How Bad Is The New Health Care “Reform” Law? Myths vs. FACTS

By: @csteventucker

http://csteventucker.wordpress.com/2010/03/21/how-bad-is-the-democrats-health-care-reform-bill-really/

Here’s how BAD the new “Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act” and subsequent “Health Care & Education Affordability Reconciliation Act” is for our country:

1.) The law expands entitlement spending by over $1 TRILLION in order to “cover” $30 Million more people. What will that do to State Budgets? We only need to look at history to find out. Cases in point?

a.) In 1965 the Fed projected that costs for Medicare Part A would be $9 Billion. It ended up costing $67 BILLION!
b.) The Medicaid special hospital subsidy was supposed to cost $100 MILLION. The real cost was $11 BILLION!
c.) The initial cost projections for Romneycare in Massachusetts were $88 MILLION. Cost today? FOUR BILLION!

2.) It adds $500 Billion in new tax increases at a time in our nation’s history when a RECORD number of American’s pay NO INCOME TAXES! And if you believe the lie told by President Obama that your taxes will NOT increase if you make less than $200,000 as an Individual or $250,000 as a Married couple, you need to know the TRUTH!

Speaking of NEW taxes, if you are a Small Business owner. Here’s what’s coming for you thanks to Obamacare:

Chicago’s Heartland Institute breaks down an excellent time line of what is coming under Obamacare and how this legislation will NOT help low income Americans.

Hat tip to Mr. Jay Heflin over at THE HILL who wrote: “Taxpayers earning less than $200,000 a year will pay roughly $3.9 billion more in taxes — in 2019 alone — due to healthcare reform, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress’s official scorekeeper. The new law raises $15.2 billion over 10 years by limiting the medical expense deduction, a provision widely used by taxpayers who either have a serious illness or are older.

Taxpayers can currently deduct medical expenses in excess of 7.5 percent of their adjusted gross income. Starting in 2013, most taxpayers will only be able to deduct expenses greater than 10 percent of AGI. Older taxpayers are hit by this threshold increase in 2017. Once the law is fully implemented in 2019, the JCT estimates the deduction limitation will affect 14.8 million taxpayers — 14.7 million of them will earn less than $200,000 a year. These taxpayers are single and joint filers, as well as heads of households.”Loss of this deduction will mean higher taxes for 14.7 million individuals and families making under $200,000 a year in 2019,”

In addition, Richard Foster, the Obama Administration’s Medicare Actuarypredicts net national health spending will increase by about 1% annually above the status quo that is already estimated to be $4.7 trillion in 2019. It’s also important to note that under this new legislation, the cost for health insurance will INCREASE for millions of Americans. It also means that the illusion that this legislation will “bend the cost curve” is just that, one BIG ILLUSION!

3.) The law ROBS Medicare and Social Security (AND THEY’RE BOTH ALREADY BROKE!) In fact, the Trustees of Medicare & Social Security state that the total unfunded liabilities between both programs are now more than $84 trillion! Worse yet, as of March 2010 Social Security is NOW OFFICIALLY BROKE!

Unlike what you may have been told, the new law CREATES a $662 BILLION DEFICIT! How? According to the CBO report issued AFTER the “reform” bill was initially scored by them, the Democrats did NOT include the following expenses prior to the bills passage:

a.) 70 Billion for the “Class Act” (long term care coverage).
b.) $53 Billion that WILL BE ROBBED from the Social Security Trust fund.
c.) $71 Billion in appropriations needed to enforce the purchase of Insurance and to administer Obamacare (including $10 Billion for thousands of  new IRS agents to “enforce” the Health Insurance purchase mandate and 159 NEW Federal Agencies to administer this behemoth.)
d.) $398 Billion that WILL BE ROBBED from the Medicare Trust Fund
e.) $208 Billion “doctor fix” that was passed AFTER the “reform” bill was passed on April 1st, 2010

How may you ask, will they be able to include these costs later? Simple! Just include them gradually in other bills. For example, here’s part of Obamacare that was included in the new “Jobs Bill”.

Representative Paul Ryan breaks it down with an easy to understand chart:

After this appearance on Fox News Sunday. Mr. Ryan further testified to this “double counting” in a Congressional hearing on March 20, 2010:

Only NOW is the main stream media FINALLY waking up to the fact that Obamacare will NOT reduce the deficit:

4.) In order to keep the final CBO score under $1 Trillion they counted these TRANSFERS from Medicare & the Social Security Trust Fund as “A Savings”. What will be the REAL result of this economic trickery? Charles Krauthammer discusses the INEVITABLE “Value Added Tax“.

5.) $468 BILLION in additional spending on subsidies to purchase government approved health insurance.

6.) $48 BILLION in additional spending for Medicaid. Did I mention that Medicaid costs are growing by 23% this year? This MASSIVE expansion of Medicaid will lead to even LARGER budget deficits for States like California, Arizona, Illinois, Michigan and many others already facing crippling Medicaid burdens. Worse yet, the law could shift billions of dollars from cash-strapped states to the federal government by changing the way Medicaid prescription drug rebates are treated. This is exactly why so many States have filed suit to protect themselves against the new health care “reform” law. In fact, the State of Georgia’s Insurance Commissioner has stated that he’s not waiting for the lawsuits, he’s saying no to Obamacare RIGHT NOW!

7.) A Huge new increase on Capital Gains tax of almost 4%. Who does that affect? Anyone with any SAVINGS, most especially those in the market. So not only do we have RECORD unemployment, we’re now going to lose EVEN MORE of whatever savings we have LEFT!

8.) The law has a DECADE of Medicare Cuts a DECADE of Tax Increases, and only 6 yrs of supposed benefits! Worse yet an Independent Payment Advisory Board (not doctors) has now been established to determine what medical services will and will not be covered. This panel has unprecedented powers. In fact, in order to override decisions made by this panel, a Super majority of 67 votes in the Senate is needed. The Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orzag leaves no ambiguity as to the powers granted to this panel in this video.

9.) Let’s say we could afford to add another $682 BILLION (plus the aforementioned recently noticed $115 additional Billion) to our already MASSIVE $13 TRILLION debt. Does ANY ONE REALLY BELIEVE that’s ALL this legislation is going to cost us? Let’s look at some history:

a.) In 1965 the Fed projected that costs for Medicare Part A would be $9 Billion. They ended up being $67 BILLION.
b.) The Medicaid special hospital subsidy was supposed to cost $100 MILLION. Instead the real cost was $11 BILLION! That’s ONE HUNDRED TIMES GREATER!

10.) The law includes $132 Billion in CUTS to the Medicare Advantage program.

11.) One of the MANY costs associated with this law that were NOT included in the CBO score were the appropriations (money needed to fund the 159 new government agencies needed to implement “Obamacare”). $10 BILLION OF WHICH WILL BE SPENT HIRING ANOTHER THOUSANDS OF NEW IRS Agents! To whom you will report each month confirming purchase and maintenance of Government approved Health Insurance for each of your employees AND their families. How much will you pay?

12.) Depending on the size of your business, the law mandates that employers pay 72.5% of all of their employee’s health insurance premiums and 65% of all of their employee’s families premiums! Employers must also provide a health insurance “voucher” to all low wage workers to help them pay for health insurance. In addition, changes to the tax code’s section 6041 regarding 1099 reporting were slipped into the 2000-page health legislation. The changes will force millions of businesses to issue hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of additional IRS Form 1099s every year.
Click here for more about how this new legislation will affect your business.

What harm will this do to our American Businesses? Companies like John Deere, Boeing, Caterpillar, Prudential Life, 3M, Honeywell, AK Steel Holding Corp, ITW, Valero Energy, and Allegheny Technologies have stated this new law will cost them MILLIONS. In fact, because the fines for not maintaining health insurance are so small compared to the cost to maintain health insurance. Many companies are considering canceling their employees coverage.

The centers for Medicare & Medicaid services released a damning report on this legislation. More on this:

13.) Remember when the President said “You can keep your plan”. The President apparently “mis-spoke”.

14.) The new law requires insurers to charge enrollees of the same age the same premium, regardless of health status.  That’s a price control, and it will cause premiums for healthy people to rise dramatically and thus lead to massive adverse selection.  Healthy people will gravitate to High Deductible HSA qualified plans where they will also face much higher premiums than they would have before Obamacare.

15.) But wait a minute! Doesn’t the AMA (American Medical Association) support Obamacare? Yes, but the AMA comprises only 17% of doctors in the U.S. This number is also comprised of medical students & medical professors but very few private practice physicians. The AMA also has a HUGE financial incentive for supporting Obamacare. The Wall Street Journal explains why the AMA has 100 MILLION REASONS to support Obamacare. More on this less than transparent allegiance from Dr. Arie Friedman, a well known Pediatrician from the State of Illinois:

Business size – Very few small firms will receive the full credit (only firms with 10 employees or less). For firms with 11-25 employees, the credit is reduced per employee. Firms with more than 25 employees get NO credit.

Click here to read Congresswoman Melissa Bean’s letter to her constituents regarding why she voted yes on Obamacare

Click here to read my response to Congresswoman Melissa Bean’s emotional (BUT FACTLESS) letter.

Now for three Hat Tips to other bloggers & news sources tackling the TRUTH about this new law:

1.) CNN (yes I said CNN): The TRUTH about Health Care Reform

2.) If you love Liberty, you will NOT like the ramifications this law has on families. Chuck Donovan at the Heritage Institute breaks down the Liberties families LOSE under this new health insurance “reform” law below:

More Families Covered but Less Family Choice

Millions of families gain an entitlement to health insurance under the mandates on individuals and employers in PPACA. The law’s creation of new affordability tax credits will ease the purchase of health insurance for middle-income Americans.

But the new credits go hand in hand with increased regulation of private health plans. Moreover, families gained nothing from PPACA that will permit them to purchase better or cheaper plans across state lines. The new law also does nothing to increase the variety of insurance available in the market, which could include family-friendly options like health plans managed by professional associations, unions, and faith-based groups. Nor will families be able to purchase health plans that exclude coverage for services to which they ethically object or which they do not need.

Undermining the Role of Parents

PPACA expands several funding streams that undermine parental responsibility and authority to direct the upbringing of their children. The law lavishes federal dollars on programs like school-based health centers and a new “Personal Responsibility Education” (PRE) program that deny parents knowledge of sensitive services their children receive in federally funded projects.

First, PPACA creates a new $50 million per year appropriation for school-based health centers, many of which either offer contraception on site or refer for contraception and even abortion. The law states that the recipient clinics must honor “parental consent and notification laws that are not inconsistent with Federal law.” However, the federal Medicaid and Title X (Public Health Service Act) laws stipulate that the confidentiality of teens obtaining services must be respected, nullifying any state or local parental notice or consent policies.

Second, the new PRE program provides $75 million per year for grants to help states reduce pregnancies and births to teenagers. Unlike the 1996 welfare reform, however, the new program does not incentivize states to reach these goals without increasing their abortion rates.

Penalizing Marriage

Another disturbing feature of PPACA is the fact that it imposes—across a broad range of income and age—significant financial penalties on the decision to marry.

The marriage penalty imposed by the law could exceed $10,000 per year for certain couples. This is because the affordability tax credit phases out rapidly as income rises.

Not only does this health insurance marriage penalty dissuade a younger, low-income couple from getting married—which is one of the most beneficial life decisions they can make for themselves and for their children—but it also provides older couples, some of the hardest hit by this law, with an incentive to obtain a “divorce of convenience.”

For example, a 60-year-old couple, each with an income of $15,000 per year and purchasing insurance in the non-group market, would gain $4,212 in tax savings if they obtained a sham divorce and bought insurance separately. A similar couple, each making $30,000, per year would realize $10,425 in tax savings if they divorce and cohabit rather than remain married.

Undercutting Freedom of Conscience

As health care reform proceeded, strong majorities of Americans supported protecting provider and insurer rights of conscience as well as limiting the use of tax funds for abortion. In March 2009, 87 percent of respondents to a national poll supported ensuring “that healthcare professionals in America are not forced to participate in procedures and practices to which they have moral objections.” A January 2010 Quinnipiac Survey found that 67 percent of Americans oppose public funding of abortion.

Conscience Protections. PPACA does make clear that no qualified health care plan can be required to cover abortion as an “essential” benefit. It also ensures that no health care plan that participates in the state-based exchanges may discriminate against a health care facility or provider because of its unwillingness “to provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortion.”

The law does not, however, prevent the federal and state governments from practicing this same discrimination. An effort to add such an amendment to the bill failed in a Senate committee in September 2009. While there is an annual appropriations rider to this effect on the bill funding the Department of Health and Human Services, it lacks permanent force, and regulations to implement it were suspended by President Obama in March 2009 as a step toward its likely rescission.

Abortion Funding. Currently, every health care plan in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program may not as a matter of law include coverage of elective abortion. Under PPACA, health care plans that cover elective abortion may participate in the state-based exchanges provided they require each enrollee to pay a separate premium of not less than $12 per year for elective abortion coverage.

The Executive Order. On March 24, President Obama signed an executive order that attempts to apply conscience protections and abortion funding limits to the full text of PPACA. Regardless of the order’s intent, judicial rulings for the past 35 years have made it clear that public funding of elective abortions in federal programs cannot be barred without the kind of direct ban that Congress failed to include in many parts of PPACA.

Reason for Disappointment

Advocates of family values in health care reform have reason to be deeply disappointed with the overall impact of PPACA. The passage of legislation that increases parental control and choice regarding health care insurance, avoids marriage penalties, guarantees conscience protections, and limits taxpayer support for controversial practices like abortion must await a future Congress.

3.)  The following EXCELLENT break down between Myths and Truth by the folks @ www.firedoglake.com

http://csteventucker.wordpress.com/2010/03/21/how-bad-is-the-democrats-health-care-reform-bill-really/

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