Posted on 10/29/2009 2:31:46 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
10 Facts Every American Should Know About Speaker Pelosi's 1,990-Page Gov't Takeover of Health Care
Washington, Oct 29 -
Members of Congress and the American people are just beginning to look at Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) 1,990-page government takeover of health care, but it’s already becoming clear just how costly and unsustainable this proposal is. From higher taxes on middle-class families to job-killing mandates on small businesses to cuts in Medicare benefits for seniors, here are 10 facts every American should know about Speaker Pelosi’s 1,990-page government takeover of health care:
1. RAISES TAXES ON MIDDLE CLASS FAMILIES. Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill imposes a range of tax increases on families with income below $250,000, breaking a promise made by President Obama. Tax increases on middle class families include: an individual mandate tax of up to 2.5 percent of income for taxpayers earning as little as $9,350; repeal of a tax break on medicine purchased with funds from an HSA (health savings account); limits to tax relief through FSAs (flexible spending accounts); taxes on medical devices that will inevitably be passed on to consumers; and a new tax on all insurance policies.
2. MASSIVE CUTS TO MEDICARE BENEFITS FOR SENIORS. Despite grave warnings from CBO, FactCheck.org, and the independent Lewin Group that cuts to Medicare of the magnitude included in Speaker Pelosi’s bill would have a negative impact on seniors’ benefits and choices, Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill stays the course and cuts Medicare by hundreds of billions of dollars.
3. NO PROTECTIONS FOR SMALL BUSINESSES. Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill claims to exempt small businesses from the steep eight percent ‘pay or play’ employer mandate. The facts tell a different story. Using Census data compiled by the Small Business Administration, this so-called ‘exemption’ hammers small employers with only, on average, 17 or more employees to new taxes and mandates. The outfits affected employ 70 percent of all small business employees, or 42.3 million workers. Adding to the assault on small businesses, the bill does not index the small business “exemption” amounts, meaning more and more small businesses will be ensnared by this job-killing employer mandate each year.
4. INCREASES THE COST OF HEALTH INSURANCE. Imposing a new $2 billion tax on insurance policies will be passed on to patients in the form of higher premiums. Changes to the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit will, according to estimates by CBO, will raise Medicare Part B premiums by $25 billion and Part D premiums by 20 percent. And imposing an unfunded mandate on the states to pay for the bill’s Medicaid expansion will shift the burden of this expansion on state taxpayers who may experience tax increases to cover the cost.
5. USES GIMMICKS TO HIDE BUDGET-BUSTING COST, PILES UP DEBT ON FUTURE GENERATIONS. Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill claims to be deficit neutral, but uses budget gimmickry to hide its massive total cost. Working families across America know they cannot simply decide that a bill they get in the mail doesn’t exist, but that’s exactly what congressional Democrats are doing. In order to meet the President’s ‘target’ spending total of $900 billion, Democrats have simply swept costly provisions under the rug, including the $245 billion ‘doc fix.’
6. IMPOSES JOB-KILLING EMPLOYER MANDATES. Additional taxes on employers and new government mandates that dictate acceptable insurance will place new and crushing burdens on employers. These are burdens that will ultimately fall squarely on the backs of workers in the form of reduced wages, fewer hours or lost employment. CBO agrees that "[e]mployees largely bear the cost of... play-or-pay fees in the form of lower wages." According to the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), the nation’s largest small business association, an employer mandate of this magnitude will disproportionately impact small businesses, triggering up to 1.6 million lost jobs. Two-thirds of those jobs would be shed by small businesses.
7. TILTS THE PLAYING FIELD IN FAVOR OF THE GOVERNMENT-RUN INSURANCE COMPANY. Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill promises not to give the government-run plan advantages over private insurers in the market, but the opposite is true. The bill provides billions in start-up funding for the government-run plan, and while it requires the plan to repay the money over time it does not require the plan to pay interest on this “loan.” This interest-free, taxpayer-subsidized loan is potentially worth millions of dollars and tilts the playing field in favor of the government-run plan.
8. THREATENS CASH-STRAPPED STATES WITH UNFUNDED MANDATES. Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill swells the number of Americans on the government rolls by expanding Medicaid eligibility. Medicaid is financed through a federal-state partnership, but the bill dumps nearly ten percent of the mandated expansion included in the bill onto the states. States, already struggling with fiscal constraints, would be left on the hook for billions of dollars due to this unfunded mandate.
9. CREATES A NEW MONSTROSITY IN THE TAX CODE. Starting in 2011, Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill imposes a 5.4 percent tax on adjusted gross income above $500,000 for individuals and $1 million for married couples. Yet, the dollar amounts for which the tax kicks in are not indexed for inflation. We’ve seen this horror film before: the Alternative Minimum Tax, another Frankenstein’s monster of the tax code, also wasn’t indexed for inflation and now affects millions of middle class families with incomes below the Democrat’s surtax.
10. MISSES AN OPPORTUNITY TO CURTAIL JUNK LAWSUITS. Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill misses a critical opportunity to rein in junk lawsuits and costly defensive medicine. The bill includes only a voluntary grant program to deal with the medical liability crisis instead of including real reform, which would produce tens of billions of dollars in savings, improve efficiency in our health care system and reduce costs for patients and providers.
BONUS: Republicans have offered better solutions to lower health care costs and expand access to quality, affordable coverage at a price our nation can afford. Learn more by visiting healthcare.gop.gov.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Whose right is health care? Do you think it's yours?
Congressman Anthony Weiner has said that health care is not a commodity. If it isn't a commodity then do doctors and nurses have rights? Assigning health care the status of a right makes health care workers slaves to that right who must serve it. On what ground could a health care worker refuse to provide their products and services since that would violate the patient's "basic human right to health care."
That is a direct loss of individual rights for health care providers. The collective right of the people to receive health care would supersede the provider's individual right to set fees and hours or to change their occupational status or even decide how to apply their skills and knowledge if taken to its logical extreme. A collective right, by practical definition, is a state right because it is a right that is created and given by the government to those it chooses to give it to. It is not a natural right possessed by each person protected by the Constitution from the government. It is also a collective/state right by virtue of the fact that it would supersede individual rights when the two come into conflict. How else would the government view a right that it created and administers vs. one it has no control over?
Of course it isn't stated in any bill that a patient's right to care supersedes a provider's right to set fees and hours etc, but it doesn't need to. Rights, as always, are adjudicated in the courts. The Health Care Reform bills simply establish the foundation for the courts to rule in favor of the collective right.
Weiner’s view is collectivist, fascist and totalitarian. Collectivist because it has to be described as being a right of the many instead of the one and superior due to that fact. Fascist because ultimately the sole authority for its creation and oversight is from one entity the Federal government. Totalitarian because the Federal government is the enforcer of this collective right as well. State and local jurisdictions will have little say about it.
Congressman Weiner's view is the underlying philosophy of all of the Health Care Reform legislation in the House and Senate. Consider this section in the Senate version of the bill; the setting up of community watch dogs that will monitor citizens for various health parameters. Read pages 382 - 393.
TITLE I—QUALITY, AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE FOR ALL AMERICANS pps 382 - 393
So, even citizens themselves will be subject to Federal regulations on their behavior in order to fulfill the "human right" of universal health care. It isn't the individual's liberty that is being protected by that it is the government's control over its own health care system that is being guarded. How much clearer can it be that these bills abrogate the concept of individual rights? Someone will be checking your lifestyle, according to gov regulations, to be certain you serve the best interests of the "basic human right to health care" ie. "the Public Option."
HCR is not just about rationing care and wealth redistribution. It's about the end of individual rights as the corrosive effects of the new collectivist "basic human right to health care" spreads throughout the legal and political systems like a virus.
I think that the main purpose of Health Care Reform (HCR) is as a direct assault on individual liberties.
Health Care is a Liberty Issue
Conservative Underground - 18 August 2009 - Tim Dunkin
Another Stupid Argument: Heath Care is a Right
Obama's Authoritarian, Unconstitutional Health Care Proposal
To Americans Who Believe Healthcare is a Right
OBAMA: HEALTH CARE DESTROYING FREE SPEECH
Mandated health insurance threatens freedom, privacy
Second Bill of Rights aka FDR's economic bill of rights
(An early attempt to embed collective rights into American politics and society.)
Thank you for the post. Informative. Why does it all seem so hopeless? It is all about power and control. It has nothing to do with improving health care for anyone.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find only things evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelogus
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find only things evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelogus
Number 7 is the worst of them, IMHO. The government can deficit spend as much and as long as it needs to in order to undersell the private firms and drive them out of business. Once that happens, we get to pay it back.
If their intention is to do away witn private insurance companies, have they thought about the millions of people who will join the unemployment lines? Surely, Blue Cross, Aetna, Travelers, etal have more than a CEO running the place!!
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find only things evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelogus
“A people unwilling to use extreme violent force to preserve or obtain their liberty deserves the tyrants that rule them.” Thomas Jefferson
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find only things evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelogus
The Senate just has to pass a bill that is similar. Then in conference they will claim xy and z. They’ll tell House members it has whatever it takes to get the House to pass in the House and they’ll tell Senators it doesn’t have it. They’ll say whatever is necessary for it to pass the Senate. While in truth they won’t really write the bill until it has passed both the House and Senate. Once it is on the way to be signed by the President, they will mark up the bill to make it what they originally wanted it to be. That is why it is imperative that no bill passes both houses.
“Thank you for the post. Informative. Why does it all seem so hopeless? It is all about power and control. It has nothing to do with improving health care for anyone.”
Me too! I have no respect for any one voting in favor of this crapola!
“A people unwilling to use extreme violent force to preserve or obtain their liberty deserves the tyrants that rule them.” Thomas Jefferson
I don’t think it hurts from time to time during this debate to simply mention the fact that we the people are not unwilling. We will use every last restort first but in the end if all else fails that’s what will happen.
After 72 hours being posted on the internet this thing should look like a pinata hit by enough sticks to turn it into confetti. Get it posted Nancy so we can let you know how much we like it.
The subject of management meetings I’ve been involved with this week center on how many jobs we’ll cut if this passes.
I can imagine the same meetings are going on in thousands of businesses this week. Entry level, unskilled, medium skilled, service, part-time and seasonal workers are getting bullseyes tatooed on them with this bill.
Alot more people are about to “snap”. It’s going to happen.It has to.
Thanks for your post. I encountered it while musing on Patton’s observation near the end of WWII that we’d have to fight the Russians sometime, and having the armies in place, we should have done it then. (If we had, no Soviet Union and no cold war.)
Now the communists are in DC. I don’t advocate going in after them, but my friends and I waged a fairly successful “war” on rats many years ago. We waited for them to come out of their holes, and made sure they never got back into them. Not yet of course, but see tag line.
I used to be a “precision shooter”. No more, but I can still hit center of mass. [I don’t claim “shootist” because I’m not a specialist or professional. My ability came more from innate talent than from dedication.]
There are these little revealing idealogy exposing ‘slips’ throughout what I’ve read, such as the reference to smoking and obesity as “epidemics”. Then their carefulness with our tax dollars is disclosed in another spot where they released two different documents on their high risk pool subsidy, one of which said it was a five million dollar program, while the other said five billion.
Than they have this little kicker where they’re going to start these cost increasing mandates on private insurers in 2010, while also imposing a program to ‘review’ premium increases. In other words, they plan to start squeezing them out of business years before the ‘public option’ comes online.
I think the most enlightening parts of this bill are going to be in the subtext rather than the text.
Keep in mind, it isn’t the use of the extreme violent force, but the willingness to use such force.
“When the people fear the government you have tyranny, when the government fears the peopl eyou have liberty.” Thomas Jefferson
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.