Health care bill a boon for big government

The passage of President Obama’s health care reform bill has created the need for thousands of new government officials to implement the law. A recent POLITICO story reports:

“Health reform may have finally become law, but the partisan wars over the bill continue to rage — and the latest flash point is a debate about whether the $940 billion overhaul means thousands of new government workers are about to bloat the federal payroll.”

Though estimates vary, some reports suggest that as many as 16,000 new IRS agents will be needed to enforce the various provisions of the health care law. On top of that, the bill created dozens of new agencies and bureaucracies that will be used to increase government presence in the health care system. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the IRS alone will need an additional $10 billion simply to enforce the new provisions in the health care bill.

The dramatic increase in government hiring is only a symptom of the larger problem with the health care bill. Fundamentally, the law serves to further involve government bureaucracy in our health care system and will result in higher insurance premiums, higher taxes on the middle class, cuts in Medicare for seniors and a huge increase in our national debt.

Rather than the government takeover of the health care system that accompanies the Democrat’s health care law, I proposed several common-sense measures that would attract widespread bipartisan support and help lower health care costs, including tort reform and enhancing the portability of health insurance plans.

Though it’s still too soon to tell exactly how many additional federal employees will result from this legislation, it’s clear that thousands of new government bureaucrats will be necessary to implement it. What America needs is new private-sector jobs, not thousands of people added to the government payroll. For example, I’ve proposed a temporary elimination of the payroll tax and an increase in the tax write-offs for small businesses. These measures will help the economy by making it more affordable for small and medium-sized businesses to hire additional employees.

New government jobs are not the answer to our economic conditions. Only when Congress takes steps to help small businesses and start-ups hire employees and create strong, private sector jobs will our economy get back on track.