Jeffrey H. Anderson: Democrats in Fantasyland on Health Care Reform

"In talking about their proposed health care overhaul (it is not reform), the Democrats are having are terrible time separating fact from fantasy. They are confusing these in three particularly notable ways.

"First, they are falsely portraying their proposed overhaul as being deficit-neutral — or even deficit-reducing. Polls show that the overwhelming majority of Americans don’t buy this nonsense, but there was Democratic Senator Kent Conrad on national TV on Sunday, saying, 'Fact is it reduces the deficit in the first 10 years by $130 billion.' That is not fact; it is fantasy. The $130 billion figure is based on the fantasy that the Democrats would cut doctors’ payments under Medicare by 21 percent and never raise them back up — ever. (They are getting credit for this cut in the Congressional Budget Office’s scoring of the bill.) No one in America expects this to happen. If it doesn’t, then according to the CBO, the bill would add over $200 billion to the deficit."