As you probably know, the House of Representatives is preparing to bring H.R. 3590, the health care reform legislation passed by the Senate in December, to the floor for a vote in the coming days. I put a link below so that you can look up your representatives and e-mail them. This is one of the most important pieces of legislation in our life time that could completely default our system into to a government run system. Please consider writing or calling.
H.R. 3590 contains provisions that will increase the cost of private health insurance and cause damage to our health care delivery system. The bill that passed the Senate includes billions in new taxes, a weak individual mandate that will drive up insurance premiums as people opt out of private insurance until they are sick, the expansion of Medicaid that could cripple state budgets and a new national long-term care program that has been described by Senate Budget Committee Chair Kent Conrad as a “Ponzi Scheme.”
Some facts:
• The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission released its annual report May 12, 2009 projecting that the trust fund used to pay for Medicare hospital costs will become insolvent two years earlier than the commission estimated last year.
• Our Federal Government is over 50 trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities for our Medicare system and is now projected to be bankrupt by 2017.
• Government subs out the administration of Medicare to the private sector who does the work at 5.9%, yet Medicaid, Veterans and all other public programs are administered by our government at 26%.
• Competition in a private health insurance market saves tens of billions each year that government agencies would waste on administrative cost.
• This legislation will increase health insurance rates and with a loose mandate for everyone to participate, we can expect what is happening now in New Jersey. Guarantee issue without a mandate makes for an insurance policy you only buy when your house is already on fire.
• Despite what President Obama says and the fact that your insurance premiums are going up by 10% – 12 % per year, it is not the insurance companies causing health care costs to skyrocket. Health care costs are skyrocketing across the world. If you would like the facts on how the insurance companies money is spent Vs. our largest insurance company in the nation (our Federal Government), please let me know and I will send you the information.
