Over 16,513,871 people are on fubar.
What are you waiting for?

After 13 days of secret, closed-door negotiations on health care
legislation, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced Monday
that he had reached an agreement with Senators Chris Dodd (D-MT)
and Max Baucus (D-CT), and three top administration
officials. Unfortunately, Senator Reid did not tell the American
people much else.
Even many lawmakers remain in the dark regarding the outcome of this
"secret deal that Senator Reid wants to get passed and signed into law
'this year,'" writes Heritage Senate Relations expert Brian Darling.
Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, summed it up: "It will be
a thousand-page, trillion-dollar bill that raises premiums, raises
taxes and slashes Medicare for our seniors to create new government
spending programs. That's not reform."
Even as some of the final details of the bill do go public, it is
likely that lawmakers won't know in advance entirely what it is they
are voting on. This is because the legislation the Senate Finance
Committee "agreed" to -- all 1,502 pages of it -- is the most massive
piece of legislation ever introduced by Congress.

But length isn't the only record the "America's Healthy Future Act of
2009" claims, as Heritage health policy analyst Ed Haislmaier notes.
"For the first time in fifteen years, [Congress] has set a new
all-time division record for gigantic, unintelligible, unaffordable,
over-regulatory, federal legislation."
What we do know about Reid's 'secret deal'

Although Senator Reid did not go into great detail about the health
care "reform" legislation, he did mention that bill includes a
government-run health insurance "option" that would "compete" against
private health plans.

In an attempt to gain much-needed support from skeptical moderates in
both parties, liberals have added a new twist to the "public option":
a provision allowing states to opt out of the program. This would
require states to pass legislation by 2014 rejecting participation in
the federal government run plan.

But this new wrinkle is really more of the same, warns Heritage health
policy analyst Nina Owcharenko. "This latest Senate ploy creates the
illusion of an 'option' rather than making any fundamental changes to
the controversial proposal."

Owcharenko explains why this "opt-out" model is just another
government-run plan that is guaranteed to fail:

1.  States can only opt-out of the government-run plan, not the
entire bill. But the rest of the bill contains hundreds of
provisions, such as the expansion of Medicaid, which will place
major financial burdens on the states.

2.  It is still a government-run plan because the government will
require non-participating states to meet federal conditions.
These government-determined conditions could include the
creation of state-level public options that mirror the federal
plan.

3.  States will likely select the public "option" because of the
bureaucracy and enormous administrative complexity required for
a state opt-out. Federal conditions will limit states' ability
to create alternatives.

4.  State innovation will suffer under the massive health care
proposal's employer and individual mandates, and government
micromanagement of an industry that represents one-sixth of our
economy.

So even though the states would be able to "opt out" of the
government-run health insurance program, the federal government will
make it very difficult to do so. And for the few states that do
succeed in withdrawing, the government will still dominate their
health care systems.

A true state "opt-out" provision would allow states to opt out of the
bill in its entirety, argues Owcharenko. "Any other opt-out is just
another shell game that is intended to appear as a concession but in
reality provides for greater federal control and blocks much needed
structural changes."

last post
14 years ago
posts
1
views
933
can view
everyone
can comment
everyone
atom/rss

other blogs by this author

 9 years ago
Six Questions
 9 years ago
The Absent President
 10 years ago
Vacation Time In DC
 12 years ago
A New Nationalism?
 12 years ago
Occupy Wherever
 12 years ago
Save America
official fubar blogs
 8 years ago
fubar news by babyjesus  
 13 years ago
fubar.com ideas! by babyjesus  
 10 years ago
fubar'd Official Wishli... by SCRAPPER  
 10 years ago
Word of Esix by esixfiddy  

discover blogs on fubar

blog.php' rendered in 0.0412 seconds on machine '5'.