Retire Garrett

Hat tip to Matt Fretz at Blog the Fifth for posting this, which I am cross posting here in its entirety.

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One of the perplexing things about Representative Scott Garrett is that he chooses to advocate for practices that waste taxpayer money, while slamming waste in other programs. I’ve written before about Garrett’s affinity for Medicare Advantage, which has been documented to cost taxpayers more than it should. Yet Garrett gripes about Medicare costing too much.

Today, Garrett sent an e-mail defending his opposition to reforming Federal Student loans. Here’s part of his logic:

On Thursday, the House passed a bill (H.R. 3221) that will, if signed into law, eliminate private loans with federal guarantees, replacing such loans entirely with the government’s Direct Loan program – in other words, removing the optionality of the public option – at a cost of $1 trillion over the next ten years.

What Garrett conveniently fails to mention is that enacting this policy is actually saving taxpayers billions. From the CBO:

H.R. 3221 would make several changes to the federal student loan programs, including the Federal Perkins Loan Program. As shown in Table 2, CBO estimates that, on net, those changes would reduce federal costs by $40.7 billion over five years and $74.8 billion over 10 years.

So once again, we have Garrett defending taxpayer money flowing into private hands at a higher cost than we should be paying for the service we’re receiving.

Adding insult to the injury of honest debate, Garrett relates his argument to the health care debate and justifying his opposition to the public option.

The student loan public option should serve as a cautionary and instructional tale for Congress and the American people as we continue to discuss ways to reform the health care system.

Garrett’s right, the cautionary tale here is that without reform, we’re going to continue spending more than we should. That’s fine with Garrett, the question should be put to his constituents, is that okay with you?

A bit more fun figuring out good ways to let people of NJ (and NJ’s fifth district) know just what their “representative” wants for the people of the state.

Enjoy….

Taken Directly from a constituent letter sent to Congressman Garrett in response to one of Garrett’s “Health Care Updates”:

September 7, 2009

Dear Congressman Garrett:
 
I was pleased to receive your recent “Health Care Update.”  It is a welcome relief from the mindless efforts by those who disrupt town hall meetings by shouting down supporters of a public option.
 
I hope you will indulge me as I offer some comments on what you have written.
 
“The Envy of the World”
 
You state that “our health care system is the envy of the world.”  However, your generalization is unwarranted.  And why?  Perhaps these figures (taken from the World Health Organization’s Statistical Information System) will explain.  Compared to Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom,
 

1. Life expectancy in the US is lowest, at 78 years.  Greatest life expectancy is in Japan, at 83 years.
2. The average number of years that a person can expect to live in full health in the US is the lowest, at 69.  The highest is in Japan, at 75.
3. The US has by far the highest adult mortality rate: 109 per 1,000 of population.  The next highest is France’s (91) and the lowest is Italy’s (64).
4. The infant mortality rate in the US is highest, at 7 per 1,000.  Italy and Japan are tied for lowest, at 3 per 1,000.
5. The under-5 mortality rate is also highest in the US, at 8 per 1,000.  Again, Italy and Japan are tied for lowest, at 4.
 

I am curious to know how you would explain these statistics.  I am inclined to attribute them to our system, in which many are prevented from obtaining health insurance and top-notch medical care.  According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of uninsured was 45.7 million in 2007, or roughly 15% of the total population.
 
Need I add that even someone with insurance is not guaranteed adequate coverage?  After all, the role of private insurance companies is to maximize profits.
 
Cost vs. Coverage
 
You properly call attention to the high cost of medical care, but I am left with the impression that you are more concerned to control cost than to see to it that medical care is obtainable.  For example, you quote from Douglas Elmendorf’s letter of August 7, in which he states that “the added costs of widespread use of preventative services tend to exceed the savings from averted illness.”  What you do not quote from the letter is an equally important passage: 
 
Of course, just because a preventive service adds to total spending does not mean that it is a bad investment. Experts have concluded that a large fraction of preventive care adds to spending but should be deemed “cost-effective,” meaning that it provides clinical benefits that justify those added costs: Roughly 60 percent of the preventive services examined in the review cited above have additional costs that many in the health care community consider to be reasonable relative to their clinical benefits.
 
Innovation
 
In this section of your report, you write that the Lewin Group “estimates that within 10 years, 114 million individuals would lose their current coverage and be placed on the government-run insurance plan.”  Following your link, I carefully read the Lewin Group report and was unable to find the estimate you cite.  On the contrary, I learned that the thrust of the Lewin Group report is that under HR 3200, health insurance for US citizens would become far more widely available.  Please note that nowhere does the Lewin Group talk about people who would lose their coverage and be forced onto a public plan.  What the Group describes is people having choice (under the “exchange” feature of the legislation) and the probability that many would choose a public plan over a private plan (Cost and Coverage Impacts of the American Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009: The July 15th Draft, pages 2-3).
 
Your point regarding medical innovation is that because the public plan would “pay an approximation of Medicare’s rates,” it would stifle medical innovation.  If there is a connection between those rates and innovation, you fail to show it.
 
What I Support
 
My premise regarding medical care is that every US citizen must be able to get excellent medical care.  At present, the wealthy can afford fine medical care, but the poor cannot, and even the middle class must struggle with medical bills and can be reduced to poverty by catastrophic illness.  If those of us with higher incomes must be taxed to underwrite coverage for others, so be it.  I do not weep if those earning over $280,000 are taxed 50 percent on the upper portion of their income.
 
Conclusion
 
Mr. Garrett, we all must engage health-care issues in a rational way and avoid half-truths, lies, and inflammatory rhetoric.  You are an elected representative, and you have an obligation to see to it that political discourse is not subverted by demagogy.

Sincerely,
 
Saul N. Brody

Demarest