As the health care debate continues to boil in Congress, lawmakers desperate to force through this unprecedented legislation have tried to rush to passage. Getting something – anything – in place before the tide of public opposition makes its way to the voting booth is now the priority.

In only the past few months, polling has shown a steady downward trend of support for government-run health care. In an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal last week, Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute showed just how prevalent public opposition has become. Pointing to a recent Gallup poll, the percentage of Americans who believe the cost of health care for their families will "get worse" under the proposed reforms rose to 49% from 42% in just the past month alone. A September study, also by Gallup, found that 57% believe the government is "doing too much" when asked if there is “too much, too little, or about the right amount of government regulation of business and industry”—the highest percentage in more than a decade. Just 38% said it "should do more."

Liberals look back to the first great expansion of government programs under FDR with regret that they did not go further. At the time, President Roosevelt decided that, even with an overwhelming majority in both houses of Congress, adding national health care to the New Deal would stymie the ability to get future programs in place. Many on the left look back to this decision and say “he had the chance, he had the majority, he should have forced the legislation through.” Ever since then, health care has come and gone and come back again as the political pendulum swings back. But each time it has failed in a key area: public support.

The public outcry over the latest expansion of government intervention has fallen on deaf ears in Congress thus far. Policymakers in Washington have chosen to decide what is best for the American people according to their own perception of the public good. The support of their constituents is good when it favors their initiatives, ignorant or even “evil-mongering” when it does not.

For more on the political agenda behind government-run healthcare, see Fred Barnes’ column this week in The Weekly Standard.

Write to Thomas.Doheny@afphq.org

Yesterday, a federal panel decided that self-exams and some mammograms are no longer necessary for women in their forties and should only be administered every other year for those in their fifties and sixties. Despite being said to reduce cancer deaths by about 15% in women ages 39-59, the federal panel based their decision to change the guidelines because they concluded too much money was spent on “unnecessary tests.”

Sound familiar? That’s probably because it’s the same rationale for many of the decisions made by the government rationing boards in Britain and Canada.

And the results speak for themselves. Where mammograms are used much more infrequently than the U.S., breast cancer mortality rates are 9 percent higher in Canada and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom!

Is this what we are to expect once we have government-run health care as well?

A few things we know for sure:

• Medicaid is quickly heading toward insolvency and threatening to bring many state budgets down with it.
• Current health care legislation in both the House and the Senate seek to expand the defunct Medicaid program to millions more by raising the eligibility levels by as much as 50% (150% of FPL in the House bill and the Senate HELP bill and 133% in the Senate Finance proposal)
• To finance the expanded coverage, proposals seek $500 billion in Medicare cuts to help pay for it.

In perhaps the most damning report yet on the recent House health care bill, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services – the government agency charged with administering both programs – released a significant report over the weekend analyzing H.R. 3962. The report brought some harsh fiscal reality back to the health care debate.

Cutting $500 billion from Medicare would likely prove so costly to hospitals and nursing homes that they could stop accepting Medicare altogether. In an attempt to expand insurance coverage to millions, the Pelosi plan limits options for many seniors.

Of course, Congress could and likely would intervene to prevent such rationing but the effect would be to virtually nullify any savings obtained from the Medicare cuts. Under an Administration that has already spent more in 9 months than President Clinton did in his entire 8 years in office, such a proposal should be roundly rejected for adding billions more to the deficit and failing to put patients first by all but guaranteeing rationed care for seniors and the poor.

This is not real reform. It will leave patients, doctors and taxpayers all worse off. It’s time to push the restart button and do reform right rather than fast.

The U.S. Government is spending money at an unprecedented rate. According to Louis Crandall, chief economist at Wrightson ICAP, it burns money at an average of over $100 billion per month. That's far more than government revenue and so the Treasury is forced to turn to the debt market. Fiscal year 2009 saw the government rack up an astounding $1.4 trillion in additional debt, while the Treasury Department is openly predicting $1.5 to $2.0 trillion in debt for fiscal year 2010, which started in October. That means your share of debt could expand by as much as $11,000 is just two years!

Fortunately there are legal limits to the amount of debt the U.S. Government can hold, currently set at $12.1 trillion. Unfortunately that limit is easily and regularly increased by Congress at the request of the Administration. According to reporting by Bloomberg, the Obama White House is preparing to ask Congress for a $1 to $1.5 trillion increase of the debt ceiling by the end of the year.

This out-of-control spending and borrowing is the result of misguided fear in the face of the financial crisis and blatant attempts by the Administration to control large chunks of the economy. The proposed healthcare and cap-and-trade bills will increase that control and speed up the rate of spending and size of our already massive debt. These bills not only restrict our immediate liberty to act in a free economy for our prosperity, they also place a larger and larger claim on our future earnings and the earnings of our children. We can't afford to let Congress and the Administration spend away our future. We need to tell Congress to not increase the debt ceiling.

Carl Oberg is a Policy Associate at Americans for Prosperity.

The free-market grassroots group Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is taking its nationwide Hot Air Tour to former Vice President Al Gore in Portland on Wednesday, November 18, to expose the extreme economic costs of cap-and trade-legislation to the American taxpayer.

“This cap-and-trade scheme is nothing more than a tax on energy—plain and simple,” said AFP President Tim Phillips. “Al Gore’s climate ‘solutions’ seek to further regulate our lives and burden the American taxpayer. Oregonians deserve to know the truth behind these proposals that may work their way into legislation.”

AFP’s Hot Air Tour has the goal of building grassroots pressure against costly state, local, and federal climate change policies. AFP has pledged to mobilize citizens in order to fight off any attempts to pass a cap-and-trade regulatory scheme.

In the summer of 2008, AFP flew its 70-foot-tall hot air balloon over Al Gore’s house outside of Nashville, Tennessee to expose the hysteria behind global warming alarmism. On Wednesday, November 18, AFP will take on Al Gore once again at Keller Fountain Park—this time to expose the economic dangers of cap-and-trade legislation.

Attendees will have the chance to listen to Americans for Prosperity President Tim Phillips and sign a petition urging their members of Congress to vote “no” on cap-and-trade.

The event is free and open to the public.

What: Portland Hot Air Tour Event
Who: Americans for Prosperity
Tim Phillips, President of AFP
When: Wednesday, November 18, 5:30pm
Where: Keller Fountain Park
SW 3rd Ave. and SW Clay St.
Portland, OR 97201

For more information about the Hot Air Tour, including a full schedule of events, please visit http://www.hotairtour.org

Media Contact: Mary Ellen Burke (202) 309-1129