WASHINGTON   –  “Planning for the future is always difficult.  It requires us to give up things today in order to make sure tomorrow is a better day. 

Missouri families sacrifice for their future all the time, even when it is painful to do so.  It might mean a shorter vacation closer to home, but the tradeoff is a little more money in the college fund.  It might mean preparing a family dinner at home or taking a brown bag lunch, but the tradeoff is a rainy day fund that can be tapped in emergencies for medical expenses or home repairs.

Government has the toughest time with planning for the future, and it is an attitude that must change in order to preserve the prosperity of our nation.

The health care plan that passed through Congress is a sobering example of how bad government is at planning for our future.

Though there are good things in the law, like the elimination of pre-existing conditions for health insurance and preemption of some state restriction on the offering of insurance.  But these provisions were not controversial – it was, in a word, the poor planning and lack of accountability that caused such concern among Democrats and Republicans opposed to the bill.

Most obvious, the bill ignores basic principles of financial accounting.  There are ten years of taxes, fees, cuts and surcharges in the bill, but there are only six years of new programs and expansions to insurance access.  The imbalance between new spending and new revenues gets worse as time goes on, leading to bigger deficits and deeper debt.  Even worse, the bill depends on future Congresses and Presidents to make more cuts to federal programs in order to continue paying for the health care law, which they surely will not enact.

Also important is the unintended consequence of the bill for employers large and small throughout the nation.  Even government doesn’t have an informed sense of how the health care law will affect U.S. businesses.  But every employer with a payroll greater than $500,000 or with more than 50 employees will be forced to provide mandatory coverage or pay a fine.  How many small American businesses will add that 51st employee that will trigger those requirements?

Employees, now subject to a health insurance mandate, will find that working at a company small or large will pose new costs and challenges.  Those lucky enough to have Medical Savings Accounts will find, for example, that minor medical expenses like pain relievers, bandages and contact lens solution are now taxable distributions from those savings plans.  The agency responsible for enforcing all of this?  The Internal Revenue Service, which is ill-equipped and ill-suited to become the federal policeman for the health care law.

And, finally, states will be forced to cope with new regulations that not only compel them to provide Medicaid coverage to three, four or five times as many individuals as they do today, but also to guarantee that they receive medical care when they want it.  Health care on demand is a new requirement that states will undoubtedly have trouble meeting, with 16 million people joining the Medicaid rolls.

Americans excited that government is providing health care services it has never offered before should also stop to consider the way in which government is paying for all of this... well, government is not paying for it, of course, we all are.”