Heritage Foundation-The Foundry Posted November 19th, 2009 at 11.17am in Health Care.
We’re still poring over Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) just released health care overhaul, but the major outlines of the bill are no different than the policy train wreck the House passed earlier this month.
The five major flaws of both the Pelosi and Reid Bills are:
1. A New Public Plan. Both the House and Senate bills would create a new government-run health care plan — a so-called public plan — intended to “compete” with private insurers in a new health insurance exchange. The result: widespread erosion of private insurance and substantial consolidation of federal control over health care through the exchange. Congress is incapable of guaranteeing the American people a level playing field for competition between the government plans and private health plans. As the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has recently certified, what many have already concluded, millions of Americans will lose their existing employer-based coverage.
2. Federal Regulation of Health Insurance. Both the House and Senate bills would result in sweeping and complex federal regulation of health insurance that will create a one-size-fits-all federal health plan that will drive up (not down, as promised by the President) the cost of everyone’s health insurance premiums.
3. Massive Expansion of Medicaid and New Taxpayer-Funded Subsidies. Both the House and Senate would dramatically expand eligibility for Medicaid and extend generous taxpayer-funded subsidies to the middle class. Combined, such commitments are the biggest cost items in the bills would result in scores of Americans dependent on the government to finance their health care.
4. Employer Mandates. Both the House and Senate bills would impose an employer mandate for employers who do not offer coverage and for those whose benefits do not meet a new federal standard. An employer mandate would hurt low-income workers and would stifle much-needed economic growth. Our country does not need a job killing employment tax at a time of 10.2% unemployment.
5. Individual Mandates. Both the House and Senate bills would require all people to buy health insurance. Those individuals who do not purchase government qualified health care coverage would be subject to new tax penalties and in some cases jail time.
Finally, don’t be fooled by the reported cost estimates. The Senate and House bills use budget gimmicks and unrealistic savings to make their proposals fit under the $900 billion limit put forth by the President. As history has proven, government health care programs end up costing much more than first promised.
We will be posting more in depth analyses as our analysts read through the bill, so stay tuned. Majority Leader Reid is promising the first vote on his health bill this Saturday. With that in mind, the Dean of Harvard Medical School, Dr. Jeffrey Flier, wrote in the Wall Street Journal yesterday:
So the majority of our representatives may congratulate themselves on reducing the number of uninsured, while quietly understanding this can only be the first step of a multiyear process to more drastically change the organization and funding of health care in America. I have met many people for whom this strategy is conscious and explicit.
We should not be making public policy in such a crucial area by keeping the electorate ignorant of the actual road ahead.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I was discussing this with my Dad and he gave me a new perspective on the 10.2% penalty. Large and medium large companies will probably choose the penalty option. Which costs more, providing insurance coverage for all of your employees or paying a 10% tax?? What this will do is exterminate medium to small businesses who can neither afford insurance benefits nor the 10% tax.
In this way, the tax is really an incentive to force more people on to the public option.
Well stated, Karen. There is no question that small businesses will not have the resources to provide affordable insurance coverage to their employees. Another obvious result of this healthcare bill is the lethal impact it will have on the medical profession on all levels. The Senate healthcare bill discourages all of the following: talented young graduates from entering med school, current doctors from continuing their practices, research of new drugs, patient access to healthcare, affordable insurance coverage for Americans, expansion of Medicare coverage, and lower costs and taxes. In fact, the proposed House and Senate bills raise costs, lower assess, guarantee rationing of care all at greater costs to business and the individual in the form of higher taxes and higher insurance premiums (while offering less care). We must be saved from this government takeover of our healthcare profession!
Post a Comment