How much more are you going to pay?

It doesn't take a math whiz to see the problems with the numbers when it comes to ObamaCare.

But the funny business going on is reaching outrageous new levels - as a new analysis shows that seniors will pay up to 50 percent more for their coverage than what we were told just a few months ago.

Not that any of it should matter, because a rotten idea stinks at any price. But as long as this is being shoved down our throats, someone needs to level with our seniors and tell them what to expect.

Since you won't get that from your lawmaker, let me tell you what's going on here.

Back in July, the Senate said the typical senior would pay $5,930 per year - but you can just toss that number in the trash. A new analysis by the Urban Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation finds that seniors will actually have to cough up roughly 50 percent more - up to $8,650 per year to pay for their "free" medicine.

Welcome to socialism, friends! Next stop: state-run stores and black-market jeans.

That new analysis also finds that younger people will be paying less - much less than seniors, and even less than what the earlier numbers had indicated.

Yes, a $3,000 disparity between the youngest and the oldest wasn't enough. Under the new analysis, the average senior would pay nearly $6,500 more per year than the typical 24-year-old, who will pay just $2,163 per year instead of the $2,965 previously indicated by the Senate.

That's right, it's the usual Washington shell game at work. They keep moving the shells around, faster and faster, hoping you'll lose track - and you know what happens then, right?

They get your money, every cent of it. Or maybe I should say every "red" cent, in honor of this plan's socialist roots.

Now, some will tell you that younger people should pay less because they're less likely to get sick. Others will tell you they should pay more because they can afford it, and they'll eventually need that higher level of care themselves when they reach their own senior years.

And I'll tell you that both flawed arguments prove why socialized medicine is a bad idea. Any system that comes out of our government is going to be a scandal-plagued train wreck of high prices and low quality on day one, and only get worse from there.

Hare-brained tax scheme

While Washington lawmakers are busy calculating new ways to soak our seniors, some are also hard at work adding more frivolous tax breaks.

The latest scheme would give pet owners a deduction of up to $3,500 per year for pet care expenses, possibly including food - something we can't even deduct for humans in most cases!

I only wish I were making this up, but you can look up H.R. 3501, the Humanity and Pets Partnered Through the Years (HAPPY) Act, for yourself in the Congressional record. I swear it's there, even if I hope its first trick is to play dead.

Proving that foolishness is a bipartisan affliction, the bill was introduced by Republican Thaddeus McCotter of Michigan, and co-sponsored by Democrat Steve Cohen of Tennessee.

The theory behind it is that we give deductions for kids, and for many families pets are like extra kids. I don't disagree there. My own beloved dogs, Silky and Hannibal, are certainly part of my family.

But there's a huge difference between pets and people, and only a D.C. lawmaker high on catnip could find a way to confuse the two.

Raising children is essential to our society. Since few people doubt that we need future generations to keep building our nation, we offer tax breaks for kids. After all, that sniveling, crying ball of stinky diapers and multi-colored vomit will someday become a taxpayer, too.

But without some really weird science, there's no chance Silky or Hannibal will ever grow up into taxpayers.

And that's the heart of the problem. See, all of us - all of us who are responsible working men and women, anyway - pay taxes. When Congress passes a tax break, the overall money the government intends to collect doesn't go down.

It never goes down.

By some estimates, some 63 percent of Americans own a pet. That means the remaining 37 percent will have to shoulder the load of that tax break.

The money's got to come from somewhere, right?

Hopefully, not from you. I love my dogs, but I'll pay for them myself, thank you very much.