Hands off My Healthcare!

Patients First sent out an email containing information about the Health Care Destruction proposal. They urge us to sign their petition and send a link to our contacts so as to exert maximum political pressure to prevent the passage of this monstrosity. [The list below is quoted directly from the email.]

This latest bill includes:

• A new government health insurance plan.
• An individual mandate that every one of us must purchase government-defined health insurance or face new taxes and fines. This is a clear breaking of the president's pledge not to raise taxes on Americans earning less than $250,000 per year – at least 8 million Americans and their families will see their taxes go up.
• An employer mandate that will make businesses either provide government-defined insurance coverage or pay a penalty tax.
• Another income tax on households and many small businesses with an annual income of $350,000 to help pay for all this. This is another broken campaign promise. The president had pledged not to increase any American's taxes above the level of the 1990s – and that is just what would happen.
• Did I mention that the government will decide what is an “adequate” health insurance package? A new bureaucracy – the Benefits Advisory Committee – and the Secretary of Health and Human Services will decide what coverage you have to pay for and what diseases and treatments will be covered.
• Another bailout that will cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars – this time to unions to bail out their retiree health care plans.
• More Comparative Effectiveness Research that could lead to government bureaucrats denying you health care treatment options.

This legislation is 1018 pages in length. Here is the first page.

H. R. ll
111TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION

To provide affordable, quality health care for all Americans and reduce
the growth in health care spending, and for other purposes.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Mr. DINGELL (for himself, Mr. RANGEL, Mr. WAXMAN, Mr. GEORGE MILLER
of California, Mr. STARK, Mr. PALLONE, and Mr. ANDREWS) introduced
the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on
lllllllllllllll

A BILL
To provide affordable, quality health care for all Americans

and reduce the growth in health care spending, and

for other purposes.

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-

2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF DIVISIONS, TITLES,

4 AND SUBTITLES.

5 (a) SHORT TITLE.--This Act may be cited as the

6 America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009''.

Notice the high level of abstraction. Exactly what do these terms mean, and how are they to be measured?

• affordable
• quality
• choice

What the Hell is "affordable"? My gross income last year was $575.00 . Most health insurance plans would cost me more than that each month. If one of those 'crats would say that word in my presence, in the context of that legislation, I would offer to pull his head out of his ass and explain reality to him.

Quality? The difference between surgery and non-invasive treatment? The difference between chemo therapy that damn near kills you and a newer, more expensive but less toxic treatment? Accept the new flu vaccine or decline? Who makes those choices? Not some G'd bureaucrat, not for me anyway!!!

Choice? Let us choose an insurance plan? What insurance company can compete with the government's printing press? The legislation will make competing plans both impossible economically and illegal. There is a provision in the law which will forbid adding policy holders. As policy holders die or switch to the government plan, their pools will diminish, until they go out of business.

Reduce the growth in health care spending? Why do we elect Morons to govern this nation?! If the population grows, if morbidity rates increase, if the population ages, there will be more demand for medical services and for drugs. Demand pushes up prices. New technologies cost more initially at least. If you increase the numbers of "insured", and they go to the doctor for every perceived ache and illness, or seeking treatment for wrinkles, hair loss, breast enlargement, butt reduction or declining libido/virility, then costs are going to increase, as will waiting times unless you increase supply. Increase supply, and you'll need to pay the new medical professionals and their operating costs.

How are you going to increase supply when you enact laws and regulations that reduce the income and increase the expenses of doctors? Didn't Hillary want to limit admission to medical schools and control entry into specialty programs?

The bill is too large, too complex, and the time frame is too short. No Congressman is going to read it. They will depend on lies told by President Obama's shills. We are going to be screwed, and the damage will be irreversible. There is no way out of entitlement programs once they are established.

Sign the petition and urge others to sign it. Go to http://www.congress.org, enter your zip code, click the Federal link and tell your Representative and Senators to use all their health care proposals as anal suppositories. Watch how they vote, and vote against them if they vote for those bills.