Whose Medical Decisions? Part III

Townhall ^ | 08/20/2009 | Thomas Sowell

[fiscon1]

Amid all the controversies over medical care, no one seems to be asking a very basic question: Why does it take more than 1,000 pages of legislation to insure people who lack medical insurance?

[markomalley]

The goal is not to insure the uninsured. The goal is a State takeover of the health care industry. Well, not a Socialist takeover, but a fascist takeover (leave industry mostly in nongovernment hands, but direct their every move according to government regulation and funding).

A plan that comes anywhere near this one will only hurt the poor. There is nothing to increase the number of physicians. There is nothing to place healthcare resources in underserved areas (with the exception of school-based health clinics). There is nothing to incentivize existing practitioners to move into underserved areas or to work supporting underserved populations. So if that was the goal, this bill does nothing. The bills going through the Congress do nothing to support lower income families' costs either, even if availability, through some miracle, increased. A family of four making $29,326.50 a year (as a whole family) would still have to pay almost $75 per month in insurance premiums, even after the so-called Affordable Premium Credit, while that same family, if they made $44,100 per year (as a family) would have to pay out over $180 per month. In both cases, a family can still opt out of health insurance coverage by paying a minimal additional tax at the end of the year ($285 per year in the first case and $655 per year in the second case) -- naturally, since in both cases, the families would likely receive an income tax refund, this would not be considered as a tax increase, but rather as receiving a slightly smaller refund check. And we haven't even talked about co-pays, because we don't know what co-pays will be yet. There is no provision in HR3200 to subsidize copayments for lower income families.

Not that I'm in favor of government largesse, in any event, but if that is the intent here, the bill fails massively. All this bill does is provide a fascist takeover to allow minute government direction of all health care in the country.