What $1 Billion in Omnibus Obamacare Spending Might Buy
Previous reports have indicated that Democrats’ omnibus bill contains more than $1 billion in funding to implement the health care law. Given the massive scope of this spending, it’s worth analyzing how the Administration has used its funds to date, to see what exactly an additional $1 billion in taxpayer dollars might be used for:
Extravagant Leases: The New York Times reported just last week that “in Bethesda, [Maryland,] health care officials are leasing more than 70,000 square feet of space on three floors of an office building for about 230 employees to work on rule-making and other duties. The government agreed to pay $51.41 per usable square foot of space, compared with an average of $27 in Bethesda, because it wanted to get the operation running in July, officials said.” That’s an overpayment of more than $1.7 million of taxpayers’ dollars in one year alone – just for a single office lease.
Misleading Mailings: Earlier this year, the Administration spent $18 million to send a mailing to seniors purportedly touting the “benefits” of the health care law to seniors. The Government Accountability Office found that the mailer – which was NOT reviewed or approved by the non-partisan Medicare actuary for its accuracy – “overstates some of [the law’s] benefits” and “presents a picture of [the law] that is not universally shared.”
Ads with “Weasel Words”: The Administration also spent millions more in taxpayer funds to run an ad campaign in which Andy Griffith took on the role of “pitching President Barack Obama’s health care law to seniors.” The non-partisan factcheck.org concluded that the ads used “weasel words” to mislead seniors about the impact of the health care law.
Propaganda Postcards: The Internal Revenue Service spent taxpayer funds to mail out 4 million postcards advertising the health care law’s “benefits,” in the form of a scaled-back small business tax credit. Yet the IRS has not shown a similar inclination to send out postcards warning the American people of the more than half-trillion dollars of job-killing tax increases included as part of the law.
Amidst all of this questionable spending, it’s also worth pointing out that Section 1005 of the reconciliation bill included $1 billion in a mandatory implementation “slush fund.” Some may ask: With the federal government running trillion dollar deficits, are all of the above activities a wise use of taxpayer resources? More importantly, given all the wasteful ways in which the Administration has spent their current health care implementation funding, why on earth should Congress vote to give them $1 billion more?