Healthcare Reform: Debunking the lies, offering a solution

I can’t procrastinate any longer: I didn’t want to blog about healthcare because I was afraid of offending or riling up my readership. But H.R. 3692 is now on the House floor and can’t be ignored any longer. I’ve been listening to C-Span for about four days straight. I’m fuming at some of the things representatives are saying. I’m fuming at citizens for believing them. I’m fuming at Democrats and Republicans alike for spewing out the same speeches over and over again, for their lack of originality. I’m fuming at myself for not immersing myself in this debate long ago. My beliefs have been clouded for quite some time; I’ve been waffling between the black-and-white answers of “yes” or “no.” I’ve done my research and have heard both sides of the argument extensively. Here goes nothing…

I was never excited to jump on the Healthcare-Reform train. I hate our national debt and am not very excited to increase it. But America is aging (26% of America is on the brink of retirement, and will leave the 33% of America that is in the workforce to shoulder its loads). We absolutely can’t sit around and do nothing. We have more immigrants tapping into Medicare and Medicaid, draining money from the funds issued to our grandparents and for people with disabilities and such. We have lines out the wazoo in emergency rooms because people without insurance need to see some kind of a doctor. We don’t need to model ourselves after Britian or Canada- no, we’re better than that. We just need to do something. I know the Republicans don’t want to do anything about Healthcare. Their version of “reform” pretty much stops at making it harder to sue for medical malpractice, because apparently that’s the only thing that is crippling our broken system. But no; Our whole system is outdated and ineffective. We need to do something and we need to do it now.
I know that the House Bill isn’t very ideal. It’s got a good amount of crap in it that we really don’t need, and it’s rather lacking in some areas altogether. If (or rather, when) it passes and goes to the Senate, I’m sure it’ll get clipped and pinched quite a bit before it goes to vote. And it needs to be. Nancy Pelosi scares the crap out of me, and is a bit too liberal for my taste, but the core of what she believes is still parallel to what I believe: We need Healthcare. I don’t understand why people are so against it. The Republicans are hailing Social Security, yet that has the damn word “Social” already in it- but the Republicans aren’t querulous about that.

Some Republican Rhetoric:
1. It advocates abortion.
-Page 1359 Line 16, specifically states, and I quote, “DOES NOT PERFORM ABORTION SERVICES.”
-Page 109 Lines 7-8 specifically state, “ABORTION COVERAGE PROHIBITED AS PART OF MINIMUM BENEFITS PACKAGE.”
-Page 246 Lines 11-12 specifically state, “PROHIBITION OF USE OF PUBLIC FUNDS FOR ABORTION COVERAGE: An affordability credit for payment for services described in Section 222.”
Want to read it for yourself? Go online and search the HR 3962 bill; You can type in the word “abortion” and search it in the bill- you’ll see I’m quoting verbatim.

2. It will provide health care for illegal immigrants.
-Page 228 Lines 17-24 specifically state, “REQUIREMENT.—No individual shall be an affordable credit eligible individual as defined in section 342(a)(1) unless the individual is a citizen or national of the United States or is lawfully present in a State in the United States.”
-Page 229 Lines 3-10 specifically state, “DECLARATION OF CITIZENSHIP OR LAWFUL IMMIGRATION STATUS.—No individual shall be an affordable credit eligible individual unless there has been a declaration made, in a form and manner specified by the Health Choices Commissioner similar to the manner required under section 1137(d)(1) of the Social Security Act.”

3. It will impose taxes on Americans.

-Yes, actually it will. The taxes are there to ensure that people get insured. And yes, there are some taxes that actually are proposed to pay for the plan: taxes on extraordinarily high income Americans.

-Page 196 Lines 1-2 specifically state, “TAXES ON INDIVIDUALS NOT OBTAINING ACCEPTABLE COVERAGE.”

-Page 196 Lines 7-8 specifically state, “EMPLOYMENT TAXES ON EMPLOYERS NOT PROVIDING ACCEPTABLE COVERAGE.”

-Page 196 Lines 13-15 specifically state, “EXCISE TAX ON FAILURES TO MEET CERTAIN HEALTH COVERAGE REQUIRMENTS.”

-Page 337 Lines 1-6 specifically state, “ SURCHARGE ON HIGH INCOME INDIVIDUALS. GENERAL RULE.—In the case of a taxpayer other than a corporation, there is hereby imposed (in addition to any other tax imposed by this subtitle) a tax equal to 5.4 percent of so much of the modified adjusted gross income of the taxpayer as exceeds $1,000,000.”

My Ideal Healthcare Bill:
1. Yes, I believe we need a public option. What on earth is the purpose of Healthcare reform if we don’t regulate the root of the problem- Insurance companies? It’s not socialized medicine. It’s competition. The American Way. It’s not telling the insurance companies what to do; Rather, it’s acting as a catalyst to initiate a race for the most cost-effective insurance company.
2. We need to eliminate anything controversial concerning social issues.
Anything that could even imply that abortion might be administered under this Healthcare Bill should be eliminated. We don’t need to give anyone another reason to bitch. There are plenty of clinics and private companies to go get an abortion at. The Democrats have no reason to give Catholics and the Republicans more of a reason to hate them. I agree that it blatantly violates our “separation of church-and-state” policy of government. This explicitly imposes Christian views upon our population. But I also believe in compromise, and if that’s what it takes to pass this damn bill, I say take it.
3. We need to do something about illegal immigrants.
There needs to be a specific clause that strictly prohibits illegal immigrants from tapping into our healthcare. Lawmakers also should think about a way to eliminate backup in emergency rooms- some clause that specifies under what conditions a person may be admitted into the emergency room. Granted, I believe that if a person gets into a car crash and is bleeding to death, or is severely injured in some other way, that person should immediately receive medical attention- even at the expense of taxpayers. But our emergency rooms shouldn’t be crowded with people that have bee stings and sprained arms; Those types of injuries should be attended to by a physician, not an emergency room paramedic.
4. Healthcare should definitely be streamlined. We need to stretch the little money we have to cover as much as possible. If the Democratic projections are somewhat true (I’m not naive enough to state their projections as pure, unbiased fact), then the bill will be putting down a huge down-payment on slowly reducing our nation’s healthcare costs. Sure, getting the whole system started is going to be a bitch, but once it’s up-and-running, I’m quite positive our nation will be much better off (not that my economic opinion has any gravity whatsoever).
5. I don’t think we should force the private insurers to accept people with disabilities or “preexisting” conditions. Why? Because that would probably end up squeezing cash out of the insurers’ pockets and causing insurers to cover less for healthier people. Rather, we should just let the disabilities and preexisting people funnel into the public option, unless insurers see that there might be in their best interests to accept a few risks now and then, to increase their competition with the public option. But I really don’t believe we should force any business into accepting people. Force threatens the core of capitalism.

Did you root for the Phillies or the Yankees? I rooted for the Phillies (I despise the Yankees). They lost. But you know what? They’ll be back again next year, and so will we, the Health Care reformers. Yup. If it doesn’t go through this time, we’ll be back again.

Random Fact: Tasmanian Devils have the strongest bite of all mammals for their body size.