Sen. Chris Dodd (D., Conn.) just trotted out that old Democratic staple on the Senate floor by calling Reid’s bill “historic.” We’ve heard that word from Democrats for months now. Which reminds me: Earlier today, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn) also called this bill “historic,” but “truly historic . . . in its arrogance.” Indeed.
More from Alexander:
It’s arrogant to dump 15 million low-income Americans into a medical ghetto called Medicaid that none of us or any of our families would ever want to join. It’s arrogant to send to the states, which are going broke, a big chunk of the bill. It’s arrogant to tell the American people that the bill will only cost $849 billion and think they’re not smart enough to read it and figure out that it will actually cost $2.5 trillion when it’s fully implemented. It’s arrogant to say paying for the physicians’ reimbursement is not an important part of a health care bill — even as they run over here in the dead of night and run up the deficit with a separate quarter-trillion-dollar bill to fix that. It’s arrogant to cut and tax Grandma’s Medicare, which is going broke, and then spend it on somebody else. It’s arrogant to tell us that it’s going to reduce premiums for most Americans when, in fact, it increases premiums for most Americans.