Can You Believe This - Corrected by Dr. Warwick Aiken

[Wayne]

Dear Friends,
After reading about the Democratic House bill outlawing the sale of
new private insurance policies after the bill would be made law, I
thought it was surprising and a complete deal breaker. When no other
news outlets seemed to pick up on it, I decided to look at the bill
itself and see for myself what it says. I should have done this
before sending you my letter, and I apologize for not doing that
first. From my reading of the bill, which is written in
Governmentese, sort of like Vietnamese, it appears the line in
question, which is found in Section 102 (a) (1) (A), is referring to
grandfathered individual policies, which are individual policies from
commercial insurers which are in effect before the first day of Y1
(Year 1). Dependents can be added, but no more individual policies of
present types of insurance can be written. What can be written, as
noted in Section 102 (c) (1), is an"Exchange-participating health
benefits plan", which means a government approved private plan or the
government run "public option" plan. In order to be an Exchange-
participating plan, the plan cannot have any exclusions for
preexisting illness, is forced to offer renewal, cannot have too much
profit as set by the Health Choices Commissioner, and must treat drug
addiction and mental health like any other illness, Sounds great, I
know, but will make any private plan have about twice the present
premium, which is already too high. All the rules are set by a Health
Choices Commissioner, who answers to the President as part of the
Executive Branch. I suggest you look at this thing yourself, but it
may take a week to read it. http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3200/text

I am back to my belief that the hard left Democrats want to get rid of
private insurance, but do it in a subtle way, by stacking the deck
against private plans, and offering the government plan at a lower
cost, by taxing income earners over $250,000, which will bring in
$600,000,000,000, and printing money to cover the rest. Nobody knows
how much that might be, but will be about $1,500,000,000,000 most
likely. Small businesses will be taxed if they don't provide health
plans, but again, they will probably choose the "excise tax" because
it will be cheaper than buying the super expensive, government
mandated private insurance. See Section 313 (b) (1), where businesses
with payrolls from $250,000 to $400,000 will pay a tax on a sliding
scale, and over $400,000, pay 8%. None of us can afford this,
individually and as a nation.

It seems to me the government does not have any business prohibiting
private health insurance contracts which are mutually beneficial to
the insurer and the insured, or forcing people to buy a health plan
they don't want. Taxing the wealthy and businesses with one more tax
is a job killer. This whole expensive boondoggle is the wrong way to
fix our health care system problems. If this bill does pass, we will
all be in the government plan within 5 years, and at the mercy of
intrusive, politically controlled, red tape loving, service denying
bureaucrats. God help us!

Warwick Aiken III, MD
Gastonia, NC

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[Douglas Schell]

The problem is that the Health Insurance Industry providers and doctors have NOT come up with a specific and workable way to reduce health insuance costs to to help the destitutute who can't afford high premiums.  Where theres a vacummn left by irrsponsible doctors and health insurance companies,  be assure the facsists will try to use that vacumn but of course will fail.  Blame the doctors and insuranbce poroviders for being too greedy and NOT being proactive years ago when health costs spireled upward.

 

Doug.

 

 

--
Dr. Douglas W. Schell
Retired Professor of Business
UNC-Pembroke
432 Logan Ct.
King, NC 27021
336-983-7655
THE GLORY OF GOD IS INTELLIGENCE