Second, the first of these bills was an obvious scam - a massive pay-off to Democratic party constituencies at the expense of the American taxpayer on a scale that guarantees much higher taxes before long and that almost certainly will drive up interest rates. In the long run, it is not a stimulus bill in any shape or form. It is the sort of spending certain to retard growth.
Third - as I argued in some detail in "Obama's tyrannical ambition," rationing was the point of the Obamacare proposal.
He goes on to point out that even the Formerly Gray Lady now reluctantly acknowledges this, having gone from denouncing health care protesters as nuts to admitting
Medicare beneficiaries and insurance counselors say the concerns are not entirely irrational.
It's very telling, eg, that the Senate preferred to drop end-of-life counseling altogether rather than specify in plain language that it was neither mandatory, nor attached to penalties for doctors, nor to be used to coax the frail into "cheaper" outcomes.
The main problem with the health care bill, however, is what isn't in it. It takes 1000 pp to tell us that secret health advisers will be crafting the actual health care system. All we'll be doing is empowering faceless bureaucrats, as Wesley Smith discusses here. The legislation is only the general outline, the skeleton if you will—of what the remade American health care system would ultimately look like if the bill becomes law. The flesh and blood would be created beneath the public radar by unelected bureaucrats in the federal departments and agencies through the promulgation of thousands of additional pages of rules and regulations. Thus, whatever bill is ultimately passed, it will still be a pig in a poke.
