I spent nearly 8 hours speed-reading and trying to notate the critical sections of this incredibly-liberal health care reform bill. I know it’s not final, but I felt that my readers needed to know what this thing was. The high-points are that there are:
* 5 new taxes that total up to a %18.4 reduction of income for Americans. I can’t even calculate the annual fee on insurance in Section 4375 because they didn’t define it
* 31 new Federal programs and bureaucracies each with incomprehensible allocations from public funds
* Specifically prohibits states from enacting tort reform by holding back Federal dollars if they enact medical liability limits
* Serious increase in the amount of people covered by Medicare without any new funding to cover (hello state and sales tax increases)
* the bill will pay for abortions
* Regulates the spending of private insurers but allows the government to spend whatever it wants
* Has a government-run public option paid for by the multitude of taxes listed above
* Only limits yearly out-of-pocket maximums to $10,000 for families. This is higher than most average private insurance plans
* Creates a $5 Billion pool to pay government option claims from your taxes…
* Gives Power to the Secretary of Health and Human Services to enact waiting lists when government expenses get too high
* Eliminates new enrollment in current private insurance options after the bill is enacted into law
* Takes away the right of citizens to spend their own money on non-prescription drugs tax-free
* Prevents Americans from saving for their own health care emergencies by capping FSAs at $2500/yr
* Cuts Medicare by ~$500 Billion ($150 Billion+ of Medicare advantage cuts)
* Prevents expansion of medicare advantage programs
* Makes it easier to defraud Medicare
* Forces more people onto State Medicaid programs while reducing funding under the Medicare DSH program
There is
much more including a look at what deficit-neutral really means to us.
After reading it, I took the time to do a
side-by-side comparison of this bill with the Senate bill and the only GOP bill I could find.
If you have read the bills and have some further insight, please let me know.