Health Care Reform That Does Not Reform

The following was posted on my Facebook page earlier today: Yesterday the House Of Representatives increased our taxes, reduced our Medicare benefits, increased our future health care premiums, criminalized personal choice, and reduced our freedom WITHOUT solving the health care crisis.

I made this statement based on the information I believe to be true as of today. Since I have not read the entire 2000 page document (and I doubt most, if not all, Congressmen and Senators have not read it either), I may be wrong about the following conclusions and will admit where I am wrong if and when that becomes apparent. However, as of now, I stand by these statements:

• Increased our taxes - the legislation imposes a 5.4% tax on incomes over $500,000 for individuals and $1,000,000 for couples. It is my understanding that these figures are not indexed for inflation so at some point in the future it will ensnare more and more American taxpayers, much like the non-indexed alternative minimum tax disaster does today. It is also likely to increase unemployment since money that the rich may have spent on themselves will now be siphoned off to the government health care needs. Real life example - I know of a friend that works really hard building and expanding his insurance and brokerage business. He does really well financially but probably works harder at the business than anyone I know. He has already stopped having the services of a weekly cleaning lady and no longer goes to his favorite restaurant every Wednesday in anticipation of higher taxes in the future. Thus, this administration's policies, along with this bill, have already contributed to the high unemployment rate in this country.
• Reduced Our Medicare benefits - a major piece of this bill will be financed by a $400 billion reduction in Medicare funding. With doctors and hospitals today increasingly not taking Medicare patients because of inadequate Medicare compensation, imagine how bad it will be when this bill takes hundreds of billions of dollars out of the system.
• Increased our future health care premiums - this legislation will require insurance companies to take on new customers regardless of pre-existing conditions. Thus, costs to insurance companies will increase and no doubt those costs will be passed on to the rest of us in higher premiums. Thus, a person who drinks heavily, eats poorly, and does not exercise, which has resulted in diabetes, heart disease, and cirrhosis of the liver, will have this poor health life style subsidized by those of us that take care of ourselves.
• Criminalized personal choice - Let's assume you are a brand new college graduate. You are just starting out on your own and have a lot of expenses possibly including a new car, wardrobe for your new job, furniture for an apartment, and the continuing need to pay down your college loans. As a new employee, you will be pretty low down on the salary scale. All of this will put a financial strain on you but you are young, healthy, and are willing to take the risk that you do not have to shoulder the additional burden of paying for health care. Unfortunately, that last decision will now make you a criminal and subject you to heavy fines and/or jail time under this legislation. All because you made the personal choice to take your limited financial resources and pay for other debts. Too bad, pay up for insurance or the government will put you in jail.
• Reduced our freedom - whenever the government increases our taxes or criminalizes the very private decisions on heath care insurance, freedom and liberty suffers under the burden of a heavy handed government.

Given all of this downside to this legislation, the truly pathetic thing is that it will not fix the problem of rising health care costs in this country. It does not address or reform the tort system in the medical area that drives up malpractice insurance because of outsized malpractice lawsuits and the huge cost of defensive medicine. It does not look into such programs as consumer driven insurance plans (see yesterday's post) where the responsibility for personal health is driven down to the individual to make the health care decisions that are right and cost efficient for them. It does not look into controlling fraud which we know from examples outlined in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" are currently a major drain and waste of taxpayer resources and are liable to be much larger as the government inefficiently and incompetently manages more health affairs of its citizens.

And finally, do we really think that the political class can solve this issue with legislation and more oversight? They have not solved anything for the past four decades, from the War on Drugs to failing public schools to stupid foreign military entanglements to a non-existent national energy strategy. What makes anyone think they can pull this off. The only solution is start over and follow Step 28 in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" and fund and support an expert panel to identify the root causes of the health care issue and THEN come up with remedies. This legislation did not even take the time to identify and quantify the root causes. Pathetic.

Visit our website at www.loathemygovernment.com to order an autographed copy of the book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government -Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom and Destroying The American Political Class" and to sign up for the cause. The book is also available online at Amazon and Barnes And Noble.