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| Yes We Can Accomplish Health Care Reform without the Trillion Dollar Price Tag Because I grew up in a family that at times did not have health insurance, I have long been an advocate for health care reform. It is my belief, and the opinion of most Americans, that we should find a means of keeping health care costs down and expanding access to quality care. Affordable coverage for those who lose or change jobs, or have pre-existing conditions is also vitally important. It was my hope that Congress would adopt a cost effective plan to achieve those goals. Unfortunately, because of a closed and narrow-vision approach, Congressional Democrats missed the mark. Rather than holding the White House Health Care Summit a year ago, at the beginning of this process, political deals were cut behind closed doors. Three partisan proposals were crafted and jammed into a measure that drew bipartisan opposition. Under the legislation just passed, instead of reducing premiums, the CBO confirms premiums and costs for current policy holders will increase for everyone. Tort and liability reforms were ignored. The measure passed will increase taxes by $569 billion. Medicare benefits to our senior citizens will be slashed by $523 billion. An army of 16,000 IRS agents are needed to enforce countless new mandates, including fines on individuals without health care insurance. These fines for non-compliance will be imposed at the greater of $695 or 2.5% of the individual’s annual income. Even more severe penalties are imposed on small businesses. Of great concern to me is the huge new bureaucracy, including 158 new agencies, bureaus and czars. What passed is a recipe for increased cost, frustrating bureaucracy, rationed care and ultimate failure. There are a number of other troubling provisions that may surprise the public. While most benefits are postponed until 2014, taxes are imposed almost immediately this year. While children will soon qualify for pre-existing condition coverage, adults with pre-existing conditions will not be protected until 2014. And if the expansion of government bureaucracy and administration were not bad enough, the deal makers threw in a government takeover of the student loan program to garner votes. And if you are upset about adding 35,000 government student loan processors, to add insult, the authors turn over proceeds from student loan fees to help pay for the new health care bureaucracy. Unfortunately these are only a sampling of goodies packed into this 2,700 page final masterpiece. In the past few days, we have already seen how the negative multi-billion dollar impact from job killing tax increases on corporate benefits will affect retirees. This includes some of the United States’ most iconic employers, such as AT&T, Deere & Co., Caterpillar and 3M. Instead of providing new jobs for the unemployed, these global leaders and drivers of innovation are now faced with additional multi-million dollar costs and are now restructuring benefits for current and former employees in order to remain competitive and in compliance. While the intentions of the Obamacare legislation may have been laudable, the process and product have left a great deal to be desired. Hopefully the mess created and loose ends will be dramatically reformed in the future. The Republican alternative, which I supported, can be viewed at www.gop.gov/solutions/healthcare. It brings down costs by addressing tort and liability reform, cuts unnecessary defensive medicine, addresses cross state insurance competition and assists those who lose or change jobs or have pre-existing conditions. All of this is proposed without the huge costly bureaucracy, expensive mandates, increases in taxes and dramatic cuts in Medicare services to our senior citizens. Yes we can accomplish health care reform without the trillion dollar price tag. ________________________________________________ Links: Problems With the Health Care Bill Side by Side Comparison of the Speaker Pelosi, Government Take Over of Health Care and the Common Sense GOP Plan Medicare Cuts In the Health Care Bill as Proposed by the Senate Finance Committee Senate Health Care Bill Imposes $487 Billion In New Taxes New Federal Bureaucracies Created in the Pelosi Health Care Bill, H.R. 3962 Letter to Chairman Towns concerning the health care reform debate in Congress |
