After much wheeling and dealing behind closed doors last week, Majority Leader Harry Reid squeaked out the necessary 60 votes on Saturday night to secure debate on a health care overhaul bill. The legislation is scheduled to be debated after the Thanksgiving break with a vote likely before Christmas.
For those opposed to the sweeping government takeover of industry, health, and liberty, we are left wondering, "now what?"
The most effective thing you can do to voice your opinion is to visit, fax, and call your Senators. Not sure what to say, try bringing up these 16 facts from the bill for discussion.
A few notes from the bill:
1. The Senate health care bill contains the word "tax" 511 times, uses the word "require" 1,000+ times, and the word "shall" 3,500+ times.
2. The new taxes take effect in Januray 2010, but the benefits will not begin until 2013, conveniently following the 2012 election.
3. Senator Landrieu (D-LA) secured $100,000,000 in funding for her state to be included in the bill. Landrieu has said for more than a week that she was undecided on her vote but yesterday mentioned to the AP that she may be leaning toward progressing the bill toward debate.
4. According to popular polls such as Rassmussen, the Senate health care bill has only 35% approval among citizens of the United States. "Hillary-care" had a 36% approval rating and it failed miserably.
5. The bill includes $500,000,000,000 in Medicare & Medicaid funding cuts.
6. The bill includes new taxes for medical devices such as hip replacements, toothbrushes, pace makers, crutches, casting materials, cathedars, and tampons.
7. The bill includes taxes on elective surgeries such as botox, cosmetic surgery, and breast reconstruction.
8. Persons illegally living and working in the United States would be required to purchase health care insurance. The bill fails to explain how to track, monitor, or reprimand illegal immigrants.
9. The bill does not include medical malpractice reform, ensuring millions of dollars in frivolous lawsuits against the United States health care insurance program. This will cost all taxpaying Americans to pay multitudes of lawyers even though they may not be on the government program.
10. The Senate health care reform bill will cost TRILLIONS of dollars that the United States does not and will not have. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office's 10 year projection is over $1,000,000,000,000, however that only includes 6 years of services. Again, taxes will begin to be collected for years prior to the program taking effect, so the true annual cost will not be realized until well after the analyzed 10 year period.
11. Federally funded abortion IS in the Senate bill.
12. The Senate bill gives the Secretary of Health and Human Services, currently Kathleen Sebelius, more power than has ever been given to that office.
13. In the Senate health care bill, the Department of Health and Human Services will be responsible for determining the amount of medication a patient will be given, what procedures are "medically necessary," and which medical tests will be permitted for those on the government-run health care system.
14. The bill mandates that every person hold health care insurance that meets the requirements of the Department of Health and Human Services, or face a fine.
15. The bill mandates businesses to provide health insurance that meets the standards set by DHS for every worker or face a penalty. The bill will NOT guarantee that your employer will keep coverage since it will be much more cost effective for the employer to drop health insurance programs in favor of the fine. Thus many workers will be forced into the governement-run health care program.
16. If you choose not to purchase health insurance and pay the individual fine, you will still be able to receive coverage when needed because no private insurance program or the government-run program will be allowed to turn you away for a pre-existing condition. As a consequence, those who do purchase health insurance will pay higher premiums to cover the costs of those who will inevitably get sick later.
Still want to do more? Bring in pages from the legislation and ask your representative to explain it to you. Ask your Senator if they were given consessions or bribes for their vote. Ask them to answer this one question:
With massive new taxes, incredibly low approval rating (36%), double-dip recession, higher than 10% unemployment (resulting in less tax revenue collected), a plan you, Mr. Senator, will not participate in, and a bill that won't provide benefits until 2014 - what's the rush?
For full text of the bill, click here: HR 3590
Find your Senator's contact information here!
AP Photo Alex BrandonWith massive new taxes, incredibly low approval rating (36%), double-dip recession, higher than 10% unemployment (resulting in less tax revenue collected), a plan you, Mr. Senator, will not participate in, and a bill that won't provide benefits until 2014 - what's the rush?
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Want to learn more about what health care reform really is? Click here- Politics 101: What is health care reform?
Comments
More fear-mongering from the extreme right. Or as Ronald Reagan would say...here you go again. You know full well that the current bill is nowhere close to where it'll end up. It'll be changed multiple times before a vote, and no one expects the vote to take place until sometime in January, maybe even early Feb. It's incredible how when the majority rules....remember the Democrats have a strong majority, the right wingers don't like it. But when YOUR PEOPLE were in control, barely, they shoved everything down the Dems throats. Turnabout is fair play, a health reform bill WILL be passed and even the health insurance companies love it as they will have more than 30 million new customers to screw over. Lastly, it is common knowledge that illegal immigrants will NOT be able to purchase coverage. Quit the lying and fearful tactics....it's getting old, like most of the Republicans. Try writing with facts some time. It would be refreshing.
Yes, but what is the Conservative plan for affordable health care that covers everyone? (Sound of crickets). We're all certainly doing well at the hands and mercy of the greedy profit-driven private insurance providers who, when they are not robbing people blind, are denying care and leaving people to sickeness or death because they can't cough up enough cash.
Conservative law-makers are slaves to their task-masters -- money hungry greed heads who see someone's cancer or heart disease as a chance to take all their money.
Thanks for a fact-free article of distortions and bent ideaology.
Now we start voting them out of office. This country is failing and they are worried about how much more $$ they can scam out of us.
No Medicare cuts!
No Healthcare for illegals!
No underhanded tax increses on an already suffering nation.
Wake Up Washington!
Excuse me Julie, but we just voted them IN to office, and one of the top reasons was the broken healthcare system and the fact that nearly 50 million Americans don't have coverage for one reason or another. The system has to be fixed and the Republicans, as usual and as Ken has so aptly pointed out, have no plan of their own other than to say no to everything. That's why there are only 40 of them. The party of Sarah Palin, McConnell, Boehner, Rush, Hannity, Glenn Beck the lunatic et al is a shambles, and they can't fight their way out of a paper bag. They deserve each other.
Thanks Erin, I'm still stunned at the potential government control over our lives in these Bills because IF we are destined to have NHC I don't understand why we just don't pay for it with a national sales tax without any new laws, rules, regulations, and government departments and employees. It doesn't make sense to me.
The manner in which the current system is broken is by too much government interference, not too little. More government interference will make a less-than-optimal system truly terrible. Career politicians do not want to actually fix health care or any other problem. If they wanted to solve the health care problems in America, they could do the following: 1) Allow unlimited, non-expiring pre-tax health savings accounts, 2) Remove the tax benefits of employer-provided insurance, 3) Remove the mandates on what insurance is required to cover, 4) Allow insurance offered in any state to be purchased in any state, 5) Reform medical malpractice, and 6) End the artificial shortage of doctors caused by AMA policies. These all cost the government NOTHING, and would vastly improve health care in America. However, since these all REDUCE government control, they will not happen. The partisan bickering is just a way to distract us from the fact that ALL career politicians want more power.
Ken and Harris,
too blind and deaf to see and hear the fact that America does not want this bill. I suggest these two investigate the facts themselves instead of listening to their party whores and rehashing their rhetoric. This bill is deficit hungry. Any fool can see it will do nothing but destroy our country for many generations to come. Thanks Erin, facts can only be denied by fools!
If liberals wanted real economic liberalism, they would have a bill much different than this!
Cato.org has great analysis on what market liberal solutions to take that would be far less expensive and work better in the long run.
These bills should not pass!
@ Jackson Harvey.
Well said sir!
Your suggestions are similar to an economic liberal site with great policy research (cato.org). Government has caused this mess with regulations, mandates, subsidies, medicare and medicaid. They have caused prices to be inflated and manipulated. Then they blame the market. Typical blind minion parasites fall for it every time. This bill is more economic fascism with a dash of socialized government plan. NO THANKS!
Politicians do not care about the best economic gain, they care about the best political gain. sad really....
Even more sad is that so called liberals are not even economically liberal. hypocrites...
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