Headline: Democrats see GOP hypocrisy in health care debate

27 Dec, 2009 by TrogloPundit

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Alternate headline: Blogger sees Democrats pulling facial muscles trying not to laugh. The story:

WASHINGTON — Republican senators attacking the cost of a Democratic health care bill showed far different concerns six years ago, when they approved a major Medicare expansion that has added tens of billions of dollars to federal deficits.

Medicare Part D: the gift that keeps on giving. Like herpes.

The inconsistency – or hypocrisy, as some call it – has irked Democrats, who claim that their plan will pay for itself with higher taxes and spending cuts and cite the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office for support.

If it requires higher taxes and spending cuts, it’s not “paying for itself.”

By contrast, when Republicans controlled the House, Senate and White House in 2003, they overcame Democratic opposition to add a deficit-financed prescription drug benefit to Medicare. The program will cost a half-trillion dollars over 10 years, or more by some estimates.

So why isn’t this story titled: GOP sees Democrat hypocrisy in health care debate?

The gist of the story is: Dems think Republicans are being hypocritical, because Republicans voted yes on a government health care expansion that did increase the deficit, but now oppose one that won’t increase the deficit.

That’s right: Democrats say their health care “reform” won’t increase the deficit.

I say: anybody who believes that is either hyper-blindly partisan, mind-bogglingly stupid, stranded-on-a-desert-island ignorant, or some combination of those three.

The real lesson of Medicare Part D, besides the political one (Republicans don’t win by trying to out-liberal the Democrats): there’s a big difference between what politicians say a new program will cost and what that new program eventually does cost. Medicare Part D was, we were originally told, going to cost about $400 billion over 10 years. Congress passed it on that assumption. Just over a year later, that estimate was up to $532 billion. Not long after that, it was at least $720 billion, and maybe over a trillion.

If you believe ObamaCare will do otherwise, then you are one of those people I described two paragraphs up. Ditto if you believe Congress has the guts to cut spending to make up for it, or if you believe Americans will just live with higher taxes upon higher taxes upon even higher taxes. I hesitate to use the “hypocrisy” label, since it’s so over-used. But you’ve at least got to think it, here.

(The TrogloPundit is ready to go back to work so he can recover from his Christmas week off.)