Another shining example of Obama “efficiency”
There is no such thing as a temporary entitlement.
There is no such thing as a temporary entitlement that ever costs less than the government estimates.
To wit: Here is yet another shining example of Obama “efficiency” that tells you all you need to know about Obamacare projections and promises:
When Congress passed an $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers last winter, it was intended as a dose of shock therapy during a crisis. Now the question is becoming whether the housing market can function without it.
As many as 40 percent of all home buyers this year will qualify for the credit. It is on track to cost the government $15 billion, more than twice the amount that was projected when Congress passed the stimulus bill in February.
In the view of the real estate industry and some economists, all that money is well spent. They contend the credit is doing what it was meant to do, encouraging a recovery in the housing market that is gathering steam. Analysts say the credit is directly responsible for several hundred thousand home sales.
Skeptics argue that most of the money is going to people who would have bought a home anyway. And they contend that unless it is allowed to expire on schedule in late November, the tax credit is likely to become one more expensive government program that refuses to die.
And speaking of massively expensive government programs that will inevitably become more expensive:
It’s out.
The much-ballyhooed, long-wrangled-over Baucus health care proposal (PDF), which has largely become President Obama’s blueprint for remaking an industry that accounts for about one-sixth of the American economy, is now public. Only to be wrangled over some more.
The proposal is the result of more than a year of preparation and more than three months of intense negotiations between a small group of Democrats and Republicans led by Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, the chairman of the Finance Committee.
The first surprise in the Baucus plan: a slimmed down price-tag of $856 billion over 10 years. Earlier versions of the health care legislation had come in costing $1 trillion or more. But stay tuned for a close look at the fine print; Congressional budget-scoring is often as much art as science.
Another number to watch: 13 percent. That’s the share of family income that the Baucus plan envisions middle-class American families having to pay in health insurance premiums before co-payments, deductibles and other cost-sharing.
Via ABC: Democrat Sen. Rockefeller warns of “big, big tax” to pay for Obamacare…
http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/09/dem-senator-warns-of-big-big-tax-on-middle-class-in-baucus-bill.html
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If any of the Libtards in America think for one second that taxes across the board are not going to go through the roof, they are Libtards.
Is this one better fact checked than your last example?
You know, the one where you cited an article claiming that over half the amount of money for cash for clunkers went to admin costs when in actuality it looks to be around 3%?
Is this 8K entitlement administered by ACORN?
Don’t be an ass Chap. BTW, where’s your source for the 3%?
Yep, Gov programs are difficult to kill. Though the V-22 program has been axed, so take heart, a precedent has been set. Maybe this will get the phone tax, enacted to fund the Spanish American War, removed. LOL.
chap, where in the constitution does it say that the government needs to take my money and give 8,000 dollars of it to help someone buy a new house?
If 8,000 is so good, why stop there? Why not give everyone 100,000 dollars for a house? Heck, make everyone a millionaire.
Every other source out there, including the DOT which had 3 billion appropriated and has about 2.877 billion in rebates and had said that admin would be about $100 million. And if anyone who read the original article cited had stopped and think about the numbers for a minute, they would have came up with the same figure (as many other posters did).
If you really want to have an excuse for throwing a shoe through your tv screen, go to the local Library and see if you can get a older copy of Matt Leskos book. Thumb through it and the amount of spending on just plain crap is astounding. I looked through a copy I found and was flabbergasted.
Where in my post did I say that it did?
ThackerAgency said:
Hell, why not give everyone in America enough money to pay off their mortgage using the Stim Bill cash.
3% for a month long program isn’t bad is it Chap!
Per MSNBC:
LINK
Per NY Times:
LINK
The administrative costs to run this government handout doubled from $50 million to $100 million.
Scary to think what Obamacare will really cost us.
“When Congress passed an $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers”
“As many as 40 percent of all home buyers this year will qualify for the credit. It is on track to cost the government $15 billion, more than twice the amount that was projected”
Wow! What a deal.
A Clunker vehicle at 15 mpg and 12,000 miles per year uses 800 gallons a year of gasoline.
A better mileage vehicle at 25 mpg and 12,000 miles per year uses 480 gallons a year.
So, the average clunker transaction will reduce US gasoline consumption by 320 gallons per year.
They claim 700,000 clunker vehicles – so that’s 224 million gallons / year.
That equates to a bit over 5 million barrels of oil.
5 million barrels of oil is about ¼ of one day’s US consumption..
And, 5 million barrels of oil costs about $350 million dollars at $75/bbl.
So, we all contributed to spending $3 billion to save $350 million.
How good a deal was that ???
They’ll probably do a great job with health care though!!
BobK said:
Makes the Watermelons wriggle with self righteous delight don’t you know.
The $50 million figure for admin was when the program was going to be 1 billion. Obviously when they expanded it to $3 billion, the admin costs went up, but actually became more efficient if measured as a percentage.
Quote:
If they just take 800 billion and divy it up to all the households (legal residents only please) in America, charge the current income tax rates, and the economy will pick up in a big hurry. They’ll get some of it back and the states will get some of it in the form of income and sales taxes.
And a one time program to boot.
That would be stimulus I could believe in.
Can you explain why a time frame is relevant when we are talking about a percentage?
Forget the misdirection about admin costs for Cash for Clunkers, look instead at the 13 percent cap on your family income that the government wants to take to pay for this monstrosity. And that’s before deductions, before co-pay, before you get off square one. Rockefeller is right — its a HUGE middle-class tax hike, if passed. And that STILL wouldn’t raise the $800B needed; so it is NOT deficit-neutral, in any stretch of the imagination. It would also KILL JOBS because of the tax on small business. Frankly, we could spend less money if we just picked up the health care costs of those presently uninsured, but not of their own choosing. This stinks. As far as I’m concerned, real reform is impossible with Democrats at the helm. All they want to do is takeover the economy and control of you, the individual. It’s the Nanny State they want.
Why not pay for universal food coverage. In order to be healthy, don’t we need to eat? Everyone deserves to eat a good, healthy, meat-laden, meal don’t they? We have a right to good food at little or no cost.
Isn’t that called “Food Stamps”?
As long as we’ve hijacked this thread to be back discussing “cash for clunkers”, let me suggest that doing the wrong thing efficiently is still the wrong thing. Chap seems to be defending doing the wrong thing by claiming they did it more efficiently than some have claimed.
It doesn’t matter if it’s 1% or 10% that went to administrative – it’s still 100% the wrong thing.
Food Stamps? That’s not universal. Using your logic, why healthcare reform? We have Medicare and Medicaid.
This is uncharacteristic of you.
I look at it this way – I have a car, one tire constantly leaks so instead of fixing the freaking tire, I go out and trade it in for a new car – This is how This Clown Car of an administration approaches everything -
No. I am defending fact checking and a little common sense. Note that, at least in this and the C4C program posts, she was not arguing the merits of the program. The point of those specific MM’s posts was…”efficiency!” Or supposed lack thereof, in government programs. So tell me again how her claiming admin costs being 16 times what they actually were is not relevant?
chap – I’ll grant you that the first story wasn’t accurate. I do ask though – can you name a necessary (as in NEEDED) program that the government does efficiently?
Do you consider Medicare necessary?
chap,
Are you saying that Medicare is efficient? I thought the Obama administration was going to fund this “deficit neutral” plan by eliminating waste and fraud in Medicare?
If it is already efficient, then there is no waste and fraud.
I am saying that, while hard to knock down an exact figure, Medicare is administered at least as efficiently as private health insurance plans, if not significantly better. In the original C4C thread, I link to a few studies.
Yet ANOTHER you have got to be sh_tin me moment.
HAHHAHAHHA
Thanks for the laugh Chap!
Um….5% overhead for a $1 billion as opposed to about 3.3% for a 3 billion program? You don’t consider that more efficient?
I hope thats a joke chap. The original time frame was 3 months. So if you ask me the cost went up by a factor of 6!
I’ll give you the fact they had to process twice as many claims. So they were only off by a minimum of 300%!
If Rockefeller says taxes on the middle class will go up under ObamaCare, trust him – the man knows a tax hike when he smells one. Living as close to WV as we do, I can say that as Gov. Rockefeller raised taxes on that state’s citizens to burdensome levels and left them little to show for it. (I-64 between KY and WV is treacherous and nearly everything is sales taxed beyond reason!)
As for the C4C program, the opportunity costs associated with it may have worked out fine for the gov but not the dealers who still have to meet their payrolls and floor plan terms and keep their mortgages current with less cash due to the gov’s delay in making good on all the C4C discounts.
There are only two possible options here.
1. Medicare is at least as efficient as private plans, therefore and Obama is lying about Obamacare being deficit neutral.
2. Medicare is not as efficient as private plans and the claims are bogus.
BTW…I thought the original bill was for 2.2 billion?
I think it would have been more efficient for all of us if the gov had stayed at 5% or even 6% overhead costs and kept the other two billion.
Your math makes zero sense. And you don’t even get your base numbers right. C4C lasted almost 2 months. They have to process 3 times as many claims and do it on only twice the money. How is the time frame in which those claims were made in any way shape or form more relevant to administration costs than the total number of claims.
Still laughing Chap!
John,
1) Just because it is more efficient than private insurance does not mean it is perfectly efficient;
2) who says the waste and fraud is wrapped up in the administration costs?
No. One billion original and then an additional two billion at the beginning of August.
In theory, if we cut expenses enough, we don’t actually have to have an income to make a profit.
So then administrative costs will rise to recover the fraud and waste.
Why aren’t they trying to find fraud and waste now? Why do we have to get Obamacare to get this accomplished?
Chap. How efficient is C4C when the Ford dealer here would not honor it. Toyota and Honda scored big. The plan was to get people to buy AMERICAN made efficient autos. The plan did the opposite. Failure of epic proportions but we get to foot yet another tax increase. In my book, the cost to administer a plan just adds to the failure.
What percent of Obamacare will go to pay for people in this country who are here illegally? Middle America is already burdened with high taxes and now we can expect to wait out another 13% of our income before we see benefits while illegal’s get a pass? What percent will go to abortion providers? Now, factor in the tax increase to the 13% of our income we will have to wait out and give me an idea about how efficient this plan really is.
Or, do we just treat it like socialist security and take the money out and replace it with IOU’s? Then it becomes really efficient does it not?
Not sure what that has to do with administrative costs.
Where did you get this idea?
The bill says none.
Did you know that in 37 states, the average premium already takes up 16% or more of your income? In only 3 states were premiums below 14%.
According to the bill, none.
If I can’t have tax reform, I’ll take tax credits any day.
Now you’re putting us on – the whole plan came about as a means of salvaging the AMERICAN auto industry and you know it. I mean, it was in all the papers!
I’d have a hard time defending Medicare as necessary.
Tell me why you think it’s good to ask the people on your street to pay your medical bills just because you are not 70 years old. The cost is being paid by somebody – whether that is you and me or your neighbors. It’s still being paid.
People don’t have the guts to come ask me to my face for help with their medical bills so they ask the government to take it from me against my will.
Forget about cash for clunkers…. There’s up to $5300 in tax credits for golf carts out there.
The American auto industry is more than just the big three makers. I assume that if they wanted to target the purchase of just American autos, they would have put that in the bill.
I used different numbers but the point is admin cost are MORE time based than transaction based! Credit card companys charge a flat fee a year…not per transaction. A rental property management company charges per month…not per rentail.
By your numbers 3% for almost 2 months is still over 18% a year! To give away money thats not theirs in the first place.
Who cares about failure and unconstitutionality, as long as it was efficient? You guys are just pessimistic racists!
Wow. Way to cite two things that ARE NOT ADMINISTRATIVE COSTS. Those are fees for services. And if you think that a property management company will charge the same per month to manage 1 of your properties as it will for 3, you are crazy.
Then the Democrat controlled congress lied to us(the disbelief!). In American-ese, the US auto industry is inferred to mean the big three, based in Detroit, not those in Japan, Korea or Europe.
If the Democrats intended for Toyota and others to benefit from the bailout/C4C program equally with US manufacturers, by counting them as part of the US industry simply because they are assembled here, then they should have made it clear.
Of course there would been much less public support for the measure that way, but at least it would have been honest.
Not saying that. I am talking about all the people ancillarily involved in the auto industry. Dealers, part makers, etc…
I call bs! This is an unknown and you know it! The bill does not specifically preclude illegals. They already have an impact on emergency care being used for primary care!
Preclude illegals from what, exactly? It does preclude them from getting tax dollars that would be used to subsidize insurance. It does not preclude them from buying it with their own money. Would you rather it did?
Okay. That is a separate point. And one that no one is considering getting rid of.
Simply and accurately put.
I might add: …
– ultimately at the point of a gun.
After all, as George Washington said, force is what governemnt is:
“Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”
— George Washington
http://www.quotedb.com/quotes/1275
A 13% health insurance tax that will be mandatory for all Americans…wow. I don’t think my insurance premiums are close to that much now. Shouldn’t this cost less?
I didn’t say that. Yes, you get a discount because you should! Point being, they do NOT charge you per transaction (renter)!
You did not read him right. he said that, after the plan, he would expect the average American to pay an average of 13% of their income in premiums. Which is apparently less than they do now.
Yes, you did.
In any case, your examples are totally off the mark. You are talking about fees. I am talking about overhead.
It says 1 public option plan MUST provide abortions that all plans will fund!
Time is the biggest factor in overhead!!!! which was my simple point. As I said, the number of transactions is also a factor!!!! Your claim that time didn’t matter was….
Now you’re just being purposely obtuse.
Yes I want illegal aliens from getting healthcare in the US, whether they buy it themselves or Uncle Sugar subsidizes them. (what do you think that percentage will be?) I want them out and then come back legally and in order.
What part of illegal do you not understand?
Because we’re talking about EFFICIENCIES, not percentages. (Check out the title of this article!)
Since we’re talking about EFFICIENCIES and not percentages. Let’s analyze these numbers…
Assuming a Government resource to process paperwork at $100K in salary + benefits, over roughly 2,000 hours… gives us $50/hr cost.
First Scenario: 250,000 vehicles eligible, with $950 million in vouchers and $50 million for admin…
$50 million / 250,000 cars = $200/car to process
$950 million / 250,000 cars = avg $3,800/car rebate
$200 / $50/hr = 4 hours per car to process
Second Scenario: ???? vehicles eligible, with $2.9 billion in vouchers and $100 million for admin…
$2.9 billion / $3800/car = 763,157 cars processed using similar rebates
$100 million / 763,157 cars = $131 per car to process
$131 / $50/hr = 2.6 hours to process
Conclusion: Yes, there was an efficiency gain going from 4.0 hours to 2.6 hours in processing time.
But seriously Chap… 2.6 hours to process ONE CAR???
And oh yes…
*** IT’S ILLEGAL ACCORDING TO OUR CONSTITUTION! ***
Cite, please. The Hyde Amendment is still in effect.
Says who? I am sure that the biggest admin cost is the employees to process the claims. Do you not think that, maybe, they had to hire more people to process 3 times the original amount of claims, which flooded in more quickly than originally thought? Or should they have stuck with their original amount of employees and taken 6-8 months to process the claims?
You think that denying them access to health care coverage is going to force them back across the border? Or will it mean that US taxpayers simply have to foot more of their health care bill?
Chap, for all your arguing, you are still debating things that don’t matter… the program being proposed is UNCONSTITUTIONAL, and therefore, ILLEGAL.
Otherwise, site the Article, Section and Clause of the Constitution that proves me wrong.
OK. But that was a payoff to unions who count most of the employees of this industry among their membership; IMHO, this industry should never have been part of the plan as there will always be available parts for US autos (my dad used to forge many of his own parts for his race cars, w/ just a mig welder and some worn out OEM parts) made either here or abroad.
As long as health care providers (ER’s, clinics and hospitals) are forced to treat everyone who walks through their doors, illegals will be covered under gov run health care-/insurance; it may be surreptitious at first, but they will be covered.
Why would you assume that labor costs are the only administrative cost?
Fine, but that is in no way shape or form being changed or even talked about by either side with respect to this health care bill.
If you want to get into a debate about the meaning and scope of the spending and general welfare clauses, I’m afraid I just don’t have the energy for it.
O/T, but I gotta vent:
I am sick of Spreadsheet!
The cells are so small that for blurry eyes, it is nearly impossible to keep data entries and sums correct – especially when one is tired and overwhelmed! And the sums are nearly impossible to balance when out of whack, w/o a full review of every entry – especially when one is working between sheets!
Whew!
uh…yes. How do employees get paid?
In three House committees, and in the Senate committee, pro-abortion Democratic committee chairmen and majorities voted down amendments to keep elective abortion out of the “public plan” and prevent federal subsidies from going to private plans that cover elective abortion.
Exactly the point: none of these bills – and I admit to knowing next to nothing of the Baucus finale – address what’s really wrong w/ health care. Democrats are just trying to slap a PR band aid on it and claim it fixed on their watch.
I don’t know. Maybe salaried, maybe hourly. You keep looking at this in terms of strict days and weeks rather than man hours. Do you think it takes more man hours to process 1 claim or 3?
That alone will not force them back over the border, that is just but one fruit that they should not be allowed to pick. And yes if they stay, US taxpayers will have to foot more of any cost, healthcare or other. It’s not just tax subsidies at risk, but resources across the board. I swear you must love We Are The World Big Government.
Again Chap. To process 3 should not be 3 times the cost of 1…right! You used that in a different point and I agree. Most everthing is charged over time. Rent, rental equit…ect.
I just read an article. How does this make sense?
Whoops…disregard that last article! I misread it. That wouldn’t make sense!
Its racist to question the cost of this program.
jjjiiimmmiiieeee
Relax.
It’s totally understandable.
It is the government that is under discussion, after all.
You gotta worry when the most successful Obama program to date (cash for clunkers) is that he was able to give away more money than he thought he would faster than he ever imagined.
Who would have thought that people would line up so fast to take free money!
What percetnage of individual families have to actually spend 13% of their gross income on healthcare over a 25 year period?
Answering that question is all you need to understand how absolutely looney the Baucus plan is.
***
FREE MONEY! Get your free money here! Free Money! (at taxpayer expense).
***
Take as little of it as you can afford to pay for. Like President Obama’s (PBUH) “pastor” Rev. Wright said, “The chickens are coming home to roost!”
***
Wait until the effects of inflation, devaluation of the dollar, and higher taxes kick in. FREE MY A**!
***
John Bibb
***
Riddle me this — The unemployed and the poor and downtrodden need healthcare and if they do not pay for their own healthcare they will be fined $3K odd dollars to punish them for not having healthcare? Okie Dokie, that makes a lot of sence but then, maybe the libtards can make sence of this.
Heres a novel idea. Instead of all these government programs trying to steer money around the economy where politicians want it to go, lets just lower taxes and let the people spend their own money where they want to spend it.
If they want to buy health insurance, great. If not great. They have the freedom to make that choice.
We could fix the economy immediately just by lowering the withholding tax on payrolls.
Just lower taxes and put the people in charge not politicans! Too simple.
Chap due to trade agreements.They can’t specify certain companies can take advantage of such things as C4C.One for all and all for one.
That makes sense.
Freaking BINGO!!!!!
liberal: Get your free gas card for looking for work.
Soap: No thanks, it’s not free.
Lib: Everybody’s doing it.
Soap: And if millions more were like me and refused the free things from our gooberment, my Taxes would go down.
Lib: HUH?
Soap: EXACTALLY.
Pol: And for that free money, I expect your vote
Lib: Ok for sure. No problem
Conservative: But doesn’t that mean it’s not free if I have to give you my vote.
Pol: Exactly!
Lib: Who cares as long as I get free stuff. Liberty Smiberty.
Pol: Heh, heh, heh.
Conservative: Sigh!
Kind of reminds me of “temporary” tax increases. Once they do it, it will never go away. Just like here in CA — the income tax increase they implemented a few months ago is supposed to “expire” in 2011. How many want to bet it will be renewed and shoved down our throats by the liberal losers who control the state?
856 billion over 10 years sounds absolutely impossible. Here in Ontario Canada our provincial government spends over 50 billion a year to cover just 12 million folks. And that doesn’t include money we get from the federal government in transfers.
If you believe you can cover 10’s of millions of people for 85 billion a year, I want to sell you some land with running water all over it.
This will cost Americans hundreds of billions a year. Once the socialized flood gates open, they will soon cause a flood, and costs will spiral out of control.
If your the government it was a great deal. In reality, you would be fired for loosing a fraction of that money.
If we were talking about a universal single payer system in the US, you might have a point.
But we’re not.
So you don’t.
Chap,
Either way we are talking tax increases across the board to pay for it so how is that efficient? Then there is the “admitted” 13% income “wait out” before an American worker can get benefits while – and you know this will come to pass – people here illegally will get a free pass.
Pardon my french but I call bullchips on no money for abortion providers. It will get in there. MARK MY WORDS. This is a liberal/democrat baby and they love the abortion issue.
Let’s not act like these issues will not be added later. We are too smart for that.
Chap is right. You cannot ridicule a government program as a careless waste of tax dollars by attempting to point out that the administrative costs will be at or near 3% of the total money spent.
Also, $350 million saved per year in fuel costs, taken each and every year for 10 years (the average life of a car) results in $3.5 BILLION dollars saved in fuel. Of course, we Americans will simply spend that $3.5B on something else in the economy so perhaps this will eventually prove to be a good thing.
You CAN argue that the Fed Gov’t shouldn’t be “stimulating” car sales at all, and you’d be correct. But, for the moment, lay off lampooning the numbers as they appear to be working out just fine. You are giving conservatives a bad name as people who can’t do simple math.
All of the analyses provided here are merely assumptions, and completely disregard that, in order to process these claims, there are people in the NHTSA working OVERTIME to process claims. Overtime costs more money obviously. I have yet to see any estimate which accounts for this, so, ergo, these estimates are likely very wrong.
Now, if you’re basing your ridicule of the C4C program on whether or not it’s efficient, using that stick as a means of beating the Obama Administration over the head you’re using the logical equivalent of a wet noodle to do so.
Yes, the idea of C4C is stupid, but at least, in this case, the NHTSA is doing the best possible job with this Herculean task tossed in their laps by Congress and Obama.
rm,
My problem is that I must foot part of that bill with MY taxes. Why should my taxes pay for someone to get a break on a car?
Same with health care – no?