Democrats' Health "Reform" By the Numbers

Taken from America's Right post today: A Few Notes on Barack Obama's Press Conference This Afternoon

June 23, 2009: After the Friday release of the House Democrat leadership's health reform discussion draft, the Republican Conference has compiled a list of important numbers relevant to the legislation:

852 - Pages in the bill

120 million - Number of individuals who could lose their current coverage as a result of the government-run plan reimbursing at Medicare rates created in the bill, according to non-partisan actuaries at the Lewin Group

4.7 million - Number of jobs that could be lost as a result of taxes on businesses that cannot afford to provide health insurance coverage, according to a model developed by Council of Economic Advisors Chair Christina Romer

$88,200 - Definition of "low-income" family of four for purposes of health insurance subsidies

Trillions - New federal spending, which likely could exceed the $1.6 trillion reported price tag of Senate Finance Committee Chairman Baucus' legislation

32 - Entitlement programs the bill creates, expands, or extends

48 - Additional offices, bureaus, commissions, programs, and bureaucracies the bill creates over and above the entitlement programs listed above

1,367 - Uses of the word "shall," representing new duties to be carried out by federal bureaucrats and mandates on individuals, businesses, and States

$10 billion - Minimum loss sustained by taxpayers every year due to Medicare fraud; the government-run health plan utilizes the same ineffective anti-fraud statutes and procedures that have kept Medicare on the Government Accountability Office's list of high-risk programs for two decades

$1.75 billion - Mandatory spending on home visitation services that would educate parents on "skills to interact with their child"

Zero - Prohibitions on government programs like Medicare and Medicaid from using cost-effectiveness research to impose delays to or denials for access to life-saving treatments

2017 - Year Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund will be exhausted - a date unchanged by the legislation, which re-directs savings from Medicare to finance new entitlements for younger Americans