TALK ABOUT GOING OFF THE RESERVATION...:

Health Care Reform and the Unpopular T-Word (DAVID LEONHARDT, 7/29/09, NY Times)

[M]ost of those ideas have a basic flaw.

They do not raise revenue as quickly as health costs rise. The plan to impose a surtax on top earners, for instance, pays a decent chunk of the bill over the next few years. But the revenue from the tax rises only as fast (roughly) as the United States economy grows. The same is true of most taxes.

Health costs, on the other hand, are growing much more quickly than the economy. Over the last decade, the economy has expanded by about 20 percent, and health spending has ballooned 50 percent. The gap isn’t about to start closing, either.

So no matter what Congress has done to pay for its plans, it can’t keep up.

The numbers show there is only one sure way out of the problem, and, after months of roundabout discussion, that solution has re-emerged: It’s a tax on health care.

...they're pretending they'll make health care cheaper, not more expensive.

Posted by Orrin Judd at July 29, 2009 7:42 AM