Five Major Faults with the Health Care Bills

Five Major Faults with the Health Care Bills

by Nina Owcharenko

WebMemo #2599

Current efforts by Congress to "reform" the health care system are centered on several flawed policy initiatives that will transfer more power and decisions to Washington and away from patients and families.

Rather than create a massive government-based health care system and dislocate people from their existing private coverage, policymakers should focus on putting the health care system on a path where individuals and families are in control of their health care dollars and decisions.

Shortfalls of the Health Care Bills

The following five provisions are the cornerstone of the House and Senate bills and unavoidably result in legislation taking health care reform in the wrong direction.

1. New Public Plan and Federal Exchange. Both the House and Senate bills would create a new government-run health care plan through the establishment of a federally run national health insurance exchange. The result: widespread erosion of private insurance and substantial consolidation of federal control over health care through the exchange.[1] As is evident in the details of the House bill (H.R. 3200), there is no level playing field for competition between the government plans and private health plans. Plus, the incentives in the legislation guarantee that millions of Americans will lose their existing employer-based coverage.

2. Federal Regulation of Health Insurance. Both the House and Senate bills would result in sweeping and complex federal regulation of health insurance. Moreover, it would take oversight away from states and concentrate it in Washington.[2]

3. Massive New Taxpayer-Funded Subsidies. Both the House and Senate would expand eligibility for Medicaid, but they would also extend new taxpayer-funded subsidies to the middle class. Such commitments would result in scores of Americans dependent on the government to finance their health care.[3] This is unfortunate because Congress could have reformed the tax treatment of health insurance to enable people to keep their existing private coverage and buy better private coverage if they wished to do so.

4. Employer Mandate. Both the House and Senate bills would impose an employer mandate for employers who do not offer coverage and for those whose benefits do not meet a new federal standard. An employer mandate would hurt low-income workers the most and would also stifle much-needed economic growth.[4] Employer mandates are passed on to workers in the form of reduced wages and compensation. This is exactly the wrong prescription for businesses, especially during a recession.

5. Individual Mandate. Both the House and Senate bills would require all people to buy health insurance. There is no doubt that such a mandate would result in a tax increase on individuals and families whose health insurance does not meet the new federally determined standards. This means that Congress will, for the first time, force Americans to buy federally designed packages of health benefits, even if they do not want or need those benefits.

It also means that health benefits will tend to become increasingly costly as powerful special interest groups and representatives of the health industry lobby intensively to expand the legally mandated health benefits, medical treatments and procedures, and drugs that all Americans must buy under penalty of law.

A Better Direction for Health Care Reform

Congress should stop and take a step back from these divisive House and Senate measures. Instead of trying to overhaul one-sixth of the American economy and seize an unprecedented amount of political control over health care decisions and dollars, policymakers should consider proceeding with smaller, incremental improvements. Policymakers need to proceed slowly and deliberately, making sure that the initial steps they take are not disruptive of what Americans have and want to keep, actually work, and do not result in costly and damaging and unintended consequences. There are three broad areas where Members can and should find consensus:

1. Promote State Innovation. Congress should preserve the states' autonomy over their health care systems and give them greater legal freedom to devise solutions that meet the unique characteristics of their citizens. In addition, individuals should also have the freedom to purchase coverage from trusted sources and not be restricted by where they happen to live. This means that Americans should be able to buy better coverage across state lines. Congress should respect and encourage personal freedom and diversity.

2. Establish Fairness in the Tax Treatment of Health Insurance. There is little disagreement that today's health care tax policy--which favors coverage obtained through the workplace--distorts the market and is inequitable. Instead of expanding government-run programs like Medicaid, policymakers should offer tax relief to those individuals who purchase private health insurance on their own, regardless of where they work.

At the same time, Congress should make sure that tax relief goes only to taxpayers. Congress should also devise a voucher program, giving low-income citizens the opportunity to get private coverage if they wish to do so. There is a broad bipartisan consensus that Congress should help low-income working families with direct assistance to enable them to get health insurance.

3. Get Serious About Entitlement Reform. Medicare and Medicaid, the giant health care entitlement programs, are not only increasingly costly, but they are also not delivering value to the taxpayers. The best way to secure value to patients (not government officials) is to compel health providers to compete directly for consumer dollars by allowing seniors and the poor to choose the coverage that is right for them using the money that is already available to them in these programs. This will "bend the cost curve" while at the same time allowing private-sector innovation to flourish.

Consumer-Driven Reform

Americans want to fix the problems in the health care system--but not at the expense of their own coverage. It is time policymakers recognize the lack of support for a major overhaul. But instead of continuing to protect the status quo, Congress should advance improvements that put the health care system on a path to reform.

Such improvements should be focused on increasing choice and competition not by turning control over to Washington but by empowering individuals and families to control their health care dollars and decisions.

Nina Owcharenko is Deputy Director of the Center for Health Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

Divorce agreement.

Divorce Agreement..
>
>
> PURPORTED TO BE WRITTEN BY A YOUNG LAW STUDENT.
>
>
> DIVORCE AGREEMENT
> THIS IS SO INCREDIBLY WELL PUT AND I CAN HARDLY BELIEVE
> IT'S BY A YOUNG PERSON, A STUDENT!!! WHATEVER HE RUNS
> FOR, I'LL VOTE FOR HIM.
> OUTSTANDING.
>
> Dear American liberals, leftists, social progressives,
> socialists, Marxists and Obama supporters, et al:
>
> We have stuck together since the late 1950's, but the
> whole of this latest election process has made me realize
> that I want a divorce. I know we tolerated each other
> for many years for the sake of future generations, but
> sadly, this relationship has run its course. Our two
> ideological sides of America cannot and will not ever
> agree on what is right so let's just end it on friendly
> terms. We can smile and chalk it up to irreconcilable
> differences and go our own way..
>
> Here is a model separation agreement:
> Our two groups can equitably divide up the country by
> landmass each taking a portion. That will be the
> difficult part, but I am sure our two sides can come to a
> friendly agreement. After that, it should be relatively
> easy! Our respective representatives can effortlessly
> divide other assets since both sides have such distinct
> and disparate tastes.
>
> We don't like redistributive taxes so you can keep them.
> You are welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU.
> Since you hate guns and war, we'll take our firearms, the
> cops, the NRA and the military. You can keep Oprah,
> Michael Moore and Rosie O'Donnell (You are, however,
> responsible for finding a bio-diesel vehicle big enough
> to move all three of them).
>
> We'll keep the capitalism, greedy corporations,
> pharmaceutical companies, Wal-Mart and Wall Street. You
> can have your beloved homeless, homeboys, hippies and
> illegal aliens. We'll keep the hot Alaskan hockey moms,
> greedy CEO's and rednecks. We'll keep the Bibles and
> give you ABC, CBS, NBC and Hollywood ..
>
> You can make nice with Iran and Palestine and we'll
> retain the right to invade and hammer places that
> threaten us. You can have the peaceniks and war
> protesters. When our allies or our way of life are under
> assault, we'll help provide them security.
>
> We'll keep our Judeo-Christian values.. You are welcome
> to Islam, Scientology, Humanism and Shirley McClain. You
> can also have the U.N.. but we will no longer be paying
> the bill.
>
> We'll keep the SUVs, pickup trucks and oversized luxury
> cars.. You can take every Subaru station wagon you can
> find.
>
> You can give everyone healthcare if you can find any
> practicing doctors. We'll continue to believe healthcare
> is a luxury and not a right. We'll keep "The Battle Hymn
> of the Republic" and the "National Anthem". I'm sure
> you'll be happy to substitute "Imagine", "I'd Like to
> Teach the World to Sing", "Kum Ba Ya" or "We Are the
> World".
>
> We'll practice trickle down economics and you can give
> trickle up poverty your best shot. Since it often so
> offends you, we'll keep our history, our name and our
> flag.
>
> Would you agree to this? If so, please pass it along to
> other like minded liberal and conservative patriots and
> if you do not agree, just hit delete. In the spirit of
> friendly parting, I'll bet you ANWAR which one of us will
> need whose help in 15 years..
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
> John J. Wall
> Law Student and an American
>
>
>
>
> P.S. Also, please take Barbara Streisand & Jane Fonda
> with you...

Democrats start push to name Health Care Reform after Sen. Ted Kennedy

Well, we knew it would only be a matter of time.... the Democrats want to rename the Health Care Reform after Senator Ted Kennedy...

Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.V.), one of the few to have served in the Senate longer than the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, said in a statement today that health care legislation should be named in his honor.

Kennedy famously called health care reform "the cause of my life." He set the tone for the current health care debate in Congress and worked to pass a number of monumental health care-related bills while in the Senate.

"In his honor and as a tribute to his commitment to his ideals, let us stop the shouting and name calling and have a civilized debate on health care reform which I hope, when legislation has been signed into law, will bear his name for his commitment to insuring the health of every American," Byrd said in his statement. (CBS News)

Huh, I though the 'cause' of "Off the Bridge" Ted's life should have been making scuba gear mandatory for all automobiles.

How long will it be before the government tries to shut this blog down in the name of an emergency?

Bill would give president emergency control of Internet by Declan McCullagh at the following link:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10320096-38.html

Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.

They're not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.

The new version would allow the president to "declare a cybersecurity emergency" relating to "non-governmental" computer networks and do what's necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for "cybersecurity professionals," and a requirement that certain computer systems and networks in the private sector be managed by people who have been awarded that license.

"I think the redraft, while improved, remains troubling due to its vagueness," said Larry Clinton, president of the Internet Security Alliance, which counts representatives of Verizon, Verisign, Nortel, and Carnegie Mellon University on its board. "It is unclear what authority Sen. Rockefeller thinks is necessary over the private sector. Unless this is clarified, we cannot properly analyze, let alone support the bill."

Representatives of other large Internet and telecommunications companies expressed concerns about the bill in a teleconference with Rockefeller's aides this week, but were not immediately available for interviews on Thursday.

A spokesman for Rockefeller also declined to comment on the record Thursday, saying that many people were unavailable because of the summer recess. A Senate source familiar with the bill compared the president's power to take control of portions of the Internet to what President Bush did when grounding all aircraft on Sept. 11, 2001. The source said that one primary concern was the electrical grid, and what would happen if it were attacked from a broadband connection.

When Rockefeller, the chairman of the Senate Commerce committee, and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) introduced the original bill in April, they claimed it was vital to protect national cybersecurity. "We must protect our critical infrastructure at all costs--from our water to our electricity, to banking, traffic lights and electronic health records," Rockefeller said.

The Rockefeller proposal plays out against a broader concern in Washington, D.C., about the government's role in cybersecurity. In May, President Obama acknowledged that the government is "not as prepared" as it should be to respond to disruptions and announced that a new cybersecurity coordinator position would be created inside the White House staff. Three months later, that post remains empty, one top cybersecurity aide has quit, and some wags have begun to wonder why a government that receives failing marks on cybersecurity should be trusted to instruct the private sector what to do.

Rockefeller's revised legislation seeks to reshuffle the way the federal government addresses the topic. It requires a "cybersecurity workforce plan" from every federal agency, a "dashboard" pilot project, measurements of hiring effectiveness, and the implementation of a "comprehensive national cybersecurity strategy" in six months--even though its mandatory legal review will take a year to complete.

The privacy implications of sweeping changes implemented before the legal review is finished worry Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco. "As soon as you're saying that the federal government is going to be exercising this kind of power over private networks, it's going to be a really big issue," he says.

Probably the most controversial language begins in Section 201, which permits the president to "direct the national response to the cyber threat" if necessary for "the national defense and security." The White House is supposed to engage in "periodic mapping" of private networks deemed to be critical, and those companies "shall share" requested information with the federal government. ("Cyber" is defined as anything having to do with the Internet, telecommunications, computers, or computer networks.)

"The language has changed but it doesn't contain any real additional limits," EFF's Tien says. "It simply switches the more direct and obvious language they had originally to the more ambiguous (version)...The designation of what is a critical infrastructure system or network as far as I can tell has no specific process. There's no provision for any administrative process or review. That's where the problems seem to start. And then you have the amorphous powers that go along with it."

Translation: If your company is deemed "critical," a new set of regulations kick in involving who you can hire, what information you must disclose, and when the government would exercise control over your computers or network.

The Internet Security Alliance's Clinton adds that his group is "supportive of increased federal involvement to enhance cyber security, but we believe that the wrong approach, as embodied in this bill as introduced, will be counterproductive both from an national economic and national secuity perspective."

Update at 3:14 p.m. PDT: I just talked to Jena Longo, deputy communications director for the Senate Commerce committee, on the phone. She sent me e-mail with this statement:

The president of the United States has always had the constitutional authority, and duty, to protect the American people and direct the national response to any emergency that threatens the security and safety of the United States. The Rockefeller-Snowe Cybersecurity bill makes it clear that the president's authority includes securing our national cyber infrastructure from attack. The section of the bill that addresses this issue, applies specifically to the national response to a severe attack or natural disaster. This particular legislative language is based on longstanding statutory authorities for wartime use of communications networks. To be very clear, the Rockefeller-Snowe bill will not empower a "government shutdown or takeover of the Internet" and any suggestion otherwise is misleading and false. The purpose of this language is to clarify how the president directs the public-private response to a crisis, secure our economy and safeguard our financial networks, protect the American people, their privacy and civil liberties, and coordinate the government's response.

Awesome Reagan Audio Remix

Sittin' on the Front Lawn of Zack Space... watching the Tide of National Health Care Roll Away

Now heres' a guy showing initiative!

From our Email Bag...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:
Coach Dave Daubenmire 740 507 3211
Zack Space 740 452 6338

Local football coach vows to continue round the clock vigil, granted permission to stay by Zanesville City Hall

Zanesville - With the summer sun beating down on Fourth Street, Coach Dave Daubenmire is still smiling his wry smile.

Sitting beneath Democrat Representative Zack Space's Congressional plaque outside the Congressman's office, "Coach" said he won't quit until Zack Space hosts a town hall. And twelve hours into his pledged round-the-clock vigil, the Fairfield Christian Academy football coach remains vigilant.

"I'm doing this for my kids and grandkids," says Coach Dave. "And I don't even have any grandkids yet."

"This is taxation without representation. My unborn grandkids are already being shackled with a debt inflicted by Congressmen like Zack Space who won't even meet with their constituents," insists Daubenmire."

Answering his cell phone from a collapsable chair, Daubenmire is only leaving his post when he breaks for practice between 2 and 6 PM.

The football coach has already garnered media attention from country station T-100, WHIZ TV, WCLT News and the Zanesville Times Recorder.

"I'm more interested in the people passing by," says Coach. "Almost everyone of them has been supportive."

Zanesville City Hall has also supported Daubenmire's right to protest.

"As long as he's peaceful and just sitting in a chair, he has a right to be there," said Robert Brandford, Zanesville Public Safety Director.

Brandford conferred with Chief of Police Eric Lambes on Daubenmire's protest and determined that Coach can stay. "Americans have the right to free speech, the right to protest and the right to assemble peacefully," said Brandford.

Initially concerned that he might be forced to move, Daubenmire can sleep comfortably (or at least legally) tonight on Fourth Street.

Good for Coach Dave. I know we have spoken with several aides for Zack Space and they have confirmed he will not having any public Town Halls and will NOT be meeting with constituents. We have left at least a minimum of 10 messages for Space's Chief of Staff to contact us -- none have been returned.

Gear up Patriots... when the congressional clowns go back in session -- Space must be a target and he can be influenced. If Space understands the make up of his district and wants to stay in office... he will vote no on nationalized Hellth Care.

College kids recruited to join Obama's 'army' Earn credit for pushing 'change,' working on president's 'agenda'

If you have a student who is going off to college this fall, either for the first time or a returning student, then please read this and pass it along to them. Also, contact your student's college/university and ask them if they are participating in this program to give college credit for student participation.

http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=107357

God Bless and Help America! We need it now more than ever!