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October 31, 2009
Obama's Controlling Our Lives Government Care
Premiums to Skyrocket Under Obamacare
By: David A. Patten
Skyrocketing insurance premiums will slam millions of consumers next year because of "indirect taxes" contained in both the House and Senate versions of healthcare reform, according to various medical and insurance industry experts.
Healthcare reforms that were supposed to contain costs actually will cause a sharp hike in premiums, they add. In fact, several studies indicate consumers' premiums could more than double next year if healthcare reform takes effect.
"So even though this bill tries to hide these costs as indirect taxes," Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, recently told a business symposium, "average Americans who purchase health plans, take prescription drugs, or use medical devices will end up footing the bill."
The rate hikes stem from the hundreds of billions in proposed fees and taxes levied on providers.
For example, the Finance Committee's proposal would assess $322 billion in taxes and fees on insurance premiums, prescription drugs, and medical devices, according to the Senate's Joint Committee on Taxation.
The committee and other experts say virtually all of those costs will be passed along to consumers in all tax brackets — despite President Barack Obama's pledge not to raise taxes "one dime" on those earning less than $250,000 per year.
Another likely frustration for consumers: The premium hikes will take effect right away, while the subsidies and benefits in healthcare reform won't kick in completely until 2014.
Scott Gottlieb, a physician and American Enterprise Institute resident fellow, stated Thursday in a New York Post op-ed that, by front-loading the costs and back-loading benefits, Congress is resorting to "a gimmick that imposes a stiff price on the public."
That "gimmick," Gottlieb claims: using 10 years of added fees and taxes on providers to offset about five years worth of benefits. Those costs "will immediately shift onto consumers, in the form of higher prices on medical products and rising premiums," he says.
Democrats have promised to insure an additional 35 million Americans, without raising taxes or increasing the tsunami of deficit red ink spilling out of Washington these days. ( LIES more LIES ~ Wild Thing )
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the former director of the Congressional Budget Office, appeared to concur with Gottlieb's assessment in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed.
"These costs will be passed on to consumers by either directly raising insurance premiums, or by fueling higher health-care costs that inevitably lead to higher premiums," he wrote.
The bottom line: Most voters will be paying higher premiums for years before they see any benefits. That could spell serious trouble for Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections.
The Senate bill proposes $2.3 billion in fees on brand-name drugs, $4 billion on medical devices, and $6.7 billion levied on insurance companies, plus more than $100 billion in Medicare reimbursements to medical providers — all costs that would be shifted back onto consumers.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi's House bill appears even more expensive. It would impose $150 billion in Medicare cuts on the pharmaceutical industry, and a 2.5 percent tax on companies that manufacture medical devices.
"Most of astounding of all," Holtz-Eakin wrote, "is what this Congress is willing to do to struggling middle-class families. The bill would impose nearly $400 billion in new taxes and fees. Nearly 90 percent of that burden will be shouldered by those making $200,000 or less."
~ snipet ~
The spiraling costs contained in the Affordable Health Care for America Act that Pelosi unveiled Thursday drew heavy fire:
Competitive Enterprise Institute senior fellow Gregory Conko called the bill "a recipe for exploding costs," adding: "The Affordable Health Care for America Act is anything but affordable. It will force millions of Americans to pay higher health insurance premiums, it taxes individuals who would like to purchase insurance options that don’t meet standards set by Washington bureaucrats, and it forces businesses and individuals to pay for insurance benefits they don’t want and don’t need."
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Retail Federation, the National Association of Manufacturers, and seven other major associations sent a letter to Pelosi warning the legislation "falls short of the bipartisan goal of controlling costs."
Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., the chairman of the House Republican Conference, told CNN the Pelosi plan "looks like another freight train of big government with more taxes, more mandate and more spending – and that's not what the American people want in healthcare reform." He added that a search showed the nearly 2,000-page bill contains the directive "shall" 3,425 times.
Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., remarked: "The people of this country want reforms that provide them with more choices, more competition, more innovation, higher quality, and lower costs. Instead, Democrat leaders have worked in secret to write a bill that does exactly the opposite."
Karen Ignagni, the president of the America's Health Insurance Plans trade group that lobbies Congress on behalf of insurance companies, called the proposal "a missed opportunity." Ignagni predicted "families and employers will not be able to afford coverage and healthcare costs will rise at a rate much faster than the overall economy is able to sustain." In addition to the Wellpoint study, AHIP says three other reports, including one by PricewaterhouseCoopers, project that the legislative proposals will cause premiums to increase "far faster and higher" than they would under the present system.
ObamaCare Debate : Freedom vs. Oppression
On September 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued The Emancipation Proclamation:
“That on the 1st day of January, in the year of our Lord 1863, all persons held as slaves within any state or designated part of a state, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom. . . And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God.”
With these words President Lincoln ended slavery – a flagrant violation of the institutions of the United States of America, “a government of, by and for all the people.”
The institution of slavery denied essential freedoms to fellow Americans. Today, in 2009, another freedom is being denied to every man, woman and child — freedom of health care.
The Obama Health Care Plan is the instruction manual and play book for this mandate.
These “Masters” of Health Care are trying to deny individuals the freedom to choose what doctor you can see, what medicine you can take, what hospital you can go to, and how you spend your health care dollars. They even take it a step further in the Obama Health Care Plan, determining – IF – yes, IF you can be treated. These “Masters” of Health Care are driving us to unnecessary pain, suffering, and, in some cases, death.
If any American chooses NOT to have coverage, as millions currently do, then they will be fined. If they do NOT pay the fine then they will penalized $25,000 or ‘Go To Jail’…..Go directly to jail without passing Go.
But the penalties, taxes and punishments do not stop there. In fact, President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid do NOT want you to consider the taxes really to be taxes. On page 203 of the health care bill (the one that is currently available to the public) it is stated, “The tax imposed under this section shall NOT be treated as a tax imposed.” I kid you not…..how dumb do they think we are?
While out of one side of his mouth President Obama claims there will not be an increase in “taxes,” it has also been reported that a provision to tax medical appliances has been proposed to partially fund the health care plan.
The Senate recently exempted medical items that cost under $100 — such as tampons and condoms. But the tax, expected to raise about $40 billion over the next decade, is still in the bill and includes items like:
•Pacemakers
•Hip joint replacements
•Gastrointestinal tubes
•Artificial hearts
•Hearing aids
•Porcelain teeth
•Heart defibrillators
•Prosthetic heart valve rotators
•Powered wheelchairs
•Ventilators
The Medical Device Manufacturer’s Association said that the tax would hurt them, as well as those who need medical devices.
The rationing of care in the Two Part Obama Health Care Plan is implemented through a Council, equivalent to the National Health Care Board in the British Health Care System. The name given to this panel is The Federal Coordinating Council For Comparative Effectiveness Research (“Federal Council”). (Section 9201 H.R. 1 Version of the Stimulus Bill.)
President Obama has already appointed the fifteen-member Federal Council. According to the Stimulus Bill, p. 152, all members of the Council must be “senior federal officers or employees.” Thus, medical treatment will be dispensed by a group of bureaucrats from their ivory towers, not by the hands-on practitioners in the presence of the patients. The council was funded with $1.1 BILLION from the stimulus bill.
It becomes evident that the Obama health Care plan as advanced by Pelosi, Reid and the Democrat majority in the House and Senate is NOT about bringing affordability and availability to the health care system. This insidious Plan is about wresting control of every American’s life and death through penalties, punishments, taxes and coercion.
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Wild Thing's comment..........
A lot of trees died for this POS bill and a lot of PEOPLE may die if this POS bill passes.
Obama and Congress and the central government are a danger to our health.
111TH CONGRESS, 1ST SESSION
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
A 1990 Page BILL
To provide affordable, quality health care for all Americans and reduce the growth in health care spending, and for other bullshit purposes.
What the .. HECK is This doing in a "Health care" Bill???
SEC. 815. SENSE OF CONGRESS REGARDING LAW ENFORCEMENT AND METHAMPHETAMINE ISSUES IN INDIAN COUNTRY.
It is the sense of Congress that Congress encourages State, local, and Indian tribal law enforcement agencies to enter into memoranda of agreement between and among those agencies for purposes of streamlining law enforcement activities and maximizing the use of limited resources—
(1) to improve law enforcement services provided to Indian tribal communities; and
(2) to increase the effectiveness of measures to address problems relating to methamphetamine use in Indian country (as defined in section 1151 of title 18, United States Code).
This has no business being here. No wonder its 1990 pages.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at October 31, 2009 12:50 AM
Comments
The way I have it figured, this act will cost us a billion dollars a page and one job in the job market for every word.
http://theprogressivecapitalist.blogspot.com/2009/10/affordable-health-care-for-america-act.html
Posted by: John Lloyd Scharf at October 31, 2009 12:49 AM
Seems to me the doctors could end this. Send a massive petition to Congress indicating they will retire or find another line of work if this passes.
Everyday is a new assault on the taxpayers of this country. The brazen money-grabs that go on are mind numbing. I am sick of the federal government telling me I'm too dumb to live my life without their help. Screw them!!
Posted by: Jim at October 31, 2009 09:34 AM
This Healthcare Bill and the Cap and Trade Bill seal the fate of individual freedom in America and in the case of the Cap and Trade bill also seal the fate of Americas's sovereignty. obama and the Democrats are doing with a few thousand paes of bureaucratic double-speak what no "evil empire" has been able to do.
Americans have had The Constitution to guarantee our freedom and sovereignty. Now our own (elected)leaders are bastardizing and destroying The Constitution. They are doing it quickly and brazenly. I hope Americans wake up soon. The recent surge in sales of guns and ammo show that a large numbe of Americans are aware of the crime that is occurring.
Posted by: TomR at October 31, 2009 12:11 PM
Tyranny makes Deomcrats feel virile.
Posted by: Anonymous at October 31, 2009 04:02 PM
Posted by: Jack at October 31, 2009 04:39 PM
Approximately 40% of the Doctors polled said they would retire early or go into another profession. That would put a huge strain on an already overburdened system. Rationing, Holy crap, that is/would be the watch word.
Posted by: Mark at October 31, 2009 07:20 PM
