Healthcare By the Numbers
Springtime is finally starting to arrive in Missouri. We are now about a week away from the opening of a new baseball season.
Baseball is the national pastime, a tradition handed down from one generation to the next. Nowadays you can catch just about any game on television. However, before national sports networks, a lot of folks simply followed their favorite team on the radio or through the box score in the paper. Sometimes the numbers tell you everything you need to know.
Here are some of the numbers I found interesting from the healthcare reform bill that was signed into law by the President.
It increases taxes by $569.2 billion over 10 years. These taxes will fall on small businesses and middle class families. The bill also cuts $528.5 billion from Medicare, which will reduce benefits and raise premiums on seniors. These cuts are not being used to reduce the deficit, but to create a new entitlement program.
The bill uses 10 years of revenue to pay for six years of benefits. This trick allows its supporters to claim the bill saves the federal government money. When the bill is fully phased in, it will be yet another ongoing liability that taxpayers will be forced to fund.
Finally, the bill is estimated to create 15,000 new IRS agents to ensure that Americans are complying with the new mandate to buy health insurance.
It is easy to tell from those numbers that the losers in this legislation are the American taxpayers.
Sincerely,
Sam Graves