Evidently Senator Gregg Thinks We’re Not Already Overwhelmed With Debt (Video)

June 4, 2009

Republican Senator Judd Gregg from New Hampshire was interviewed this morning by CNBC’s Joe Kernen. The topic of discussion was the cost of government-sponsored health care and the health care bill proposed by President Obama. Naturally, with the cheering on by Kernen that government provided health care is an evil nasty thing, and Senator Gregg being — well — Gregg, you could see immediately where this was going.

Kernen started off with “our future entitlement Medicare bill of $36 trillion — at this point, I’m throwing up my hands, and I’m giving up. But you’ve actually got a system that doesn’t involve Euro-care or nationalized health care”. Senator Gregg responded with “absolutely. The bottom line here, as you pointed out, is we’re headed into a situation where we are just going to overwhelm our nation with debt”.

Many points come to mind about the topic and the interview, but I’ll express just a few. First of all I will say that had the Republican Party been acceptable to anything other than a complete annihilation of Medicare for the past 20 years or so, we could have already hammered out an acceptable plan long before now and not be faced with this white elephant in these desperate times. Second, Gregg must think that the $11 trillion debt we currently have is not overwhelming. I suppose that’s because he knows half of that debt is attributable to his most recent Republican President and his friends down on Wall Street.

Third, I don’t know where Kernen got the $36 trillion from. In 2008 total national health care spending was $2.1 trillion, with a projected cost of $4.3 trillion by 2017, according to the AARP. But the Congressional Budget Office’s report offers slightly different figures. The CBO says that by 2035 our total national health care cost will be 30 percent of our GDP, 40 percent by 2060, and 50 percent by 2082. Our GDP in 2008 is estimated at $14.33 trillion by The World Fact Book. Therefore, by today’s GDP standards we will be spending $4.3 trillion by 2035, $5.7 trillion by 2060, and $7.2 trillion by 2082 on total NATIONAL spending. Federal spending on Medicare and Medicaid accounts for only 4 percent of GDP today ($570 billion), projected at 9 percent in 2035 ($1.3 trillion), and 19 percent in 2082 ($2.7 trillion). So where the hell is Kernen’s $36 trillion coming from?

I suppose if we add the pending Obama health care plan (estimated an additional $125 to $150 billion up-front cost per year for the next 10 years, and have no cost cutting as Obama promises) and, using the CBO’s numbers, extrapolate until we reach $36 trillion per year — well, by somewhere around the year 2260 our cost will be $36 trillion per year at today’s dollars. But maybe Kernen was just simply adding up today’s cost for a specific number of years to get to his number. Or maybe he just picked that number from one of those ‘anti-Democrat-anti-middle-class-anti-lower-class-anti-everything-except-the-elite’ organizations. They generally have the best numbers if you are looking for the outrageous. But to be fair, I imagine the real cost is somewhere between Kernen’s number and the opposition.

Now I’m not saying we don’t need to do something, nor am I insinuating that the $570 billion per year we’re spending today is not too much, because it certainly is too much. I’m simply saying to Kernen, Gregg, and all the others, on both sides, get politics out of the damn thing, use common sense, use realistic figures, regain some credibility, and we will start believing you are serious about not only doing something, but doing the right thing. And somewhere along the line, quite shipping our jobs overseas so people can work, pay taxes, take care of them selves, and not have to rely on the government to supply all their health care needs.

Fourth — and final — if Senator Gregg, or any other Republican for that matter, has a better plan, why have they waiting until now to present it? I can tell you why. Gregg, along with others, knows that the Obama plan, or something close to it, is going to get passed if they do nothing, and he, along with his friends, want to make sure their corporate buddies are well taken care of and that they, the Republicans, score at least a partial victory. But what the hell! If the shoe was on the other foot, the Democrats would be out there grossly over exaggerating everything and claiming to have a better idea.

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