Speaks for itself, doesn’t it?

The news was unwelcome. But the timing couldn’t have been better.

Physician lobbies like the American Medical Association and the American College of Surgeons (ACS) announced their support for the House Democrats’ health care reform plan at the very moment that Congressional Budget Office director Doug Elmendorf explained why they are supporting it.

Yesterday, Elmendorf had the following exchange with Senate Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad (D‑ND):

Elmendorf: …In the legislation that has been reported, we do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount. And on the contrary, the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health care costs.

Conrad: So the cost curve in your judgement is being bent, but it is being bent the wrong way. Is that correct?

Elmendorf: The way I would put it is that the curve is being raised…

That’s right. The docs are supporting the Democrats’ health care plans because the Democrats are buying them off.

The American College of Surgeons boasts that its executive committee voted unanimously to support the House Democrats’ bill because it would increase Medicare’s price controls so that over the next 10 years, Medicare would pay physicians $284 billion more than under current law. Reminds me of something New Democrat David Kendall wrote in 1994:

Not surprisingly, some specialists welcome price controls — which would lock in their high income — and fear competition, which might depress it. For example, the American College of Surgeons has endorsed the single-payer approach, which would control prices at the current level and preserve surgeons’ relative value among physicians.

Of course, to pay off the docs, the Democrats will have to rob even more people than they otherwise would.

From CongressDailyPM:

Reacting to a statement by former GAO comptroller general David Walker that “you can’t reduce costs by expanding coverage,” [White House National Economic Council Director Lawrence] Summers said President Obama rejects that view. “We won’t make progress in costs without addressing access,” Summers said.

In other news, up is down, slavery is freedom, and if she says it’s night convince her that it’s day.

Appearing on the “Glenn Beck Program” with ABC’s John Stossel, Cato H.L. Mencken research fellow Penn Jillete discusses his views on health care reform, the nanny state, Canada and more.

That’s the implicit message of an advocacy campaign the American Cancer Society’s “Cancer Action Network” is running in the Washington, D.C. Metro’s Capitol South station.

Large placards showing pictures of people people who are “NOW” healthy but will “LATER” be stricken with cancer give Capitol Hill staffers commuting in to work a clear message: Do something — anything. It’s part of the otherworldly bubble that lobbyists and advocacy groups press around staff and members of Congress.

The message they need — perhaps a little too complex for the subway — is that Congress has Münchausen syndrome by proxy with respect to the health care system.

The Democrats’ determination to drive us all into a single, government-run health plan reminded me of this classic ad from the 1980s:

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has two charts showing what health care regulation looks like now…

…and what it would look like under the House Democrats’ health care plan: