Your Politics Are Boring

Nancy Pelosi’s health care “reform” bill in the House clocks in at a cool 1,990 pages - all of them apparently necessary to address the fifth of the population that isn’t satisfied with their health insurance (or lack thereof). Before I get started ripping this putrid legislation to shreds (which would take considerably longer using conventional means), you can read it for yourself here, assuming you have either a) inhuman amounts of free time, or b) a methamphetamine habit.

We’ll start with the dirtiest little secret first. Page 94, Section 202(c) of the bill prohibits the sale of private health insurance policies not in accordance with the federal government exchange, beginning in 2013. Let’s say that again: there will be no more freedom for patients and their insurers to choose the specific details of a private plan.

Page 297, Section 501 imposes a 2.5% tax on all individuals who do not purchase “bureaucrat-approved” health insurance, and yes, this tax would apply to individuals with incomes under $250,000. The core tax pledge of Obama’s campaign is now void.

Page 1174, Section 1802(b) includes even more worrisome provisions, including “Taxes on Certain Insurance Policies” to fund “comparative effectiveness research,” a broken promise you should have seen coming. Pelosi even promised not to tax health benefits “in any bill that passes the House,” yet once again, individuals earning anything less than $250,000 are the ones in the cross-hairs.

Page 313, Section 512 imposes an 8% “tax on jobs” for companies that cannot afford to purchase “bureaucrat-approved” health coverage. The bill is full of tax increases on families with income below $250k, including:

An individual mandate tax of up to 2.5% of income for taxpayers earning as little as $9,350 per year
A repeal of a tax break on medicine purchased with funds from personal Health Savings Accounts
Restrictions on tax relief through FSAs (Flex Spending Accounts)
More taxes on medical devices that will assuredly be passed on to consumers, no matter what their income level

We have, of course, neglected to mention the spending cuts that accompany the deform plan - namely those to Medicare benefits for seniors. The Congressional Budget Office warned that the sheer size of the Medicare cuts in Pelosi’s bill would have a serious impact on senior citizen’s benefits and freedom of choice, but Nancy is still planning to cut Medicare spending by hundreds of billions of dollars.

We were also told that small businesses would be exempt from the “pay or play” employer mandate, but of course, we were lied to. Employers with as few as 17 employees, affecting roughly 70% of all people who currently have jobs with small businesses - a figure that works out to about 42 million American workers. The mandate is a primed-and-ready job-killer. The mandates and taxes on employers of all sizes will invariably end up on the backs of workers, who will shoulder the burden in the form of lower wages, fewer available hours, or the loss of their job. The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), the country’s largest association of small businesses, has calculated that such an employer mandate could cause up to 1.6 million people to lose their jobs. That’s over twice the amount of jobs that were allegedly “created or saved” by Obama’s stimulus spend-a-thon.

But let’s say you’re self-employed, have a private insurance plan you like, are in good health, and do not receive any Medicare benefits. You’re safe, right? You would be, if it weren’t for billions in taxes on insurance companies, which will not be paid by “fat cat” CEOs forfeiting their private jets so you can continue to afford health care - the cost of your health insurance premiums rise to protect the company’s bottom line. Think you’ll still be happy with your plan when that happens? Additionally, according to the CBO, Medicare Part B premiums will shoot up $25 billion, and Part D premiums by 20%.

If you’re wondering what things could be done, instead of taxes, mandates, and cuts to senior benefits, that’s an entirely separate column (and one to look for soon). But this bill is akin to a surgeon amputating a foot because of a hangnail (or maybe just for the reimbursement, eh Barack?)