13 Nov 18:50
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) recently stated that the constitutional authority for Congress to require individuals to purchase health insurance is the same that allowed for Medicaid and Medicare, and for states to require driver's licenses.

The last time I knew, Medicare and Medicaid were not mandatory, and for your information Senator Warner, although you do have to get a drivers license to drive in these 50 states, it is not mandatory that you obtain a drivers license if you don't wish to drive. No one is making you get one whether you want one or not and no one is fining you if you don't.

What a ridiculous comparison!

The Warner goes on to say that people without health care are currently going into hospitals and being treated and we are paying the bill and that is unfair. Huh? Isn't the Obama administration trying to tell us that there are 46 million people out there without health care who are at risk, now suddenly they can walk into a hospital and get it for free, it's just that we pay for it.

Well, again, Senator Warner, if 46 million people without health care are actually able to still get free health care on our dime, then there are actually no persons in the country who cannot get health care as you Democrats keep saying there are.

Furthermore, Senator Warner, wouldn't it be fair to say that if we are paying for those 46 million without health care that logic would dictate that we will be paying for 300 million people to get health care if the government run health care program passes in the Senate. That would mean that we would be paying for 254 million more than we are now.

So tell me again why we would want ObamaCare.

What a joke, and these people are running the country, scary.

07 Nov 15:22
The health care bill that House Speaker Pelosi is bringing to a vote (H.R. 3962)today is 1,990 pages, here are some of the provisions of the bill you should know.

Sec. 202 (p. 91-92) of the bill requires you to enroll in a "qualified plan." If you get your insurance at work, your employer will have a "grace period" to switch you to a "qualified plan," meaning a plan designed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. If you buy your own insurance, there's no grace period. You'll have to enroll in a qualified plan as soon as any term in your contract changes, such as the co-pay, deductible or benefit.

Sec. 224 (p. 118) provides that 18 months after the bill becomes law, the Secretary of Health and Human Services will decide what a "qualified plan" covers and how much you'll be legally required to pay for it. That's like a banker telling you to sign the loan agreement now, then filling in the interest rate and repayment terms 18 months later.

On Nov. 2, the Congressional Budget Office estimated what the plan will cost. An individual earning $44,000 before taxes who purchases his own insurance will have to pay a $5,300 premium and an estimated $2,000 in out-of-pocket expenses, for a total of $7,300 a year, which is 17% of his pre-tax income. A family earning $102,100 a year before taxes will have to pay a $15,000 premium plus an estimated $5,300 out-of-pocket, for a $20,300 total, or 20% of its pre-tax income. Individuals and families earning less than these amounts will be eligible for subsidies paid directly to their insurer.

Sec. 303 (pp. 167-168) makes it clear that, although the "qualified plan" is not yet designed, it will be of the "one size fits all" variety. The bill claims to offer choicebasic, enhanced and premium levelsbut the benefits are the same. Only the co-pays and deductibles differ. You will have to enroll in the same plan, whether the government is paying for it or you and your employer are footing the bill.

Sec. 59b (pp. 297-299) says that when you file your taxes, you must include proof that you are in a qualified plan. If not, you will be fined thousands of dollars. Illegal immigrants are exempt from this requirement.

Sec. 412 (p. 272) says that employers must provide a "qualified plan" for their employees and pay 72.5% of the cost, and a smaller share of family coverage, or incur an 8% payroll tax. Small businesses, with payrolls from $500,000 to $750,000, are fined less.

Besides reducing Medicare funding by an estimated $500 billion, the bill changes how Medicare pays doctors and hospitals, allowing the government to dictate treatment decisions.

Sec. 1302 (pp. 672-692) moves Medicare from a fee-for-service payment system, in which patients choose which doctors to see and doctors are paid for each service they provide, toward what's called a "medical home."

The medical home is this decade's version of HMO-restrictions on care. A primary-care provider manages access to costly specialists and diagnostic tests for a flat monthly fee. The bill specifies that you may have to settle for a nurse practitioner rather than a physician as the primary-care provider. Medical homes begin with demonstration projects, but the HHS secretary is authorized to "disseminate this approach rapidly on a national basis."

A December 2008 Congressional Budget Office report noted that "medical homes" were likely to resemble the unpopular gatekeepers of 20 years ago if cost control was a priority.

Sec. 1114 (pp. 391-393) replaces physicians with physician assistants in overseeing care for hospice patients.

Secs. 1158-1160 (pp. 499-520) initiates programs to reduce payments for patient care to what it costs in the lowest cost regions of the country. This will reduce payments for care (and by implication the standard of care) for hospital patients in higher cost areas such as New York and Florida.

Sec. 1161 (pp. 520-545) cuts payments to Medicare Advantage plans (used by 20% of seniors). Advantage plans have warned this will result in reductions in optional benefits such as vision and dental care.

Sec. 1402 (p. 756) says that the results of comparative effectiveness research conducted by the government will be delivered to doctors electronically to guide their use of "medical items and services."

While the bill will slash Medicare funding, it will also direct billions of dollars to numerous inner-city social work and diversity programs with vague standards of accountability.

Sec. 399V (p. 1422) provides for grants to community "entities" with no required qualifications except having "documented community activity and experience with community healthcare workers" to "educate, guide, and provide experiential learning opportunities" aimed at drug abuse, poor nutrition, smoking and obesity. "Each community health worker program receiving funds under the grant will provide services in the cultural context most appropriate for the individual served by the program."

These programs will "enhance the capacity of individuals to utilize health services and health related social services under Federal, State and local programs by assisting individuals in establishing eligibility . . . and in receiving services and other benefits" including transportation and translation services.

Sec. 222 (p. 617) provides reimbursement for culturally and linguistically appropriate services. This program will train health-care workers to inform Medicare beneficiaries of their "right" to have an interpreter at all times and with no co-pays for language services.

Secs. 2521 and 2533 (pp. 1379 and 1437) establishes racial and ethnic preferences in awarding grants for training nurses and creating secondary-school health science programs. For example, grants for nursing schools should "give preference to programs that provide for improving the diversity of new nurse graduates to reflect changes in the demographics of the patient population." And secondary-school grants should go to schools "graduating students from disadvantaged backgrounds including racial and ethnic minorities."

Sec. 305 (p. 189) Provides for automatic Medicaid enrollment of newborns who do not otherwise have insurance.

Read more HERE and HERE

03 Nov 18:25
Former CBO Director, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, said the House Democrats' health care bill would be neither durable nor desirable as it would raise health insurance premiums, ration health care, and fail to bring down the costs.

Holtz-Eakin said:

"We are going to generally raise the cost of existing insurance to those who already have it and that's a majority of Americans and then put in place a fiscally rickety way to get insurance to those who do not have insurance."

"As a result I think that these are reforms which are not durable in any deep sense and are not desirable from the point of view of policy," he said.

He further said that many of the tax provisions in the bill were not sustainable revenue measures but budgetary "gimmicks" designed to manipulate the CBO's 10-year scoring process.

"It continues to be true that it does not 'bend the cost curve,'" said Holtz-Eakin. "This does not deliver on the fundamental promise of real health care reform, which is to have services of the same quality or greater at lower cost, and lower cost growth certainly."

"This sets up instead a large entitlement spending program that grows at 8 percent a year as far as the eye can see, and which [current] CBO Director Doug Elmendorf said earlier this year did not bend the cost curve," said Holtz-Eakin. "It leaves the architects with only gimmicks to disguise this problem."

"It front-loads all of the taxes and back-loads all of the spending so as to give the appearance of balance over the 10-year window," he explained.

"And I think it's quite real that the Medicare payment reductions promised are politically and substantively unrealistic," he said. "There's been no change in the delivery system that would allow one to believe that you can cut in half the basic growth rate of the Medicare spending program, compared to history."

"The House has a real clear pay-for in the tax on millionaires, half a million for single [filers] and a million for couples, but that tax is not indexed for inflation and, to my eye," he said, "looks exactly like the Alternative Minimum Tax - a tax targeted on literally just over 100 high-income individuals but is now threatening the middle class year after year."

"The heart of this bill is to repeat two of the greatest policy errors this country has made: to create large, unfunded entitlement spending programs, and to have a tax law that is not politically viable over the long haul," he said.

"The budgetary aspect is crucial given the outlook for our economy, which we're on track to triple debt over the next 10 years and run deficits of a trillion dollars as far as 10 years from now," said Holtz-Eakin.

Read More Here

Folks, to read the bill for yourself click on this link: 1,990-page health care bill Good luck !

Send Email to Congress: NO to Government-Run Health Care