Kerry's proposed healthcare spending spree

Last week I printed a couple of reasons to dislike the Kerry health plan.

Joshua Claybourne examines the costs of the Kerry plan more closely:

[T]he Massachusetts Senator offers health care proposals at a 10-year cost of $653 billion to $1 trillion, depending on which campaign you ask. The proposals are in addition to the $564 billion already enacted by Republicans last year. Either way the costs are enormous, and the proposals come from a candidate who spent most of last week hypocritically complaining about Bush budget deficits.

Claybourne argues, and I agree, that Bush, backed by a Republican Congress, should never have let healthcare spending grow as much as it has. But I also agree that Kerry would only make it worse.

(Via Andrew Sullivan.)

Update: ScrappleFace has a different perspective:

"George W. Bush can only wish that I had a plan so he could have something to attack," said Mr. Kerry, who is also a U.S. Senator. "But if I had a health care plan, don't you think I would have introduced it during my 19 years in the Senate? After all, the legislative branch is where legislation starts, not the executive. I could have written a health care bill, rallied support among my senate colleagues and used my ample leadership skills to push it through with a veto-proof majority."

Ha.