It's Not An Option
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, July 15, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Congress: It didn't take long to run into an "uh-oh" moment when reading the House's "health care for all Americans" bill. Right there on Page 16 is a provision making individual private medical insurance illegal.
When we first saw the paragraph Tuesday, just after the 1,018-page document was released, we thought we surely must be misreading it. So we sought help from the House Ways and Means Committee.
It turns out we were right: The provision would indeed outlaw individual private coverage. Under the Orwellian header of "Protecting The Choice To Keep Current Coverage," the "Limitation On New Enrollment" section of the bill clearly states:
"Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day" of the year the legislation becomes law.
So we can all keep our coverage, just as promised — with, of course, exceptions: Those who currently have private individual coverage won't be able to change it. Nor will those who leave a company to work for themselves be free to buy individual plans from private carriers.
From the beginning, opponents of the public option plan have warned that if the government gets into the business of offering subsidized health insurance coverage, the private insurance market will wither. Drawn by a public option that will be 30% to 40% cheaper than their current premiums because taxpayers will be funding it, employers will gladly scrap their private plans and go with Washington's coverage.
The nonpartisan Lewin Group estimated in April that 120 million or more Americans could lose their group coverage at work and end up in such a program. That would leave private carriers with 50 million or fewer customers. This could cause the market to, as Lewin Vice President John Sheils put it, "fizzle out altogether."
What wasn't known until now is that the bill itself will kill the market for private individual coverage by not letting any new policies be written after the public option becomes law.
The legislation is also likely to finish off health savings accounts, a goal that Democrats have had for years. They want to crush that alternative because nothing gives individuals more control over their medical care, and the government less, than HSAs.
With HSAs out of the way, a key obstacle to the left's expansion of the welfare state will be removed.
The public option won't be an option for many, but rather a mandate for buying government care. A free people should be outraged at this advance of soft tyranny.
Washington does not have the constitutional or moral authority to outlaw private markets in which parties voluntarily participate. It shouldn't be killing business opportunities, or limiting choices, or legislating major changes in Americans' lives.
It took just 16 pages of reading to find this naked attempt by the political powers to increase their reach. It's scary to think how many more breaches of liberty we'll come across in the final 1,002.
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4 comments:
The provisions of this bill indicate the exact intentions of the administration. That is to destroy the free enterprise system as it applies to health care. There can be little doubt, after reading this article, that private insurance companies are going to be eliminated and replaced by a public option that will be controlled solely by the government. That means you and your doctor will no longer be allowed to decide what treatments are available to you. It also means medical practices will close because they will not be able to survive on the meager pittance offered for their services. Small businesses will also close initially, because of the requirement to provide health care insurance to employees. So, there go the jobs, and here come the taxes. What a change!
We need to be at a rally at the capital, 9/12 to show the Dems. & RINO that we are serious about opposing all this spending, taxing, & taking away our freedoms. We need "the next step" with Obama administration.
Also, start calling this "Replacement health care", not a reform. If everyone has to sacrifice, ask when lawyers are going to give on tort reform? Why are congress, fed employees & unions exempt? Makes a 2 tiered system! Get a serious theme going because this health care reform bill has no cost savings, hampers progress with these employer/ee fees, takes our freedom of choice away. All when 90% are happy except for costs, which these plans do nothing to curb anyway! There is the theme: 2 tiered, still costly, replacement plan with sacrifices for all but the lawyers! Fax or e-mail your congress people every other day! Volume means everything in these things.Or call 202-224-3121, the senate switchboard.this wk & next.
Tort reform would be a significant savings because doctors would no longer have to concentrate on "defensive medicine". The second major step to avoid the alternate health reform system, would be to curb the fraud in health care, which some have estimated, to be 30% of the annual cost of health care or $800 Billion annually. But, to ask Bozo to stop fraud?......... That is like asking a prostitute to give a sermon on chastity.
hey jack smith guess what america has theses things called emergency rooms they MUST give you healthcare there the wait is no more than a few hours you can get a MRI in at the most 3 days. Canada which has national healthcare the same MRI takes 3 MONTHS. that will kill you.
Also you think private healthcare should be completely eliminated how many people are employed in those companies 470,000 that's how many you say those people should lose their jobs. i wonder what they would say about that.
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