Las Vegas Review-Journal - Opinion

Remember, Democrats claim they're meddling with medicine because of this country's rapidly rising health care costs and the barriers to care that those increases are creating. Any so-called "reforms" are supposed to reduce those costs while expanding coverage to millions of uninsured residents.

Yeah, that's the ticket!

But an analysis by Richard Foster, chief actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, finds the $1.2 trillion House bill would significantly increase costs and hurt access to care by reducing payments to many practices and undercutting private-sector insurers through a taxpayer-funded "public option." Although the legislation could extend health coverage to more than 30 million people, the report says the resulting demand for services from those people "could be difficult to meet initially ... and could lead to price increases, cost-shifting and/or changes in providers' willingness to treat patients with low-reimbursement health coverage."

Speaker Pelosi's spokesman, Brendan Daly, did his best impersonation of Mr. Flanagan when he insisted the study "illustrates a bending of the cost curve." It sure does -- in the wrong direction.

We should be used to this kind of spin after the stimulus boondoggle. President Obama and Democrats assured the public that the $787 billion giveaway to liberal special interests would create 6 million jobs and keep the national unemployment rate below 8 percent. Cue Mr. Flanagan:

"Uh, it will create or save 3 million to 4 million jobs. Er, 1 million jobs. I mean, it will create or save 650,000 jobs. Yeah, that's the ticket!"

Investigations of stimulus contracts show wild exaggerations of the legislation's effect. Beyond guaranteeing the full salaries and benefits of tens of thousands of state government workers, the stimulus spree has done next to nothing to jump-start the economy. Which is why the president now plans to hold an "unemployment summit" that, thankfully, won't require the spending of billions more dollars.

And we're supposed to believe health care "reform" will be different.

Yeah, that's the ticket!