GOP should challenge Obama's false premise on health care

Karl Rove:

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... Mr. Obama is basing his health-care pitch on the false premise that he can drive down health-care prices by creating a pricey new entitlement. He also maintains that he can do this without creating a mountain of federal debt or a bureaucracy that will determine when Americans can receive care.

Americans intuitively know these things cannot be true, and they have therefore responded to the promise of ObamaCare with tea parties and by voting for Republican candidates in New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts. Now voters are likely to support congressional Republicans if they can take Mr. Obama head on in a calm, respectful and factual way.

If the president says his health-care plan "would reduce costs and premiums for millions of families and businesses," as he did in his State of the Union, Republicans must point out that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says premiums under ObamaCare would be higher than if nothing were done.

If Mr. Obama repeats his frequent claim that his proposal "won't add a penny to the deficit," Republicans can point out that to do so means 10 years of Medicare cuts and tax increases to pay for just four full years of the expensive insurance subsidies at the heart of his plan. This gimmick foreshadows a huge flood of red ink in the coming decades.

Mr. Obama will probably say that his proposal would give 30 million additional Americans health coverage. Republicans can counter that claim by noting his plan dumps about half of those people into Medicaid, a program even Mr. Obama admits is driving state budgets into the red.

Mr. Obama might say that only wealthy individuals, or insurance, drug and medical-device companies will pay higher taxes under his plan. Republicans can point out that tens of billions in new taxes will be passed on to families paying insurance premiums and patients in need of those drugs and medical devices.

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The real question is whether they will get a chance to say much of anything. Obama is going to be controlling the script that he and his staff have already written. In that script the Republicans are props to be be used as whipping posts for Democrat demagoguery. I have very low expectations for this meeting.