Senate's New Health Care Proposal

Just when you think that Congress could not devise a worse health care bill, they prove you wrong. Now the Senate proposes expanding Medicare down to the age of fifty-five; expanding Medicaid ( SCHIP has already been expanded); and having the OPM oversee and regulate private insurance companies. How is this not a PUBLIC OPTION? It’s a public option on steroids. The American public does not want a public option in health care reform – Let’s just change the name. The public is stupid. They won’t know what we are doing. This proposal is bad in so many ways.

Medicare is going bankrupt in 5 – 8 years. Yet Congress proposes cutting 500 billion dollars from Medicare as more and more “baby boomers” enter the system. Now Congress proposes adding at least thirty million more people to the system. This can only make the system collapse sooner. Medicare, at best, is a flawed, inferior system. Medicare denies claims at twice the rate of private insurances. Half the doctors in this country currently will not accept Medicare patients, because the reimbursement rate is so low and it takes so long to pay reimbursements. Some areas of the country have no doctors that will accept Medicare. Medical care not accepted is medical service denied. The doctors, who do accept Medicare, will not be able to provide care to the increased number of patients. Care will be rationed. This health care proposal may bankrupt hospitals and doctors. Medicare only provides basic minimum health care to seniors. A secondary insurance is always needed to provide acceptable care.

Medicaid is worse than Medicare and the same arguments apply. States must pay about half the costs of Medicaid making this an unfunded mandate. Even if the federal government would fund it for a few years eventually the burden would fall on the states. When the states fail, they would be bailed out and fall under federal government control.

SCHIP was a travesty. Children from families making over eighty thousand dollars a year are eligible for SCHIP. Anyone who has an income this high does not need government help to pay for their children’s medical care.

The OPM would oversee private insurance. The devil will be in the details. It has been suggested that these private companies must be “not for profit”. What regulations would be forced on insurance companies? Would policies be required to meet minimum and maximum limits? This could stifle the quality and availability of our health insurance. This part of the proposed bill could go wrong in many, many ways.

I am still of the opinion that no health care reform would be preferable to the health care reform being proposed by Congress.

Signed,
The Electorate