The Fix Is In: Dangerous Health Bill Coming to Final Vote

by James Gelfand
The ChamberPost, March 2010

After months of posturing, the President has made it clear: the Senate bill is the final bill. The bill that narrowly passed the Senate on Christmas Eve by a partisan vote (prior to the election of Republican Scott Brown from Massachusetts), will more or less be the final bill. The only way the massive 2700-page health care bill will become law, is if the House now passes the Senate-passed bill. There may be another bill using the reconciliation “nuclear option” to make some minor adjustments to the Senate bill, but that second bill will not be the primary bill – in fact, proposed changes could only worsen the flawed underlying bill. If the Senate bill is enacted by the House, the special deals that bought off votes from Nebraska, Louisiana, Florida, and other states may become law unless stripped through reconciliation.(i) If the Senate bill is passed into law with the President’s reconciliation adjustments, the following dangerous policies will become law:

• You cannot keep the plan you have. All health insurance plans will be subject to numerous new mandates, requirements, regulations, and bureaucratic oversight,(ii) which will force the plans to raise prices and change or eliminate plan offerings.(iii)
• Your health care costs will increase. The bill will do very little to control costs (iv), while simultaneously taxing the health industry — taxes consumers will pay (v) — and forcing Americans to purchase more expensive health insurance. (vi)
• Your taxes will increase. There will be a massive new payroll tax, a new tax on investments and 401(k)s, a new tax on “Cadillac” health benefits, new taxes on medical devices and prescription drugs, new taxes on all health insurance policies, and increased taxes in the form of cost-shifting through lower payments to hospitals and doctors.(vii)
• The debt, the deficit, and federal spending will increase.(viii) Despite a number of accounting gimmicks, like starting the taxation before the program spending begins, and double-counting $500 billion in Medicare cuts (ix), the bill’s true cost will be trillions of dollars (x). The bill creates new entitlements that will increase forever, much like Social Security and Medicare.(xi)
• Medicare will be cut by $500 billion. The Congressional Budget Office clearly stated: “20 percent of Part A providers would become unprofitable” and stop seeing Medicare patients.(xii)
• Jobs will be lost, or never created. The bill creates a huge incentive not to hire low-wage workers and not to grow a business beyond 50 employees. Employers who hire a low-wage worker, even if they offer great health insurance, could be fined $3000 per year.(xiii)

Everyone agrees that changes are needed to make the U.S. health care system more efficient and affordable. But this is not a bipartisan plan. Ramming the Senate bill through the House and then using the nuclear option to make adjustments is the wrong approach. Tell your Representative to vote against the Senate-passed bill, and tell your Senators to oppose the reconciliation nuclear option: 51 votes is no way to restructure one-sixth of the already fragile U.S. economy!

//Update: 10 Mar 2010 – The American people agree these are health care bill we can’t afford.

Source: The ChamberPost

Print PDF

Related posts:

1. Dems look at bypassing Senate health care vote
2. End in Sight? Health Care Bill to Go Back to the House for Another Vote
3. CBO Puts House Health Bill Total Cost At $1.055 Trillion
4. What’s in the Health Care Bill
5. Labor Unions Denounce Senate Health Bill