On Saturday, at the blog at the Weekly Standard, William Kristol pointed out a paragraph in the Senate healthcare bill that needs to be noticed by the American public. 

The paragraph is as follows:

“Based on the extrapolation described above, CBO expects that Medicare spending under the legislation would increase at an average annual rate of roughly 6 percent during the next two decades–well below the roughly 8 percent annual growth rate of the past two decades (excluding the effect of establishing the Medicare prescription drug benefit). Adjusting for inflation, Medicare spending per beneficiary under the legislation would increase at an average annual rate of less than 2 percent during the next two decades–about half of the roughly 4 percent annual growth rate of the past two decades. It is unclear whether such a reduction in the growth rate could be achieved, and if so, whether it would be accomplished through greater efficiencies in the delivery of health care or would reduce access to care or diminish the quality of care.”

The words he was concerned about were “would reduce access to care or diminish the quality of care.”   This is the rationing that Congress is denying is in the bill.  As more Americans become eligible for Medicare, the funding for Medicare is going to be cut.  This makes no sense at all.  If the efficiency in Medicare were that easily dealt with, it would have been dealt with by now.

This bill will not increase availability of healthcare for Americans–it will only allow the government to bring its costly inefficiency into another area of our economy.