The Senate will vote Saturday night at 8 PM on a motion to proceed with Reid’s health care legislation. If he gets 60 votes, then they will start adding amendments after Thanksgiving. Hopefully we will not get to that point. Liberals in Congress are determined to have a federal takeover of the health care system in this country by year’s end. I can think of nothing worse.
There are so many things wrong with this bill that it is hard to know where to start. And considering the rush nobody has time to actually read it. Here are a few things though.
Abortion coverage is back. From the webpage of Representative John Boehner.
Just like the original 2,032-page, government-run health care plan from Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) massive, 2,074-page bill would levy a new “abortion premium” fee on Americans in the government-run plan. Beginning on line 7, p. 118, section 1303 under “Voluntary Choice of Coverage of Abortion Services” the Health and Human Services Secretary is given the authority to determine when abortion is allowed under the government-run health plan. Leader Reid’s plan also requires that at least one insurance plan offered in the Exchange covers abortions (line 13, p. 120). What is even more alarming is that a monthly abortion premium will be charged of all enrollees in the government-run health plan. It’s right there beginning on line 11, page 122, section 1303, under “Actuarial Value of Optional Service Coverage.” The premium will be paid into a U.S. Treasury account - and these federal funds will be used to pay for the abortion services. Section 1303(a)(2)(C) describes the process in which the Health Benefits Commissioner is to assess the monthly premiums that will be used to pay for elective abortions under the government-run health plan and for those who are given an affordability credit to purchase insurance coverage that includes abortion through the Exchange. The Commissioner must charge at a minimum $1 per enrollee per month.
A key point pointed out is the authority and leeway given to the HHS Secretary. Kathleen Sebelius is one of the more radical abortion supporters in the administration as she even supports late term abortions. As governor of Kansas she vetoed anti-abortion legislation on 4 occasions. She has a close relationship with late-term abortion practitioner George Tiller who has coincidentally given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Sebelius and her abortion promoting allies. She is also connected with Planned Parenthood CEO Peter Brownlie whose clinic has been charged with 107 criminal counts of conducting late term abortions. So I wonder what direction she will go in.
Here is a post from Heritage that shows some of the other pitfalls of Reid’s legislation.
These problems are numerous. They include hiding the true costs of the legislation by starting to pay for it now and implementing it in 2014. This works because the CBO calculates costs on a 10 year time table. They also do not include the $250 billion “doc fix”. Remember, that is a budgetary problem.
The bill would create a new entitlement program for long term care that Democratic Senator Kent Conrad called a “Ponzi scheme of the first order, the kind of thing Bernie Madoff would have been proud of.” You can read about it here.
Problems also include $465 billion in Medicare and Medicaid cuts. These cuts will be used to fund 2 other new entitlement programs. And in addition to the individual mandate (punishable with fines), there are mandates of $25 billion that the states will have to come up with. That means higher taxes at the state level as well.
So many problems. No wonder Reid wants to rush this thing through. That and he wants to take all of next week off.
