The three stooges are at it again. Just a few short weeks after winning the Nobel Peace Prize for no apparent reason, President Obama has once again teamed up with his two favorite sidekicks, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, in an effort to further socialize the country. As if government-subsidized financial institutions and automobile companies were not enough, now the Democrats want the federal government to have absolute control over a sector that represents one-sixth of American GDP.
The most recent masterpiece of the Democratic Party is a 1,990 page behemoth of a healthcare bill/Medicaid expansion that will cost upwards of one trillion dollars. The Affordable Healthcare for America Act would drastically increase the role of the federal government in healthcare.
If passed, the bill would require all individual and employment based health insurance plans to meet “federal standards.” H.R. 3962 also provides for the creation of a public option health plan, which is a government-run health plan designed to compete against private health plans. This legislation would drastically increase the role of the federal government in healthcare by imposing strict regulations on insurance premiums. Under H.R. 3963, age rating of premiums would be limited to no more than a 2 to 1 ratio between the highest and lowest premium costs. In addition, the bill establishes a process by which private insurance companies would have to provide justification for all premium increases prior to implementation.
Finally, The Affordable Healthcare for America Act contains various mandates that would be placed on individuals and employers. Most significantly, the bill requires all Americans to have government- approved health insurance or face a penalty. An additional income tax will be imposed on people who do not comply. Those who do not acquire health insurance within five years of the passage of this bill will face a potential jail sentence. As for employers, those who do not offer health insurance to their employees would be forced to pay an 8% payroll tax.
Have a headache yet? You should! What exactly are the Democrats trying to accomplish with this baffling legislation? They claim that this bill will make healthcare more affordable and accessible to Americans, but in reality, this legislation will fundamentally alter our healthcare system and in doing so will cause more problems than it will solve.
For starters, the public option is a disaster waiting to happen. One needs to look no further than Canada to see the negative effects that the public option will have. In Canada, it takes months to schedule a normal checkpoint and nearly a year to get radiation treatment. Infusing the healthcare system with inefficient bureaucracies will undoubtedly decrease the quality of healthcare and hinder the ability of those who currently have health insurance to obtain treatment in a timely manner.
In addition, the public option is an un-American invention in the sense that it runs contrary to the free market principles upon which this country was founded. The proper role of the federal government is to minimize the abuses of the free market, not to dominate the market.
Nancy Pelosi and company are misleading Americans by promoting this bill as providing Americans with options. Ultimately, there will be only one option: the government plan. People will flock into the public plan as private insurers are unable to match the artificially low costs of the government plan and employers opt to pay the payroll tax.
Private insurance companies are not the only businesses that will fill the negative effects of the public option. Given that the public plan’s reimbursement rates would not cover the cost of care, it is likely that many hospitals, barring a bailout, will have to shut their doors. It is no secret that hospitals lose money on Medicaid and Medicare patients. In addition, this legislation, which lacks malpractice reform, would expose physicians to a considerably greater degree of malpractice liability.
Contrary to the claims of Democrats, the limitations that this bill imposes on the age rating of premiums will actually lead to a significant increase in the cost of health insurance for young adults. Because insurance companies, under this legislation, cannot charge seniors more than twice as much as 18 year olds, the natural result will be higher premiums for young adults.
The expansion of inefficient entitlement programs will be counterproductive to the goal of bringing down the cost of health care in the long run. Higher taxes, misguided Medicare cuts, and increased government control over healthcare constitute an awful recipe for reform. Since Obama, Pelosi, and Reid, in proposing this legislation, obviously believe that health insurance is a form of interstate commerce; they should allow Americans to purchase health insurance across state boarders. This is one example of how the healthcare system could be reformed by providing Americans with real options instead of government mandates.
Instead of taking the logical approach following embarassing in New Jersey and Virginia, which would have been to rethink their healthcare strategy, Obama, Pelosi, and Reid have decided to move forward with their liberal agenda of big government and high taxes – consequences be damned. Hopefully Americans will respond in the midterm elections just as they did in 1994.
