The Current State of Health Care Reform

One House committee has announced a bill this week for health care reform; and one key Senate committee passed its own version today.  Based on the content of these two pieces of legislation, here is what we can expect: (HT: Stormy)

Comments

[Stormy]

Obama just made a comment about Americans coming to grips with end of life issues by embracing hospices. Yeah, Grave Diggers are shovel ready.

My question is when we get socialized medicine, will all government employees be forced into it as well?

[Joe Guarino]

It is not good, Stormy, for our society to be placing those decisions in the hands of the government, or in the hands of entities that are creatures of the government.

[Stormy]

"1) Investors’ Business Daily shines light on a provision in the Democrat takeover bill that will effectively kill off the market for individual insurance and funnel consumers into the “public option:”

"When we first saw the paragraph Tuesday, just after the 1,018-page document was released, we thought we surely must be misreading it. So we sought help from the House Ways and Means Committee."

"It turns out we were right: The provision would indeed outlaw individual private coverage. Under the Orwellian header of “Protecting The Choice To Keep Current Coverage,” the “Limitation On New Enrollment” section of the bill clearly states:

“Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day” of the year the legislation becomes law.

So we can all keep our coverage, just as promised — with, of course, exceptions: Those who currently have private individual coverage won’t be able to change it. Nor will those who leave a company to work for themselves be free to buy individual plans from private carriers."

So, Obama keeps his promise, but you better read the fine print, because it is a limited offer. Didn't he say during the campaign that he rejected any mandatory coverage? Well, I suppose you could say that he is not changing that position, but the reality is that he is adopting Hilliary's position. I didn't want Hilliary as president, but we are finding that she was, at least, honest about her positions, as egregious as they were.