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This shit should have you looking for a pitchfork, rope and torches with your neighbors. At the very least, it should make you concerned enough to GET OFF YOUR ASS AND FUCKING VOTE.
The HCR bill was over 2,300 pages long. Thanks to the internet, you can view it, CNTL+F on it to find things you're interested in trying to understand, and get an idea what they're talking about. Out the door, the whole shebang is over 400,00 words, so it's like reading 40 of my posts on here. :hsugh:
I would encourage anyone to go to this link and skim down through the table of contents at the beginning to see if anything jumps out at you. It lists the topics by section number and you can then do a CNTL+F to find that exact section and read the often brief piece of the bill to decide for yourself - with a degree of certainty, if you agree with it or not. www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3590/text
I went through and found a couple items I thought were worth sharing...
EDIT: These bold headings are links directly to the sections named. See for yourself!
www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3590/text?version=enr&nid=t0:enr:2336 Every US citizen will be required - by law - to be enrolled in a qualified plan. You will have to pay for this plan, whether privately or through your employer. If you do not make your insurance payment one month, you do not have coverage that month. Guess what. At the end of the year? You catch a $750 penalty on your taxes. Don't pay it? Have fun in Federal, pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3590/text?version=enr&nid=t0:enr:12094 I don't know about you guys, but I love my FSA/flex benefit. For those who don't know what this is, you can elect to have pre-tax dollars taken out of your paycheck and put into an account to use for qualified medical expenses - copays, deductibles, nicotine gum, contact solution, NyQuil, you name it. You get a pre-paid credit card of your own money just for medical stuff. At the end of the year, what you don't use, you lose to the government, but I know some people who load these things up to cover their kids' braces, glasses, or their diabetes supplies. Under this law, they've just capped that annual amount to $2500. You or I might not want $200+ coming off our paycheck every month to be used for this sort of thing, but I know many people do. It effectively reduces your taxable income while providing increased funding for medical expenses.
www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3590/text?version=enr&nid=t0:enr:12352 This one is pretty annoying too. Up until LAST WEEK, if your medical expenses for the year ended up being more than 7.5% of your income, you could DEDUCT the amount above that 7.5% on your taxes. A LOT of people do this. This law raises that limit to 10%. How is this not a tax increase for those people making less than $200K/yr that Obama promised would not see their taxes raised "one cent?"
www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3590/text?version=enr&nid=t0:enr:12170 Haha. Fuck them, right? Wrong. When the people who are advertising Valtrex and bonar pillz on TV make more than $5M in a year selling those name brand drugs to people who see the commercials on TV and demand them from their doctors, they catch a "fee" (aka: TAX) that year. It starts at 10% for the $5M mark and goes all the way up to 100% for companies who make over $400M/yr. Tell me how this sort of thing helps to reduce healthcare costs? We already pay more for drugs than anyone else in the world. This effectively DOUBLES THE PRICE of the most popular/beneficial/latest medications.
www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3590/text?version=enr&nid=t0:enr:12234 How about the high price of specialized medical equipment? That doo-dad on the wall in the doctor's office he uses to look into your ears, nose and throat? The portable IV dispenser? The MRI machine? Dialysis machines? Anesthesia monitoring during surgery? Starting at $5M in sales annually, the companies that sell these devices will be subject to a 50% "fee" (aka: TAX), which turns to 100% on sales over $25M. To put this in perspective, MRI machines cost upwards of $3M EACH. You think the companies that make this equipment are going to keep their prices where they are? Not a chance. They will charge the hospitals more in order to remain profitable. The hospitals are going to have to pass those costs onto US. (Maybe they won't though. Maybe they won't be able to afford to buy the best or latest equipment to provide the most accurate diagnoses. No big deal, though, right?)
www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3590/text?version=enr&nid=t0:enr:12234 :O This one is, like, my favorite. The insurance industry is HUGE, right? So we've just told them they can no longer deny people with pre-existing conditions, drop insureds, or otherwise limit the amount of coverage lifetime/annually. We've just told them they have to pay for basically everything for everyone forever. Fine. Don't even think about my previous arguments about how they will raise their rates because of that.
Now, any health insurance company which does more than $50M in annual business will be subject to a 100% "fee" (aka: you guessed it, TAX). How many of them do that much business? I don't know, but when you just made it a law that 36 MILLION people buy health insurance, I bet it's going to be A LOT of them. So, this law effectively DOUBLES THE COST OF HEALTH INSURANCE before pre-existing conditions even become a factor.
This "imperfect-but-we-have-to-pass-SOMETHING" healthcare REFORM bill actually DOUBLES THE COST OF MEDICAL EQUIPMENT, DOUBLES THE COST OF MEDICATION, AND DOUBLES THE COST OF HEALTH INSURANCE WHILE FORCING YOU TO BUY IT! I'm not making this up at all! It's right there in the bill!
Seriously! This doesn't make you even the SLIGHTEST bit concerned?
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