Inside The Bureaucracy

Obama Envisions
By MICHELLE MALKIN | Posted Friday, July 17, 2009 4:20
PM PT
If you think government is too big and too
costly, wait until ObamaCare kicks in. The
Congressional Budget Office put the price
tag of the House Democrats' health care
takeover plans at $1.5 trillion over 10 years.
But the CBO's fine print included a telltale
caveat:
"We have not yet estimated the
administrative costs to the federal
government of implementing the specified
policies, nor have we accounted for all of the
proposal's likely effects on spending for
other federal programs."
You don't need an accounting degree or
clairvoyant powers. The administrative costs
and spillover spending effects will be
astronomical. Look at existing federal
programs.
In 1966, the Office of Management and
Budget put the total taxpayer costs for
Medicare at $64 million. In 2011, Medicare
costs are expected to balloon to nearly $500
billion.
Medicaid cost $770 million in 1966. By 2011,
that program will cost taxpayers an
estimated $264 billion.
The Virginia-based Council for Affordable
Health Insurance estimated that the
administrative expenses of both programs
last decade were 66% higher than those of
private sector health insurance companies.
And we ain't seen nothing yet.
House Republicans on the Joint Economic
Committee sifted through their opponents'
1,018-page health care bill and released a
dizzying flow chart detailing the byzantine
bureaucracy ObamaCare would create.
Washington would become the home of at
least 31 new federal programs, agencies and
commissions to oversee the government-run
health insurance regime.
Because 32 "czars" isn't enough, the
Democratic plan would add another overlord
to the Obama administration. The new
"Health Choices Commissioner" would helm
the new "Health Choices Administration"
(section 141 of the bill) — separate from the
already existing Department of Health and
Human Services, Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid Services (formerly the Health Care
Financing Administration), the Veterans
Health Administration and the Indian Health
Service.
Because the government has done such a
boffo job managing the near-bankrupt Social
Security and Medicare Trust Funds, the
Democrats have proposed creating a "Public
Health Investment Fund" and a "Health
Insurance Exchange Trust Fund." The latter
would create a "transparent and functional
marketplace for individuals and small
employers to comparison shop among
private and public insurers."
No matter that state insurance departments
already operate such systems. Health care
must be "fixed." The federal cure is
redundancy.
The ObamaCare bill also creates a new
"Bureau of Health Information" (not to be
confused with the already existing National
Center for Health Statistics) within the
Department of Health and Human Services.
A new "Assistant Secretary for Health
Information" will lead the BHI.
The new assistant secretary will coordinate
with the "National Coordinator for Health
Information Technology" — who is
responsible for monitoring the $19.5 billion
in the stimulus law to implement "a
nationwide interoperable, privacy-protected
health information technology
infrastructure."
New bureaucracies always have old special
interests to appease. The Bureau of Health
Information will house its own "Office of Civil
Rights" and "Office of Minority Health." The
information czar will be required to collect
health statistics in the "primary language" of
ethnic minorities — and, thus, the need for a
new "language demonstration program" to
showcase their efforts.
ObamaCare will also ensure "cultural and
linguistics competence training" and
establish "a youth public health program to
expose and recruit high-school students into
public health careers." The government
health care juggernaut must be fed and
staffed, after all.
Providing more stimulus for taxpayer-funded
jobs, the Democrats' bill would add a new
"Senior Advisor for Health Care Fraud" and
require the attorney general to appoint a
"Senior Counsel for Health Care Fraud
Enforcement." There's already a national
Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control
Program, but who's counting?
To coordinate all the new bureaucrats,
ObamaCare would create a new "Health
Care Program Integrity Coordinating
Council" to "coordinate strategic planning
among federal agencies involved in health
care integrity and oversight."
To make sure existing local and state
environmental public health agencies don't
feel lonely, the Democrats' plan creates a
new "Coordinated Environmental Public
Health Network" to "build upon and
coordinate among existing environmental
and health data collection systems and
create state environmental public health
networks."
A new "National Health Care Workforce
Commission" will be "tasked with reviewing
health care workforce and projected
workforce needs." New funding will be
available for a "demonstration program to
improve immunization coverage" that would
enable government busybodies to send
reminders or recalls for patients or
providers, or make home visits.
Who'll be looking out for you? The House bill
creates a "public plan ombudsman" and a
"special health insurance exchange inspector
general" to police spending and guard
against waste, fraud and abuse.
Given the sad fate of aggressive watchdogs
in the age of Obama, however, these
positions will end up like every other new
agency, commission, task force and office
created to serve the federal health care
beast: black holes.
Copyright 2008 Creators Syndicate, Inc