Rep. Paul Ryan (R WI) and the House Republicans are touting their budget as fiscally responsible and prudent. What Mr Ryan conveniently forgets, or more likely avoids, is this:
Eight short years ago he – and his GOP buddies – passed the single largest entitlement program since Medicare – the Medicare Part D drug benefit – with no dedicated financing, no offsets and no revenue-generators – the entire future cost – which is now around sixteen trillion dollars [see page 148] – simply added to the federal budget deficit.
According to Bruce Bartlett writing in the Fiscal Times, “By 2030, Part D alone will cost taxpayers 1 percent of GDP.”
There’s a legitimate argument that health reform is going to add additional cost, and will require additional revenue. Let’s accept the GOP’s claim that health reform will add $700 billion to the deficit. That’s one-twentieth of the deficit from Part D.
That’s right – Paul Ryan’s Part D added twenty times more to the Federal deficit than even he claims reform will. Yet the GOP budget he wrote doesn’t include any provisions to end, or fix, or reduce Part D.
Notably, the President’s budget proposal doesn’t address long term costs of Part D either – and yes, that’s a serious problem.
Folks, we have a BIG deficit problem. If we aren’t deadly serious about what we need to do, we’re screwed. Whether you’re a conservative or liberal, Glenn Beck-er or Rachel Maddow fan, red stater or blue stater, there are basic, immutable facts.
Part D’s $16,000,000,000,000.00 ultimate cost is one of the more obvious.
It would have been more than refreshing if Ryan and the Republicans’ budget was more financially responsible, more old-style fiscally-conservative-Republican. That would have been courageous – admitting he and his party made a mistake. Sure, they would’ve taken a hit from older Americans who love Part D, but true statesmen, real leaders know that tough, unpopular stands are necessary some times
Ryan’s blatant hypocrisy reveals that he – and his party – don’t care one whit about the deficit or budgets or fiscal responsibility. Nope, they just want to get re-elected.
What should we do?
Either a) end Part D or b) allow the Feds to use their buying power to negotiate with pharma. That alone would save about $20 billion a year.
Canceling Part D won’t happen; neither party is about to tell seniors they can’t have free medicine. If Ryan et al were really concerned about the deficit, they’d consider using the government’s buying power to reduce costs and thus lower the deficit. But of course they won’t; that would alienate big pharma and cut into their campaign contributions.

The list of those opposing health reform includes Tea Partiers, libertarians and other small government advocates; the Chamber of Commerce, Association of Manufacturers, and National Federation of Independent Businesses; health plans (some of them), brokers, and insurers.
For some the issue is personal “liberty”, decrying governmental intrusion into what they believe should be an entirely “free” market.
Others are more specific, outraged that they are forced to buy a service from a private insurer.
But for some, primarily the larger DC-based organizations and their dues-paying members, the issue appears to be more broad, a general perception that reform is yet another indicator of increased governmental intrusion into ‘their’ business. Private companies want to be left alone, to run their businesses and do their stuff without what they view as often unnecessary and ill-advised interference from bureaucrats. The faith in the free market, the belief in unfettered competition’s ability to deliver the best result for the most is the underlying driver, driving many big companies – who would benefit from the mandate and most other provisions of the PPACA, to work diligently to overturn health reform.
Understand that those of us with insurance (including big corporations, small employers who provide health insurance, and governmental entities (and therefore taxpayers)) are subsidizing the health care needs of those without. The 49 million Americans without health insurance get health care, they just don’t pay for it; those of us with insurance do through the miracle of cost-shifting.
The willingness of reform’s opponents to sacrifice their corporate profits on the altar of the free market is admirable, as is the enthusiasm of libertarians and true followers of the Tea Party ideology.
But I wonder how ideologically pure they’ll be if reform is overturned.
As evidence of the potential consequence of failing to think thru the long-term and unintended consequences of ideological purity, I give you the Export-Import Bank, an agency of the federal government.
Stick with me here; the Ex-Im Bank provides credit to American companies selling goods and services abroad. For many companies, it is the ONLY source of credit financing their overseas business. As a result, the Ex-Im Bank helps drive exports, which creates and maintains employment, improves our balance of payments, and builds American companies.
But – the Ex-Im Bank is in deep trouble; the House has rejected further funding for the bank [opens video] (which is very profitable, generating over $5 billion in profits) thus the Bank will have to shut down in two months. If it does, businesses from tiny crop dusting aircraft manufacturers to Boeing, chemicals to finished products will find markets dry up, sales fall off, and profits plummet. We can expect layoffs at the Boeing plant in South Carolina, the duPont plants in North Carolina, Air Tractor in Texas, and Keller in Wilmington.
If that’s the necessary consequence of a return to an unfettered free market with less government intrusion, than so be it.
But that’s not what many backers of the GOP want. In fact, a long list of ardent supporters of the GOP, those who helped funded the historic gains won by Republicans in the 2010 midterm elections, are pretty unhappy with the men and women they elected. These new legislators, and ones who’ve been around for years, are the ones who are denying funding for the Ex-Im Bank, and thereby hurting the very folks who funded their successful campaigns. GOP Sens. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, Charles Grassley of Iowa, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma Rand Paul of Kentucky Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Mike Lee of Utah are all opposing re-authorization of the Ex-Im Bank.
What some – Heritage and the Club for Growth – decry as corporate welfare and unfair competition, others of a very similar political stripe champion as critical to American business.
The same will happen with health reform.
If the Supremes overturn health reform and/or the individual mandate, employers, taxpayers, and individuals are going to see higher health insurance premiums. The entire market will be in a death spiral. As more opt out of coverage, the cost for the shrinking number of insureds will increase. Members of the Chamber of Commerce, the NFIB, and the Club for Growth will find their profits eaten up by health insurance premiums, or they’ll be forced to drop coverage entirely.
Individuals outraged by the mandate will be free to find coverage on their own, coverage which will be unaffordable for all but the richest Americans without any pre-existing medical conditions. New Jersey, a state with no mandate and restrictions on medical underwriting, provides insight into what individual insurance costs would be if the Court overturns the mandate (thanks to Bob Laszewski for the research)

a two adult plan with a $2,500 deductible and 80% coinsurance for example, there are only three carriers offering it. Aetna at $4,913 per month, Celtic at $12,322 a month, and Horizon at $6,127.78 per month. [emphasis added] These rates do not vary by age.

Yep, annual insurance premiums for two adults would cost between $60,000 and $148,000.
Hopefully they’ll be okay with that, secure in the knowledge that they’ve sacrificed good health and medical treatment, for themselves and their families, on the altar of liberty.
And no, the free market will not come up with a solution. If it could have, it would have by now.
Perhaps the fate of the Ex-Im Bank will encourage the ideologically pure to reconsider their objection to health reform, but probably not.

Monday I opined that the individual mandate will not be overturned. But let’s say it is – and stipulate that the rest of the health reform bill is rejected as well.
Then what?
We’ll leave aside the political implications for the moment, but it’s safe to say that a rejection of the PPACA by the Supreme Court would be bad news indeed for Democrats
Over the near term, what happens to the 49 million Americans currently without coverage? They won’t be able to get coverage under Medicaid.
Their employers – mostly small businesses – who can’t afford the premiums (without subsidies) today certainly won’t be able to find affordable insurance in the future.
In many states, people and families trying to buy coverage on the individual market will find a) their pre-existing conditions won’t be covered, or b) will only be covered after an extended waiting period and with a much higher premium and c) the cost of family coverage – for plans with very high deductibles – will be above $1500 a month in many states.
If health reform is overturned, 20% of Americans may be without coverage in 2020, yet we’ll be spending 20% of our GDP on health care. As more go without insurance, cost-shifting to those with coverage will increase, driving up their premiums even faster. The vicious cycle will accelerate, and as costs rise, employers and families will drop coverage, dumping more cost onto the ever-smaller population of insureds.
Okay, back to the political implications.
As David Blumenthal noted in the NEJM article cited above, if the Republicans win big this fall, after blasting health reform for the last several years a GOP administration and Congress would find it difficult to then legislate a new approach.
Moreover; ” the traditional Republican approach to covering uninsured Americans [is] an individual tax credit subsidizing purchases of private health insurance funded by ending the tax exemption for employers’ contributions to employees’ health insurance. Many employers and employees oppose this idea, and it would be difficult to pass without a major political fight. Historically, Republican presidents have been reluctant to take on the political costs of comprehensive health care reform, and the last thing a new Republican president will want is to fall on the political sword that impaled his predecessor.”
So.
PPACA is overturned, the number of uninsured is on a path to 20% of the population, the insurance death spiral accelerates, and the new Congress and President can’t/won’t do anything about it.
Can someone tell me how the free market fixes this problem? What insurance company is going to seek to cover families and small businesses with significant pre-existing conditions? Which, by the way, more and more of us have?
And if you can’t get coverage thru your small employer or on the open market, what are you going to do?
Those folks lucky enough to live in states with rational, sentient state legislatures will be better off than those living in states less fortunate.
But all of us will be facing family premiums north of $30,000 within five years.