The “self-funding” health care bill (you know, the one that promises to tax your health insurance benefits, tax employers another 8% of their total payroll expenses, and burden the self-employed and contractors with another 2.5% income tax) is going to be nothing less than a modern day miracle. Why, you ask? Because almost half of the money allocated to it will come from savings realized from making Medicare and Medicare more efficient. These savings (which, according to all my sources, cannot be realized if we don’t move forward with this bill) will amount to cutting 7.6% of the combined Medicare and Medicaid budgets.

I’m no business expert (I have only owned one, operated another, and saved two more) but my gut tells me slashing organization-wide operating expenses by more than 7% just doesn’t happen without some very serious shake-ups. It might just be my conservative nature. Then again, I might also be paranoid after Medicare’s Board of Trustees announced in last year’s annual report that its hospital trust fund would be bankrupt in 2017. I might be a bit cynical since Medicare is rather notorious for price fixing and then paying doctors and hospitals only a fraction of what a procedure is worth. I might be slightly confused by the fact that Medicaid’s budget isn’t exactly a federal program and that states are forced to share in the burden of it’s budgeting.

Okay, so I’m more than a little confused. Follow me on this and maybe someone will be able to help clear this up. Medicare and Medicaid costs are spiraling out of control. The budget can’t keep up with those costs. The programs, today, pay far less money for services received than the free market would normally dictate. The federal government doesn’t control even half of the Medicaid budget.

… but we’re going to cut 7.6% of the budget for those programs in “savings.”

I don’t get it. I honestly don’t. I can’t understand it. If I understood what you were proposing to me, I would shut up. If you could point to the programs and say, “Okay, this is going. This we’re going to stop offering to people making X amount a year. We’re going to retire these planes from service. We’re going to move everyone to a new office. We’re going to cut payments for Y. We’re going to…”

See, if you could say that, I’d get it. I would be able to say, “somewhere there’s a plan for all of this.” But I can’t, because there isn’t a plan on God’s green earth that could possibly make the budget fairies come down from the moon and make those numbers work. I went looking for it in the text of the bill, only to find this. It’s an exact quote from the House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s (they’re the ones who’ve authored HR3200) website. According to them, HR3200:

Expands Medicaid. Individuals and families with incomes at or below 133 percent of the federal poverty level will be eligible for an expanded and improved Medicaid program. Recognizing the budget challenges in many states, this expansion will be fully federally financed. To improve provider participation in this vital safety net – particularly for low‐income children, individuals with disabilities and people with mental illnesses – reimbursement rates for primary care services will be increased with new federal funding.

Improves Medicare. Senior citizens and people with disabilities will benefit from provisions that fill the donut hole over time in the Part D drug program, eliminate cost-sharing for preventive services, improve the low-income subsidy programs in Medicare, fix physician payments, and make other program improvements. The bill will also address future fiscal challenges by improving payment accuracy, encouraging delivery system reforms and extending solvency of the Medicare Trust Fund.

It boggles the mind. Democrats are telling us that they’re going to secure almost $450 billion by defunding Medicare and Medicaid while federally financing an expanded Medicare that covers more people, increases the amounts paid for services, increases subsides to low income earners, and pouring more money into the Medicare trust fund.

It. Won’t. Happen.

There is just no way. That logic is absolutely insane. The people who push it are either liars, retarded, or complete whack jobs. It should be painfully obvious to everyone that their plan won’t work. You don’t save money by spending money. The world just doesn’t work that way.

Here is my challenge to the people who claim HR3200 will be self-funding: Assuming the bill only costs $900 billion, itemize the various plans you have for funding the project and outline exactly how this bill will be paid for. For extra credit, explain to me why these cost-saving measures can only be made by passing HR3200 or why you’ve decided to squander tax payer dollars by ignoring these fixes until now.