By: Health Insurance
Submitted: 2009-12-03 16:11:04 | Word Count: 473
The health care “reform” legislation that is moving through the Senate Finance Committee fails to offer the common sense reforms our system needs and instead decreases our health insurance choices and makes health care more expensive with higher taxes.
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TELL YOUR SENATORS:
* Riddled with Taxes: This legislation is riddled with tax hikes. They start by taxing those earning over $10,831 year who don’t buy health insurance $750—a tax that escalates to $3,800 as income rises. Health insurance, health care devices and drugs are also taxed, adding to the cost of health care, and decreasing the competitiveness of these businesses.
* Medicare Cuts: The bill cuts $500 billion in Medicare spending, including over $130 billion in cuts to Medicare Advantage and nearly $120 billion in Medicare cuts for hospitals that care for seniors. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says they “expected the Medicare Advantage plans to lose 2.7 million enrollees over the next decade” as a result.
* Raises Insurance Prices: CBO also finds “premiums in the new insurance exchanges would tend to be higher than the average premiums in the current-law individual market…”
* Force, Not Choice: This legislation includes an “individual mandate” forcing all Americans to purchase health insurance, like the Massachusetts law. Taxpayer subsidies will be given to those earning up to three times the federal poverty level. Those not qualifying for subsides will be taxed up to $3,800 if they do not buy insurance. The experience in Massachusetts has left those caught in between unable to afford insurance and having to pay the tax.
* Big Insurance Boondoggle: Forcing all the uninsured into insurance could bring as much as $200 billion a year in new premiums to insurance companies, including $465 billion in subsidies over 10 years.
* Privacy Violation: This legislation would allow law enforcement agencies such as the FBI and the Department of Justice unprecedented unfettered access to medical records.
* No Lawsuit Reform: This bill fails to curb junk lawsuits. It doesn’t even implement the “demonstrations projects” on reform the President called for (despite the fact that states like Mississippi have already done so and seen medical malpractice insurance premiums drop 42 percent). Instead, it will “express the Sense of the Senate that health care reform presents an opportunity to address issues related to medical malpractice and medical liability insurance.”
* Bipartisan Opposition: The only thing bipartisan about this bill is the opposition to it.
* A vote for cloture on this legislation is a vote in favor of government-run health care. We will be watching your vote closely. VOTE NO!
