WE THE PEOPLE: Money for special interests but not for people's health?

Opinion

August 19, 2009

Carol Kemp / Chronicle contributor The Crossville Chronicle Wed Aug 19, 2009, 10:31 AM CDT

In 2001, Congress passed the Bush tax cuts, estimated to cost $1.35 trillion over 10 years, with no way to pay for them except the discredited "trickle-down" theory of the '80s.

The 2003 tax cuts, opposed by Treasury Secretary O'Neill and 450 economists, were approved by a reluctant Congress, Dick Cheney casting a tie-breaking vote in the Senate. Opponents argued that the cuts would considerably worsen the national debt while doing little for economic growth and job creation.

Indeed, the tax cuts have been the main culprit in our growing debt (48% of the 2001-2007 deficits) while jobs and economic growth were weaker than in any expansion since WWII. Workers' median income fell while the poverty rate and percentage of Americans lacking health insurance rose.

The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that through 2008 the tax cuts, overwhelmingly benefiting the wealthiest, cost $1.7 trillion. If extended, 31% of the benefits would go to the top 1% over the next decade.

In 2003, Congress voted to approve the war resolution plunging us into Iraq in the midst of these budget-busting tax cuts — again, without offsetting revenues. Joseph Stieglitz, Nobel-prize winning economist, puts the cost of the war conservatively at $3 trillion. The vote in the Senate: 77-23.

Also in 2003, Congress approved the Medicare prescription drug bill, originally tagged at $400 billion, quickly bumped to $1.2 trillion, despite the Medicare trustees warning that this bill would further jeopardize Medicare's finances. It included $14 billion in payments to private managed care plans, already being reimbursed at rates 19% higher than traditional Medicare.

This gift to the pharmaceutical industry will cost more than $1 trillion in the second decade of its life according to the Congressional Budget Office. Senators signaled their approval 54-44; Representatives, 220-215.

In 2008, at the height of the financial crisis, Congress voted to pass the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act providing up to $700 billion to bailout the financial giants largely responsible for creating the economic mess, in addition to money already injected by the Federal Reserve. Now the cost has been upped to "trillions" of dollars. (We will never know the total cost of this fiasco.)

So Congress has rewarded the wealthy, the defense contractors, the drug and private insurance companies, and Wall Street — in each case, corralling enough votes to pass each one of these bills without losing too much sleep about how to pay for them.

However now that it is debating health care reform to help ordinary citizens, it's "whoa, Nellie," not so fast, what's the rush? (We've only been tossing this issue around since Harry Truman's day!) In the meantime, 14,000 Americans are losing their coverage every day while second quarter profits for UnitedHealth Group more than doubled, rose 34% for Humana, and were up 60% for Cigna. Drug makers Wyeth, Eli Lilly, and Pfizer all topped Wall Street expectations and raised their profit outlooks for the full year.

So the DC guys are now concerned about cost, even though the cost of doing nothing will continue to soar, the insurance companies will continue to answer to Wall Street rather than Main Street, the United States will continue to get less for their health care dollar than any other developed country, and the 535 well-insured members of Congress will continue to have their "gold-plated" 69% taxpayer-subsidized health plan option.

Heckuva job, Brownie!..... er, Congress!

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