Well just a little while ago Nancy Pelosi introduced her so called healthcare reform bill, which she is euphemistically calling "The Affordable Health Care Act". I caught part of her speech where she was introducing this monstrosity and I knew we were in trouble when she thanked Charlie "What Taxes" Rangel, and Henry "Nostrils" Waxman for their hard work on this. She also took a swipe at insurance companies, keeping it classy like her fellow mentally challenged traveler Alan Grayson.
Next up was Steny Hoyer who wanted to thank John "Winter Soldier" Dingell for being the sponsor.
All this means is that the progressives in
I'll let others comb over this version but we already know that this bill is designed to do two things and neither of them have to do with healthcare.
The first priority seems to be to cause a collapse of the health insurance industry. Any who doubt only need to wait for the video clips to become available of the ceremony today and watch Nancy's remarks.
The second priority is to get as many Americans as possible into the government plan as possible. The Democrats always work from the point of view that the more people who are dependent on the government for their lively hood the more voters they have.
This bill is going to be bad for businesses, and as the WSJ has already deduced, will force some companies to reduce payroll in order to avoid being penalized.
The House legislation would require companies with a payroll of $500,000 or more to offer health coverage to employees, or pay a penalty of at least 2% of payroll. Some earlier House versions set the threshold at $250,000. The penalty gradually rises, and firms with payroll greater than $750,000 would pay a penalty of 8% of payroll. Senate versions of the bill have weaker penalties.
So what do you think a small business owner is going to do? If possible they will cut payroll to be under $500,000 or get into the bracket with a smaller penalty. And who will be there to help all those newly unemployed folks get insurance? Why Uncle Sam of course.
Soon any sort of incentive to work will be gone.
I am sure there are more such penalties in this bill, hell registering to vote as a Republican will probably be grounds to levy a fine on you.
Also included in this bill is an expansion of Medicaid which will impose some serious burdens on the states. It also gives the federal lawmakers a chance to pass along the expenses to the states thereby making the governors the bad guys. I would think a lot of governors would be steaming mad at congress wrecking their budgets with their mandates. We will see if they speak up.
Elections have consequences. Can we live with the consequences of our actions?
UPDATE: For those that want to read the bill here is a link courtesy of Rep Jack Kingston (R-GA). Warning it is 1,990 pages.
Shit, why did I have to go start reading the bill. I found this part. Basically what it says is unless you are insurance company doing business when this bill becomes effective you will not be able to start a private health insurance company. I was tipped off by seeing something earlier in the bill mentioning the grandfathering of health insurance companies and I wondered why they would have to be grandfathered in.
This is contained in Sec 202 entitled PROTECTING THE CHOICE TO KEEP CURRENT COVERAGE.
COVERAGE.—
(1) IN GENERAL.—Individual health insurance coverage that is not grandfathered health insurance coverage under subsection (a) may only be offered on or after the first day of Y1 as an Exchange-participating health benefits plan.
So any new health insurance plan after the effective date may only be enrolled into whatever this exchange is, which is government administered.
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