The changes that the Nuthouse wants to see put in place if they agree to pass the Senate’s version of health care “reform” are now available for our weekend’s reading pleasure. Frankly, as I begin the task, it again becomes clear that no matter how the poor CBO attempts to score any of this nonsense, it’s going to cost every working American one hell of a lot more than the unholy Trinity of Obama, Pelosi, and Reid would like us to believe.
For example, the $750/employee penalty to be levied against employers who don’t provide health insurance will almost triple to $2,000/employee.
All income, whether taxable or not, will now count towards calculating how much you will have to pay out to help subsidize premiums for other people. This gets a new name for IRS purposes, “modified adjusted gross income”.
Even though by the time they are 27, the vast majority of normal children are out living on their own and for a few years have been able to sign legal contracts, vote, drink, and be sent to war, the federal government will consider them as helpless and let them remain health care “dependents”.
We, the taxpayers, get to foot the bill of a billion dollars just so the feds can “administer” all the nails in this coffin. Paid for, in part, by taxing investment income starting in 2012.
All 50 states will have their new Medicaid enrollees paid for by the federal government. Translation: you and me are going to pay for all the “newly insured”, as the Democrats like to call them. Through 2016. Then the percentage paid by us…I mean, paid by the federal government will drop to 95% and then slide down until it bottoms out at 90% after 2020. And we…I mean, the federal government is going to pay 100% of the going rate for the services of Medicaid primary care physicians. But “disproportionate share hospitals” will see their Medicaid funding cut starting in 2014. At the Secretary’s discretion, of course.
And we can’t forget to subsidize those uninsured in U.S. territories like Puerto Rico.
There’s one great joke hidden in Section 1304: $250,000,000 allocated to fight Medicare “waste and fraud”.
And why the concern about the Social Security Trust Fund, eh? A whole section is devoted to making sure this “act” has no impact on something that was always supposed to have been held separate. As if Congress is suddenly afraid they’re going to raid that empty cookie jar?
Then there’s the $2 billion set aside for training. And a whole section devoted to the “SAFRA Act”, which includes funding for federal Pell Grants, an additional $13.5 billion for student loans through 2012, a nod to the race card with monies allocated for “historically black colleges”, and a whole reworking of how loans are paid back (and not paid back). Exactly how this will help health care in the United States requires tenuous reasoning at best.
It is said there is nothing new under the sun, and in the case of these Democrat demands for modifications to the Senate health care “reform” bill, it’s still true. Funny that with abortion funding being a big red flag in the House, there’s absolutely no mention of rewording the Senate bill. Which, of course and as it has always meant, we, the taxpayer will be funding abortion.
It is being reported that the phones of those unrepresenting representatives in the Nuthouse are either busy or going unanswered, and tens of thousands of emails continue to be ignored. Yet the unholy Trinity continues to look into the camera and say, with a straight face, that this usurpation of 1/5 of the private sector is what Americans want.
On the day when the Real Clear Politics poll shows Obama’s job approval rating is now lower than his disapproval rating.
Cue the flying pigs.
Brittney Englin says
Do you plan to keep this site updated? I sure hope so… its great!