If You Build It...

I just watched the Nancy Pelosi weekly press conference (have I mentioned that I love working from home)and healthcare was addressed. The congress is looking mainly for a government run option which would follow their pattern of spending as much money as they can as fast as they can.

When asked about the cost of the public option that the majority support, Pelosi indicated that the Congressional Budget Office has not factored in the savings from prevention and early intervention, and that they need to look for every bit of savings they can find. Savings, savings, savings, is what she said. But that savings would be very difficult to calculate. Should we base the savings on the assumption that if you build it they will come? There are many people, like me, who just don't go to the doctor regularly. And I have preventative care as part of my insurance. How then can we calculate the cost of the savings when we don't know how many people would actually use their new preventative benefit? History has already shown us that their estimates on the costs of their programs is usually way off, and this could be why. If they are going to count on savings that won't actually ever come to pass, we should be concerned.

My other concern is their insistence that a bill, any bill, must be passed this summer. This continues their trend of being more concerned with doing something fast than doing it right. Look at how that worked out with the stimulus package. We had to pass it without reading it so the money could get into the system immediately. And 4 months later only 10% of the money has been spent. Shouldn't we instead take the time to ensure that a program which will impact the country for decades, if not forever, is the best possible bill that it can be? Shouldn't they be looking for a plan that delivers the best solution for the lowest cost instead of trying to cook the books to make the plan they want more palatable to the people? Shouldn't this fall under the old cliche of "if it's worth doing it's worth doing right"?

I am very concerned with the way Congress is spending our money. It appears, to me at least, that they are using our money to fund the growth of the government instead of the growth of the economy. And should we burden an already struggling economy with another $1 trillion in debt?

Delay is preferable to error. - Thomas Jefferson