Congressional politicians must think we're stupid. This is the only explanation for the new healthcare bill currently being considered on Capitol Hill. It's filled with deceptive and unrealistic assertions that even a child could easily debunk. The legislation attempts to bait us with the offer of a public healthcare insurance option while carefully hiding provision after provision designed to strip our freedom of choice, rob billions from Medicare, and allow the takeover of the healthcare industry. Our Congressional "leaders" hope we won't notice. Well I sat down and read this colossal 1,000 page bill to determine the truth, and what I found is disturbing.
The claims of the public option proponents are quite ambitious: Costs will be significantly reduced! Every American will be insured! If you like your current plan, you can keep it! The quality of your care will not change! This all sounds great, but these will not happen for one simple reason: The government does not compete, it legislates. The government does not have to worry about the bottom line, which is obvious from our trillion dollar deficit. The government can operate at a loss into oblivion, while private insurers cannot. So when a politician goes on TV and claims that the government is just offering another option to "compete" with the hundreds of other private plans, that politician is knowingly lying to you.
The legislation allows the government to mandate any reimbursement rates it wishes and force hospitals to take on these patients, even at a loss, which is already the case with Medicaid. Hospitals can tell a private insurer with such low rates to get lost, but not the government. So guess who pays for these patients? You do, because of cost shifting. This is where the hospital must charge private insurance patients more in order to make up for the low reimbursement rates of government insured patients. Now imagine that millions more people are added to a public option in which the government can mandate reimbursement rates of only 70% of the cost? Your private insurance premiums must go up to compensate. Period.
The government will not compete because it doesn't have to. Maintaining a positive cash flow is not necessary and never has been. They will just keep borrowing to fund the losses. But we cannot run trillion dollar deficits forever, so the government will have to reduce healthcare costs eventually right? Wrong. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has already admitted that there will be zero cost savings until 2020, and then only $2 billion. That's only .006% of the cost of this bill! Only a politician would spend $1.5 trillion to claim a savings of $2 billion.
This bill has no suggestions for reducing the actual cost of providing quality care. So on page 29 of the bill, Congress admits that healthcare will be rationed instead, especially for seniors. The bill mentions Medicare 439 times, but is careful to never say exactly what changes will take place. To avoid having to give specifics, it simply establishes a new committee that will have one year to unilaterally dictate how Medicare will be altered indefinitely to fund this new public option. So our politicians are voting for Medicare modifications that aren't even clearly defined.
As an added bonus to help curb the massive costs of this legislation, the bill includes a provision to control doctor's wages. Specialists will be particularly affected. I believe that a person who sacrifices his or her entire twenties to attend medical school while incurring hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans deserves to be well compensated. The government apparently does not agree, and as a result, fewer qualified individuals will pick this important profession.
Another worrisome point in this bill is that insurance companies will no longer be allowed to write new individual policies or change existing ones. We are constantly being told that the government plan is just another "option", so there is no real worry! This is only half true, and the proof is in section 102 of the bill. Let's say you have Plan A with insurance company X. If the government does not approve of Plan A, you must get supplemental insurance immediately. If Plan A is acceptable, you may keep this coverage as long as the insurance company still offers it. The catch is that no insurance company may offer you a new private policy or sign you onto any existing plan that you were not already subscribed to when this bill was enacted. You may not pick private plan B, C, or D to replace your original plan A, ever. Therefore if your plan is dropped, you don't have insurance, you want a different plan, or your employer (current or new) doesn't offer insurance, you have no choice about your coverage. You must accept the government plan. Insurers are only allowed to offer government-participating individual plans from this point forward, so the result will be a new market place with only employer plans and the government plan. Yes, you may keep your current insurance, but hopefully you really like it because you may never choose any other private plan.
Since the goal of this legislation is to ensure that every person in the country obtains healthcare insurance, the bill provides for a 2.5% income tax on any individual who does not have insurance as a way to encourage the uninsured to seek coverage. How will the government know exactly who these people are? Congress answered this problem by adding a provision that requires every person in America to carry a National Healthcare Insurance ID card. If a person arrives in a hospital but does not have a National Insurance ID, the hospital must report this person to the IRS so the tax may be applied. Healthcare will now be married to the IRS, and you will have to prove to the IRS that you have sufficient insurance every year to avoid the punitive tax. Of course illegal aliens and people reporting low incomes, even those who make plenty of unreported income in tips or cash wages, are exempt from the tax but enjoy a specific provision in the bill granting them free healthcare.
I could go on for hours about all of the hidden provisions in this monstrous bill. Instead, I will offer a few suggestions in lieu of the public option: Allow people to purchase insurance across state lines so they may find the best plan available, thus increasing competition and spreading risk. Allow small businesses to join together to create larger employee pools and thus lower the premiums for each person. Or when a person is laid off or fired, give that person the option to keep the same plan that he had with the employer and just pay the premiums himself. Let individuals shop for health insurance like they shop for car insurance, choosing options they need and excluding those that will never matter to them. Allow insurance companies to fully penalize those who make bad lifestyle choices, such as smokers and the obese, instead of splitting the high costs between these people and those who make positive choices. Actually having to pay for the high costs of bad lifestyle choices may encourage more people to kick bad habits and become healthier.
All of these reforms would improve the healthcare industry in a positive manner. A public option is not the answer to our healthcare problems. Costs will continue to rise while our access to quality care may be irreversibly changed. With my healthcare, I'm not willing to take that chance.
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