WSJ Opines about Healthcare Reform as Income Redistribution and Ignores Corporate Welfare

[steven johnson]

I think a little fact checking is in order regarding this little screed in the WSJ:

1. The average healthcare subsidy by each family for the uninsured is $1000 per year and for underfunding the real cost of Medicare patients, $1500 per year.
2. Insurance companies already have the healthier patients subsidizing the sicker patients.
3. There is a small business subsidy built into the Baucus plan. Businesses with the fewest workers and the lowest wages would be offered a new tax credit to purchase health insurance for their employees. The subsidy is up to 35% of the business’s contribution.
4. Businesses regularly fire workers with healthcare problems or even if they get to a certain age on the pretext of reorganization. They have to go on the public dole after the businesses have squeezed what they can out of them.
5. Corporate welfare in 2007 in this country costs $92 billion per year, $800 per household per year. Now here's real income redistribution. And this doesn't even cover the $1 trillion that TARP and other bank bailouts are costing.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/handbook/hb111/hb111-26.pdf

So I find it a little disingenuous that these conservative shills would look at 'cadillac welfare queens' and not look at 'rolls royce banking welfare kings'.

According to Cato Institute estimates, the federal government now spends roughly $60 billion each year on more than 100 programs that provide taxpayer assistance to American businesses. Terminating those programs today could save taxpayers more than $300 billion over the next five years.

Agricultural Credit Insurance Fund (1997 appropriation: $355.3 million)
Agricultural Marketing Service (1997 appropriation: $50.3 million).
Agricultural Research Service (1997 appropriation: $785.9 million
Commodity Credit Corporation Export Loans program (1997 appropriation: $393.8 million).
Commodity Production Flexibility Contracts (replaces price support programs) (1997 appropriation: $5,385.0 million).
Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (1997 appropriation: $908.6 million).
Economic Research Service (1997 appropriation: $53.1 million).
Export Enhancement Program (1997 appropriation: $350.0 million).
Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (1997 appropriation: $1,591.0 million).
Foreign Agricultural Service (1997 appropriation: $135.6 million).
National Agricultural Statistics Service (1997 appropriation: $100.2 million). USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service collects and publishes the official data on agricultural crops and livestock (acreage, yield, production, etc.) used in the computation of farm program payments. This program should be terminated along with the programs that provide those payments.
Public Law 480 (1997 appropriation: $1,067.8 million). providing subsidized loans to purchasers of those goods in developing countries.
Rural Business-Cooperative Service (1997 appropriation: $104.8 million).
Rural Utilities Service (1997 appropriation: $680.9 million).
Advanced Technology Program (1997 appropriation: $225.0 million).Economic Development Administration (1997 appropriation: $373.5 million). The Economic Development Administration seeks to improve distressed economies by providing grants and loans to state and local governments, nonprofit organizations, and private businesses in areas with high and persistent unemployment. EDA's activities include technical assistance grants, which provide technology transfer assistance to private firms, and development grants, which fund the construction and improvement of infrastructure for the development and expansion of private industrial parks and ports. EDA also funds the trade adjustment assistance program that doles out grants to assist private firms and industries that are deemed to have been adversely affected by increased imports.
International Trade Administration (1997 appropriation: $270.0 million).Manufacturing Extension Partnership (1997 appropriation: $95.0 million).
Minority Business Development Agency (1997 appropriation: $28.0 million).
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: nonweather activities (1997 appropriation: $1,281.0 million).
Army Corps of Engineers (1997 appropriation: $3,503.2 million).
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA): applied R&D programs (1997 appropriation: $1,111.0 million).
Clean Coal Technology Program (1997 appropriation: $12 million).
Energy Conservation programs (1997 appropriation: $569.8 million).
Energy Information Administration (1997 appropriation: $66.1 million).
Energy Supply Research & Development (1997 appropriation: $2,710.9 million).
Fossil Energy Research & Development (1997 appropriation: $364.7 million).
General Science and Research activities (1997 appropriation: $996.0 million).Power Marketing Administrations (1997 appropriation: $240.1 million).
Uranium Supply and Enrichment activities (1997 appropriation: $60.5 million)..
Commercial Space Transportation Office (1997 appropriation: $6.0 million).
Payments to Air Carriers program (1997 appropriation: $25.9 million).
Federal Highway Administration: demonstration projects (1997 appropriation: $800.0 million).
Grants-in-Aid for Airports (1997 appropriation: $1,460.0 million).
Maritime Administration: Operating-Differential Subsidies (1997 appropriation: $148.4 million). Maritime Administration: Guaranteed Loan Program (1997 appropriation: $40.9 million). The Maritime Administration's Guaranteed Loan program provides guaranteed loans for purchasers of ships from the U.S. shipbuilding industry and for modernization of U.S. shipyards.
Maritime Security Program (1997 appropriation: $54.0 million).
Appalachian Regional Commission (1997 appropriation: $160.0 million).
Bureau of Reclamation (Interior Department) (1997 appropriation: $775.3 million).

Federal Housing Administration (FHA) (1997 appropriation: $643.1 million).
Export-Import Bank (1997 appropriation: $772.6 million).
NASA Aeronautical Research and Technology activities (1997 appropriation: $888.0 million).
National Institutes of Health: applied biomedical research (1997 appropriation: $4,287.7 million).
National Science Foundation: High Performance Computing and Communications program (1997 appropriation: $290.0 million).
Overseas Private Investment Corporation (1997 appropriation: $104.0 million).
Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (1997 appropriation: $240.0 million). Small Business Administration (1997 appropriation: $852.3 million).
Tennessee Valley Authority (1997 appropriation: $106.0 million).
Trade and Development Agency (1997 appropriation: $40.0 million).

While many Americans are upset by ObamaCare’s $1 trillion price tag, Congress is contemplating other changes with little analysis or debate. These changes would create a massively unfair form of income redistribution and create incentives for many not to buy health insurance at all.

But the combination of a guaranteed issue, community rating and an individual mandate means that younger, healthier, lower-income earners would be forced to subsidize older, sicker, higher-income earners. And because these subsidies are buried within health-insurance premiums, the massive income redistribution is hidden from public view and not debated.

If Congress goes down this road, health insurance premiums will increase dramatically for the overwhelming majority of people. Even if Congress mandates that everyone have health insurance, many will choose to go without and pay the tax penalty. If you think people are dissatisfied with health care now, wait until they understand that Congress voted to mandate hidden premium increases and lower wages.



Health 'Reform' Is Income Redistribution

[Tutankhamun]

1. No sane, well-informed person would take WSJ seriously anymore.

As a Murdoch-owned publication, it's on par with Murdoch's NY Post, or his Fox News Channel. WSJ is now just a propaganda outlet, a mouthpiece for Murdoch's failed ideologies.

[Enthusiast]

3. The WSJ has zero credibility.

But you can just bet the host of C-Span's Washington Journal will be reading highlighted selections from this very article this morning. They do it every day.

[Blue_Tires]

5. well the WSJ op-ed page was that LONG before Murdoch came along...

[regnaD kciN]

2. Remember their article about the "lucky duckies" who had incomes too low to be taxable...?

And, remember, that was before Murdoch bought the joint!

[marmar]

4. The WSJ editorial page is an absolute cesspool.

It's not even worthy of being tomorrow's toilet paper.

[Uncle Joe]

6. It is if you first bleach the ink out and then soften it up with Aloe Vera, try

letting it soak for 18 hours.

I have found that using the Op-ed Page to be the most satisfying.

[marmar]

7. Teehee......

:)