Posted by
American Sweetheart on Saturday, October 24, 2009 12:53:00 PM
My headline today comes from a quote by Congressman Tim Murphy, Republican Representative for the 18th District of Pennsylvania. This is my district.
This morning, I attended my first healthcare town hall meeting, lead by Congressman Murphy. I'd like to highlight some of the points he brought up.
First and foremost, Cong. Murphy disputed the ever changing number that we most commonly know to be 47 million uninsured Americans, breaking it down into illegal aliens, people who cannot afford insurance and people who choose not to purchase insurance. He said that the amount of people the Baucus Bill says it will cover doesn't add up when broken down into their claims. So we have approximately 47 million uninsured. The Baucus Bill will add 18 million people to Medicaid and allows an additional 30 million people and then 30 million uninsured remaining would qualify for government assistance.
Ok, wait. That's 48 million people. We're going to cover 1 million people that do not exist? Interesting. However, the bill claims that it will leave 17-25 million still uninsured. So, as Murphy stated, the figures do not add up. There are many contradictions.
The people that qualify for government aid are families making $88, 200 per year and individuals making $43, 320 per year. Everyone else and those who work full time and receive insurance through their employers are not eligible for the public option. But don't worry folks! There is something in this for you too!
Taxes, taxes, taxes!
The Senate bill is going to raise taxes on all those people that President Obama campaigned he would NOT tax.
- $163 Billionin taxes on businesses that don't offer insurance (8%)
- $29 Billion in taxes on individuals that don't own insurance. This equals out to $1900 for families, $950 for individuals in the Senate Bill or 2.5% of your income in the House Bill.
- $201 Billion taxes on people who have insurance
- 40% tax on additional health care spending (about $21,000 per family)
Congressman Murphy referred to this case as "Taxed if you do, taxed if you don't. Taxed if you will, taxed if you won't." This means that if you do have health insurance, you will pay a tax. If you don't have health insurance, you will pay a tax. If your business offers health insurance, you pay a tax. If your business doesn't offer health insurance, you pay a tax.
All families can expect a $4,000 premium increase under this bill to start. The bill also does the following:
- Limits health savings and flexible health spending accounts by $14.6 Billion and medical expense reduction by $15.2 Billion
- Imposes $60 Billion tax on insurance
- $40 Billion in taxes on medical devices (like my son's nebulizer, a wheelchair, etc)
- $22.2 Billion in taxes on pharmaceuticals
Those are taxes that will affect EVERYONE. But Obama is so condescending that he told George Stephanopoulos that looking up the term tax in the dictionary proved that George was stretching the truth that all of these taxes are truely taxes. What Obama really was doing was deflecting away from the fact that he is RAISING taxes since George was trying to call Obama's bluff.
I had the opporunity to ask a question of the Congressman. I asked him where in the Constitution the government has the right to take over healthcare, the auto industry, banks, etc and pointed out that the Founding Fathers warned against the welfare state and redistributing wealth and running a deficit. Another person pointed out the spending bills that President Washington had vetoed. Murphy was honest enough to not attempt to justify any of this and said it is unconstitutional. He said that while the government has an obligation to watch out and make some reforms, this is certainly above and beyond the Constitutional restraints laid down by the Founding Fathers.
He talked about the tea parties and that we are NOT astroturf and certainly none of us that were present for the town hall were paid to be there. He said that "Several million people cannot be wrong." He went on to say that this bill should be a deliberative process and be slowed down, as designed by the Constitution.
He stated that there are things Congress can do to help improve healthcare and lower the cost of insurance by doing the following:
Offering the choice to buy across state lines
Offering the choice to buy in groups (like all Methodists could buy into insurance as a group if they cannot get through employer or are not satisfied with those choices)
A sliding scale for assistance
Quality reforms for Medicaid and Medicare
Transparency (such as hospitals reporting all cases where people die from infections)
Choice to buy a basic plan (yearly doctor visit, coverage for emergency room and catastrophic situations)
He touched on the importance of tort reform after a member of the audiance that served in the Navy for the past ten years asked about it. He stated that it is not in the bill but should be in the bill.
All in all, Congressman Murphy is against the public option and for more choice for US. He said that before we should begin to move to a public option, we need to fix what is wrong. It is less expensive and we simply do not have the money as a country. He told us what we all know, which is that we are mortgaging our future and borrowing money. The nation is broke.