A costly undertaking for each word in the health care bill
Published: November 15, 2009
Updated: November 15, 2009
Having personally reviewed HR 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, I have a suggestion for the readers of this newspaper. Look up the health care bill online at thomas.gov, Web site for the Library of Congress, and scan some or all of its nearly 2,000 pages. Keep in mind that each and every word of the bill, assuming 200 words per page and $1.2 trillion for cost, represents $3 million of government health care spending.
After you’ve looked at the bill, does your gut reaction tell you that there’s nothing in this legislation that could ever harm you, your family, your community, the economy or your country? Do you trust the people in Washington who tell you “it’s all good for you”? Most importantly, is it transparent to you that the government does not come between you and your doctor?
For each word you read, $3 million is spent. I think it’s worth a few minutes of time to look at the nearly 2,000 pages of this Affordable Health Care for America Act and wonder, “What does it say and what does it mean?”
Congress didn’t think reading it to be worth your effort or theirs before they voted on it, but maybe every letter of every word and every tax dollar the bill spends means something to you in a very big way.
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Reader Reactions
“If we can’t get a health care bill passed that will truly give ALL AMERICANS access to care, then it’s time we also stop every social program out there and start from scratch.“
I choose Door #2.
If we can’t get a health care bill passed that will truly give ALL AMERICANS access to care, then it’s time we also stop every social program out there and start from scratch.
If we’re broke, then it is time to give up. Stop social security, medicare, medicaid, veterans benefits, all of it. Then, we’ll get rid of everybody currently serving in Washington DC, and re-vamp the whole system.
Fair if fair, it should be one way or the other. And pretty soon, they’ll be a very distinct voting that will make it very clear exactly how the American people think. So get ready for 2010!!
Vote everyone out, no matter how long they’ve been in, and get a crew in that can truly get something done, one way, or the other.
I take it ‘old geezer, you did not understand what it meant?
If that’s the case, then please make sure you vote for someone who can act on your behalf. Cause if you can’t understand that, then nothing that has been said to you so far will ever get through.
For example, what part about what the Commissioner specified do you not understand? The insurance Commissioner’s of each state, which we all have now, already decide how much a insurance company can raise rates for insurance items such as cars or homes. Why, after consulting his board, would that be so hard to understand, when it comes to health insurance premium hikes?
Not trying to belittle you, just want you to understand that though you may not understand the bill, that doesn’t mean that your ignorance applies to us all.
And here’s one from a U.S. president, a democrat, regarding the agrding the provision of “welfare” to citizens by the federal government. I think it might also be applicable to government provided health care “benefits”:
“I find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and the duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit… The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated. Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood.“
—Grover Cleveland, President of the United States (1885-1889 & 1893-1897)
“...Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character…“ Seemingly prescient words from our 22nd / 24th president.
I’m in a mood to quote the founding fathers today:
“It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow.“
—Alexander Hamilton and James Madison (Federalist No. 62, 1788)
I just did look it up as suggested by the author of the letter, “A costly undertaking…“.
It is very nearly impossible to read and understand. Anyone who can read it and understand it and retain what they’ve read, deserves our admiration!
One small section mentions a “Commissioner” ( (3) RESTRICTIONS ON PREMIUM INCREASES- The issuer cannot vary the percentage increase in the premium for a risk group of enrollees in specific grandfathered health insurance coverage without changing the premium for all enrollees in the same risk group at the same rate, as specified by the Commissioner.“; and that sounds like a single POWERFULL INDIVIDUAL that is NOT elected.
Perhaps a Cliff’s notes version of the bill would be cheaper.
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