Tag Archives: Health Care Reform

MUST-READ: 20 reasons why the health care reform bill is a disaster

Here are TWENTY reasons from Investors Business Daily.

Excerpt:

1. You are young and don’t want health insurance? You are starting up a small business and need to minimize expenses, and one way to do that is to forego health insurance? Tough. You have to pay $750 annually for the “privilege.” (Section 1501)

2. You are young and healthy and want to pay for insurance that reflects that status? Tough. You’ll have to pay for premiums that cover not only you, but also the guy who smokes three packs a day, drink a gallon of whiskey and eats chicken fat off the floor. That’s because insurance companies will no longer be able to underwrite on the basis of a person’s health status. (Section 2701).

5. You are an employer and you would like to offer coverage that doesn’t allow your employees’ slacker children to stay on the policy until age 26? Tough. (Section 2714).

6. You must buy a policy that covers ambulatory patient services, emergency services, hospitalization, maternity and newborn care, mental health and substance use disorder services, including behavioral health treatment; prescription drugs; rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices; laboratory services; preventive and wellness services; chronic disease management; and pediatric services, including oral and vision care.
You’re a single guy without children? Tough, your policy must cover pediatric services. You’re a woman who can’t have children? Tough, your policy must cover maternity services. You’re a teetotaler? Tough, your policy must cover substance abuse treatment. (Add your own violation of personal freedom here.) (Section 1302).

9. If you are a large employer (defined as at least 50 employees) and you do not want to provide health insurance to your employee, then you will pay a $750 fine per employee (It could be $2,000 to $3,000 under the reconciliation changes). Think you know how to better spend that money? Tough. (Section 1513).

11. If you are a physician and you don’t want the government looking over your shoulder? Tough. The Secretary of Health and Human Services is authorized to use your claims data to issue you reports that measure the resources you use, provide information on the quality of care you provide, and compare the resources you use to those used by other physicians. Of course, this will all be just for informational purposes. It’s not like the government will ever use it to intervene in your practice and patients’ care. Of course not. (Section 3003 (i))

12. If you are a physician and you want to own your own hospital, you must be an owner and have a “Medicare provider agreement” by Feb. 1, 2010. (Dec. 31, 2010 in the reconciliation changes.) If you didn’t have those by then, you are out of luck. (Section 6001 (i) (1) (A)).

13. If you are a physician owner and you want to expand your hospital? Well, you can’t (Section 6001 (i) (1) (B). Unless, it is located in a country where, over the last five years, population growth has been 150% of what it has been in the state (Section 6601 (i) (3) ( E)). And then you cannot increase your capacity by more than 200% (Section 6001 (i) (3) (C)).

14. You are a health insurer and you want to raise premiums to meet costs? Well, if that increase is deemed “unreasonable” by the Secretary of Health and Human Services it will be subject to review and can be denied. (Section 1003)

15. The government will extract a fee of $2.3 billion annually from the pharmaceutical industry… Think you, as a pharmaceutical executive, know how to better use that money, say for research and development? Tough. (Section 9008 (b)).

16. The government will extract a fee of $2 billion annually from medical device makers… Think you, as a medical device maker, know how to better use that money, say for research and development? Tough. (Section 1405).

So… individuals will have less money in their pockets, small businesses will lay off employees… the number of doctors and hospitals will decrease… there will be fewer new medications and new medical devices developed… and insurance companies will go out of business so that consumers of health care will have fewer choices and pay higher prices.

Every time Obama attacks service providers and product manufacturers, then we get LESS of what they provide. When we get FEWER services and products, then that means that there will be LESS SUPPLY. When demand stays the same and supply goes down, then PRICES INCREASE. We are all going to have to pay for Obama’s economic ignorance. Eventually, the government ends up by closing hospitals and cutting service, as is being proposed right now in the UK. (20 billion euros worth of cuts!)

We could have had real health care reform to make buying health care like buying from Amazon.com. But no. We wanted to buy health care from the DMV, because the service there is SO MUCH BETTER.

Democrats vote to subsidize Viagra for child molesters and rapists

Story from the Washtington Times.

Excerpt:

Senate Democrats voted almost unanimously Wednesday night to ensure the right of rapists and child molesters to have guaranteed access to government-subsidized Viagra under the president’s health care plan. Only Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana broke ranks with his Democratic colleagues.

Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, put the Senate’s majority party on the spot by offering an amendment denying convicted sex offenders coverage for erectile-dysfunction medications. Dr. Coburn’s proposal would also have prohibited health care exchanges from offering any coverage of elective-abortion drugs like RU-486 at taxpayer expense.

[The Democrats also] defeated an amendment barring tax increases on families earning less than $250,000. So much for the president’s promised “middle-class tax cut.” They also defeated an amendment requiring the president and other administration officials to purchase health care from exchanges – just like everyone else under Obamacare.

So it’s not just abortions that will be taxpayer-funded.

This is scary. It seems to me that people on the left don’t believe that anyone should ever be punished for doing anything immoral. They often oppose concepts like “good” and “evil”. They refrain from making moral judgments. They condemn those who are good, and lift up those who are evil. They don’t want anyone to feel excluded or judged. No one is responsible for their own decisions, they say. But what about the victims of immoral actions? And who is going to pay for all the goodies they hand out (to get elected)?

MUST-HEAR: Scott Klusendorf discusses Obamacare and the pro-life cause

This is a must-hear podcast.

Details:

LTI is not a political organization and does not endorse any candidate. The regular participates of the LTI podcast – namely Rich, Scott, and Jay wanted to change gears and explicitly discuss politics – specifically the recently enacted health care reform bill and its impact on the pro-life cause. The views expressed are individual opinions and are not endorsed by Life Training Institute.

Scott described this one as a barnburner yesterday and I could not agree more. Enjoy.

The MP3 file is here.

The RSS feed for the LTI podcast is here.

I’m also on Facebook, by the way, and you can befriend me. You can also click here to follow the blog on Facebook.

I’ve listened to this podcast 3 times but I’ll listen to it again and try to take notes, instead of jumping up and down clapping my hands. This podcast is a must-listen for social conservatives who are left-wing on economics issues. Big government is never in favor of protecting the unborn or defending traditional marriage. Big government always means increased social liberalism.