Health Care Bill (HR. 3200)

My husband went through the Health Care bill (HR 3200) that has come out of the House and found many points that the American people need to know and our elected representatives need to answer questions about. In the month of August, I will use my blog to explore these points in more detail. The following list covers the first 200 pages of the 1017 page bill.

·         All health care must meet government standards of price, coverage and operations—p. 15

·         After health care goes into effect, private plans can only continue if they don’t enroll new people, don’t change coverage, copays, or coinsurance, and only limited changes in premiums—p. 16

·         All employment-based health care plans must meet all government requirements after five years—p. 17

·         If you have limited health insurance (like a catastrophic coverage plan), you’ll still need to buy a comprehensive plan—p. 18

·         All individual health insurance must be purchased at government run exchange—p. 19

·         Insurance plans have to accept everyone rat the same price, no matter how sick they are without charging them more—p. 19

·         Families will be charged as individuals—p. 21

·         Audit of all self-insured health care plans—p. 22

·         Mandatory mental health and substance abuse coverage—p. 23

·         Government decides what doctors you see—p. 24

·         If your health care plan is too profitable, we’ll make you give out refunds until its not—p. 24

·         Government sets benefits for all health care plans—p. 25

·         Must cover abortion and euthanasia—p. 26

·         Abortion coverage—p. 27-28

·         Government committee recommends what treatments should be covered—p. 30

·         Government committee sets benefits—p. 32

·         Government controls how you can advertise your health plan—p. 37

·         Government makes final decisions on what’s covered and what’s not covered in both public and private plans—p. 38

·         Commissioner can apply all exchange rates to non-exchange plans—p. 40

·         Government settles disputes between insurance companies—p. 40

·         Political appointee runs nation’s health care system—p. 41

·         Government randomly audits health care companies and makes them pay the fees for it—p.43

·         Blank check to the government to gather any personal information it wants—p. 43

·         Government can redefine what terms mean—p. 45

·         Bureaucracy to resolve complaints—p. 47

·         Coverage for illegal aliens—p. 50

·         Establishes national health ID card—p. 58

·         Government electronic access to all financial accounts—p. 59

·         Penalties if you attempt to keep the government from accessing financial accounts—p. 62

·         Subsidy for unions and ACORN—p. 65

·         Blank check to spend up to $10 billion for union & ACORN health care—p. 70

·         Health care programs “off the books”—p. 71

·         Secretary can ration care—p. 71

·         Government won’t let in unless they don’t like your current coverage—p. 73

·         Veterans may be required to buy health insurance to access VA—p. 77

·         Once you’re in the federal health care system, there is no way out—p. 80

·         If your state wants to give you better coverage than the federal government provides, the state has to pay the federal government for the privilege—p. 87

·         Commissioner can hand out sweetheart deals to his friends—p. 89

·         Ensures illegal aliens don’t need to speak English to get health care—p. 91

·         Can’t go out of network to get health care—the return of the HMO—p. 92

·         ACORN & Americorp paid to spread information about health care and sign people up—p. 95

·         Government establishes when you can sign up for health care—p. 96

·         Government will sign you up for health insurance automatically whether you like it or not—p. 97

·         All newborns will automatically be enrolled in Medicaid until they enter the government health care plan—p. 101

·         All Medicaid-eligible people automatically enrolled in Medicaid even if they don’t apply—p. 102

·         Children will get kicked out of CHIP but there may not be room to enroll them an exchange plan, meaning that children may become uninsured—p. 102

·         After five years, investigative office to snoop out fraud sunsets—p. 109

·         Taxes people who don’t have health insurance to pay for others—p. 110

·         State health care plans must comply with federal rules—p. 111

·         Public plan doesn’t need to be profitable—read subsidized—p. 117

·         Health care benefits enforceable in federal court—new entitlement—p. 118

·         $2 billion startup capital for public option—p. 120

·         Government sets prescription drug prices—p. 122

·         For first 3 years, doctors will get 5% more from public plan than private plans—p. 122

·         Prices cannot increase after first 3 years—p. 123

·         No judicial review or administrative review of government set prices—p. 124

·         Secretary can set up any kind of payment system he or she wants—p. 125

·         Different geographic regions can be given different care—p. 126

·         Government sets pay for doctors—p. 127

·         If we apply for health care tax credit but qualified for Medicaid, we are enrolled for Medicaid whether we like it or not—p. 131

·         In the first two years, the poor can only get into the lowest tiered plans—p. 131

·         If you have employer-based health care, you can’t get health care tax credits—p. 132

·         Tax credits to subsize people up to 400% of federal poverty level (for family of four, currently $87,640)—p. 133

·         Study to determine whether to tax things that are currently tax free—p. 135

·         Health care service accesses your tax returns from IRS—p. 139

·         If income or family compensation changes, need to inform the government under penalties—p. 140

·         Different geographies may receive different care (political payoffs)—p. 142

·         Employer must provide any information about employees that the government wants—p. 145

·         Employers must auto enroll employees in health care—p. 145

·         Employers pay 72.5% of the premium cost of single plans and 65% of the cost of family plans—p. 146

·         Part time employees must be covered by employers—p. 146

·         People are automatically enrolled in the lowest tier plan unless you affirmatively opt out—p. 148

·         Employers can pay 8% tax on payroll to get out of providing health care for their workers—p. 149

·         Employers can only self-insure if they meet all the government’s criteria—p. 153

·         Employers who self-insure but don’t comply with all rules can be fined $100 a day—p. 155

·         Fines can be levied even if you didn’t know that something was wrong if the government thought you should have known—p. 156

·         Penalties go into the general treasury, not the health care system—p. 158

·         Employers who don’t join approved government system or don’t do it right are taxed—p. 159

·         Government establishes terms and conditions of employer plans—p. 160

·         Random audits of employers—p. 161

·         2.5% tax on income for anyone who doesn’t buy health insurance—p. 167

·         Tax applies even if you’re only without insurance for part of the year—p. 169

·         Illegal aliens don’t have to pay the health care tax—p. 170

·         Government will examine your religion to determine whether you can opt out religiously—p. 170

·         The end of two-person coverage—only single and family plans—p. 174

·         These taxes aren’t taken into account when they calculate your tax credit—p. 174

·         Employers have to provide info to the government on who they provide health care for—p. 175

·         If your average payroll is $20,000 per person, you get a tax credit equal to 50% of your health care costs.  It phases out as the average payroll goes up.  It also phases out if you have more than 10 employees.  Great incentive not to pay people over $20,000—p. 189

·         No credits for any employee who makes over $80,000 a year—p. 190

·         Anyone you pay at least $5,000, must receive health insurance from employer—p. 191

·         The end of two person coverage.  Only single payer and family coverage—p. 192

·         Any tax deduction for health care is reduced by the amount of this new tax credit—p. 192

·         Officers and employees of government health care bureaucracy will have access to all personal and financial records—p. 194

·         Extra tax on people who the government believes make too much—p. 197

·         Taxes go even higher after next presidential election—p. 198

 

 

I know that the blue dog Democrats have been negotiating changes, but the bottom line is this is a bill that is bad for America. We do not need another big spending program that will increase our mountain of debt, burden responsible Americans, and lead to govern