Kennedy Healthcare Bill Will Be a Disaster

Good thing this thing is only a draft because it sounds like the worst bill ever put forth by Congress. It probably takes all of the worst parts of health care and lumps it all into a package that no country can afford.

This would have severe effects on the more than 100 million Americans who have private health insurance today:

• The government would mandate not only that you must buy health insurance, but what health insurance counts as “qualifying.”
• Health insurance premiums would rise as a result of the law, meaning lower wages.
• A government-appointed board would determine what items and services are “essential benefits” that your qualifying plan must cover.
• You would find a tremendous new disincentive to switch jobs, because your new health insurance may be subject to the new rules and would therefore be significantly more expensive.
• Those who keep themselves healthy would be subsidizing premiums for those with risky or unhealthy behaviors.
• Far more than half of all Americans would be eligible for subsidies, but we have not yet been told who would pay the bill.
• The Secretaries of Treasury and HHS would have unlimited discretion to impose new taxes on individuals and employers who do not comply with the new mandates.
• The Secretary of HHS could mandate that you provide him or her with “any such other information as [he/she] may prescribe.”

The highlights (or lowlights) are: you either buy health insurance or you are taxed some unspecified amount. You might get your care rationed by some board of health care bureaucrats. Healthy people will have to pay for risky and unhealthy people. It subsidizes health care costs for half of Americans but doesn't tell you where that money comes from.

It also lets the Treasury and the HHS impose unspecified taxes for noncompliance and force you to provide “any such other information as [he/she] may prescribe.” In other words government bureaucrats will have the ability to look at your colonoscopy results if they choose to.

I will be willing to bet you $100 that Rush Limbaugh and other conservatives will have their medical histories leaked on the Internet a week after this bill is passed. Especially if that information is embarrassing or damaging.

This health care reform bill has the potential to strait-up wreck the US health care system in one fell swoop and needs to be opposed by every right thinking American.