There are so many things wrong with the ObamaCare socialized medicine bills being pushed in Congress — most notably the trillion-dollar-plus cost — that many of the serious inequities are not getting sufficient immediate attention.
But some of them are quite obvious. For example: The unequal treatment given some states to get the needed “60th vote” will leave other states obviously, and painfully, shortchanged.
You may have noticed the ObamaCare deal to “buy” the vote of Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska. It is called the “Cornhusker kickback.” The federal government offers to pick up the cost of expanding Medicaid in Nebraska.
Maybe you also have noticed the $300 million deal favoring Louisiana’s Medicaid program.
But contrast the favors for Nebraska, Louisiana and some other states with the very bad and costly effects ObamaCare would have on Tennessee.
Gov. Phil Bredesen said the Senate version of the bill would cost Tennessee’s TennCare program at least $750 million from 2014 to 2019 — while the House of Representatives version would cost Tennessee $1.4 billion! Who’ll pay?
Does that suggest there is “equal justice under the law” as the Obama administration seeks to ram through its terribly bad and terribly expensive health plan?
Gov. Bredesen also noted that ObamaCare would add 200,000 to 300,000 new enrollees. “If it (the cost) grows 6 or 7 percent a year,” Tennessee’s governor said, “there’s no source of revenue for the states that can remotely track that over time.
“I just think there’s too much need for the administration to have a victory and not get beaten on this one to not have it happen in some fashion,” Gov. Bredesen said.
There are “fair warnings” of the disastrous economic dangers and inequities in ObamaCare. But the pressure is on for Congress to enact this tremendous mistake quickly, and for us all to suffer later.