and why it was necessary?

[Brittain33]

Both loosely had to do with increased federal reimbursement for medicaid.  Medicaid is government-provided health care for the so-called poor.  Increasing federal reimbursement rates ultimately allow the states to expand the programs even while spending less of their own money.   Poor voters lean Democratic.

They were distinctive because they were requested by specific senators for the unique benefit of their states—in Louisiana's case, defensible, in Nebraska's case, not. Looking past the first-order beneficiary of them as special examples to the second-order benefits completely defeats the purpose of your thesis about why they are in the bill in the first place.