Obama's Smoke and Mirrors Health Care Financing

During ABC News' forum on President Obama's health care plans, a program called Prescription for America, Obama summarized his ambitions towards health care reform as "Build on what works, fix what's broken, and still save substantial money."

Fine and reasonable-sounding goals.

However, as he discussed financing his plans throughout the evening, the reasonableness started to fade quickly from what he was saying. In short, Obama believes he can finance the $1.6 billion to $3 billion estimated price tag by:

• capping tax deductions on charitable deductions for people making over $250,000
• "reallocating existing health care dollars that are not money that is not being spent wisely."
• incorporating anticipated savings from changing the way health care is managed(such as "paying for quality instead of quantity and making sure we are investing in prevention").

Using these three methods, he assures us, will allow him to cover the alleged 46 million uninsured people. Color me skeptical.

The amount of money from capping tax deductions is unquantifiable. No one can predict the affect that changing the tax deduction for charitable deductions will affect the amount people donate. We know historically that charitable deductions are greatly affected by the economy. Why would one assume that changing tax deductability will not reduce the amount donated and, thus, the amount of taxes that can be put towards health care (not to mention the severe disconnect between charitable giving and health care funding). If revenue targets are not met, what next? Does he continue to lower the thresholds until revenue is satisfied or all charitable deductions are eliminated?

Next, Obama discussed this amorphous reallocation of unwisely spent funds without discussing now much this represents. He repeatedly mentioned that "all the experts" agree that 30% of health care spending is not being spent "wisely." Here again is a classic Obama trick -- what is "wisely" and who will determine which funds can be "reallocated" and to where.

And, of course, is the ridiculous notion of counting upon estimated future savings to pay for current programs. It is pure common sense that one should not include speculative future savings in the current budget. It is such a common sense measure that the politically independent Congressional Budget Office, whose entire function is to evaluate the costs of government programs, is not allowed to consider future savings.

Obama assured us that "only 2-3 % (of taxpayers) would see tax increase" in order to fund his health care initiatives.

If you believe that, I have a health insurance bridge plan to sell you.