Let’s Count the Lies in Former Sen. Phil Gramm’s Op/Ed in the WSJ on Health Care

Okay, But Not Sure We Can Count That High

One of the questions we frequently get is why is it that conservatives lie so much.  The answer of course is that the truth, that facts have a built in liberal bias.  Take away lying from the so called conservatives and they are left with, well nothing.

So it was not unexpected that former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm told a bunch of whoppers in his column in the WSJ on health care.  No we can’t name all of them, not enough time and space, but here are some highlights.

So powerful is the political appeal of entitlement programs that modern democracies routinely choose bankruptcy over curtailing them.

Uh, no modern democracy has gone bankrupt over entitlement policies.  A couple like Greece have gone bankrupt over lack of regulation of the financial sector and an ill advised decision to adopt the Euro.  And of course no entitlement program will even be a miniscule threat to the financial well being of the United States.

First, subsidies are a poor substitute for economic growth, even in providing health insurance.

Well yeah, if the economic growth accrued to people other than the top 5% of wealth and income.

Second, the exorbitant cost of ObamaCare shows how inefficient government subsidies are in helping people meet even basic needs.

Gosh, well let’s see.  Gramm says the cost was $67 billion.  Wow, about 1.5% of federal spending, and way less than 1% of GDP.  Even with a Ph. D. maybe Gramm doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘exorbitant’.

By allowing people to buy subsidized health insurance after being diagnosed with a major illness, ObamaCare encourages them to delay buying insurance until they are sick.

Uh, ObamaCare required people to buy health insurance so that did not happen.  But then actually understanding and knowing what one is writing about is not really a conservative characteristic is it?  And like all good hacks, Mr. Gramm later contradicts his own point about getting healthy people into the system, like this.

ObamaCare could never have survived without forcing many more healthy Americans into the system to subsidize those benefiting from the program.

And here’s a whopper for you, and not the Burger King kind.

These entitlement expansions come at a time when Medicare faces insolvency in 11 years and Social Security in 17 years.

No, they will not be insolvent.  They will still be able to pay most of the benefits with no change in the law unless of course zero people are employed.  And even if that were the case the part of Medicare that is not payroll tax funded will have the ability to pay full benefits.  But a good lie dies hard doesn’t it.

So what does Mr. Gramm want to do?  Well he wants to change the program so that beneficiaries pay a lot more, blame that on the Democrats even though it is Republican plan, and then turn everyone over to insurance with low premiums and no benefits.

As beneficiaries pay an ever increasing share of the cost of the benefits they receive, support for ObamaCare will plummet and Democrats will have a strong incentive to negotiate a replacement. 

One final note.  Mr. Gramm has been a faculty member of a state university and a government employee.  He has had government subsidized health care almost all of his adult life.  He’s fine with that, he just don’t won’t anyone else to have that.  A true Conservative with a capital C minus.