Pelosi Health Care Plan Misses the Mark (By Rep. Mary Fallin)
November 12, 2009The Edmond Life & Leisure
Rep. Mary Fallin
I support the kind of health care reform that will lower costs and increase accessibility to quality, affordable care. Unfortunately, what Speaker Pelosi rammed through the House today does nothing to curb rising costs.
Instead, her bill seizes control of the health care industry and puts it in the hands of the federal government, introduces job killing taxes on individuals and small businesses, and accelerates deficit spending and the accumulation of national debt.
Late Saturday night, I voted against Speaker Pelosi’s massive federal takeover of health care because I do not believe it is the right prescription for Oklahomans. After millions of Americans voiced their opposition to a federal takeover of our health care system, including thousands of Oklahomans who attended my town hall meetings and contacted my office, Speaker Pelosi crafted a 1,990-page bill behind closed-doors to do just that. This is the worst piece of legislation I have ever seen in all my years in public service.
Here are some hard facts about the Pelosicare bill:
It establishes more than 1,000 new programs, offices, bureaucracies and other new agencies. It would take a gang of lawyers working overtime weeks just to read the thing, and even then its obscure technical language would be almost impossible to grasp.
The bill will cost $1.055 trillion and contains over $500 billion in harmful Medicare cuts and an estimated $744 billion in new taxes. These include taxes on medical devices and equipment, an eight percent tax on businesses that do not provide health coverage, a 2.5 percent tax on individuals who do not have coverage and massive new taxes on the “wealthy” which would also apply to tens of thousands of small businesses. If you fail to get the health insurance plan Washington decrees as acceptable, you would be assessed a fine by the IRS, and if you failed to pay it they could come and take you to jail.
The bill would dramatically expand Medicaid, dumping some $34 billion in additional costs on state budgets, including Oklahoma’s, that are already in crisis. This vast Medicaid expansion would come at a time when many doctors have stopped accepting Medicaid patients because reimbursements are too low to cover costs.
Worst of all, this legislative monstrosity takes the first big step in shifting much of the private health care sector to government, with all the negatives associated with socialized medicine in other nations, from long waiting lists for medical appointments to higher death rates from common cancers.
In short, Pelosicare is a prescription for higher costs, higher taxes and poorer care, all in the name of supposedly “helping” people.
Americans have diagnosed our health care system as too expensive and too complicated. That’s why I my colleagues in the House to support real cost-cutting reforms like allowing Americans to buy health insurance across state lines, reforming our costly lawsuit system to cut costs associated with defensive medicine and creating low-cost insurance pools to allow small businesses and individuals — the real uninsured — to buy more affordable coverage.
Now we must wait on the Senate to work its will. Its health care bill is similar to Pelosicare in its vast scope and high costs, but specifics remain to be seen. Just last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said we may not even see Senate action on their version until 2010.
I will continue to oppose schemes to expand government, raise taxes and make us less healthy as a nation.
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