Of course, there will be no grand reopening, no joyful children, and no bands, just the same old Obamacare — which is not something Americans would get to choose whether to buy so much as it would be forced down their throats by any means possible, including via “budget reconciliation” if necessary.

At the summit, we'll hear a lot of talk about insurers’ allegedly extravagant profits, which, in reality, are only 2.2 percent. What we won't hear is how the Democrats’ proposed health-care overhaul would funnel $1 trillion in its real first dozen years (2014 to 2025) from American taxpayers, through the federal government, to those same insurers — while requiring Americans to buy insurers’ product. (There’s a reason why insurers have been supporting Obamacare.)

We’ll hear a lot about the need to lower health costs, lower deficits, and put Medicare on more solid financial footing — even though the Democrats’ proposed overhaul would raise health costs, raise deficits, and further exacerbate our daunting entitlement challenges by siphoning hundreds of billions of dollars out of Medicare and spending it on Obamacare.

We’ll hear a lot about how the Republicans don’t have ideas — even though the major Republican health-care proposals would all lower health costs and insurance premiums, while increasing the number of Americans with insurance far more efficiently and affordably (at a cost of about $20,000 per newly insured person under the House GOP health bill, versus $76,000 under Obamacare) than the Democrats’ proposed overhaul would.

After cutting through all the bluster, all you really need to know is this: Obamacare would cost $2.5 trillion, reduce Americans’ freedom, and still manage to increase nationwide health-care costs. That’s why 73 percent of Americans want Congress to scrap it, and why the bands will be playing only in President Obama’s imagination.


02/25 12:00 AM

This blog post originally appeared on National Review's Critical Condition.