Commentary on Health Care Reform

Let me start of by saying that I am not opposed to making health care available to more people or people who could not afford it otherwise.

However, I am against a mandate that says you will purchase a product. If the Dems want to make health care more available, more accessible, more cheaper, great! I'm all for it. I agree and applaud with not allowing insurance companies to drop people when they need coverage the most or denying people because they have preexisting conditions. I agree with allowing college students to stay on their parent insurance until they are 26.

What I don't agree with is a mandate to buy, the sleazy way Congress slid the bill through, or the way the bill will operate.

Instead of placing extra burdens on tax payers (who may or may not be employed)and businesses at a time when the economy is struggling to get out of a depression, they could have opted to regulate the insurance industry in the same way they regulate other public utilities.

Then there is the IRS aspect of the bill. So now, you'll have to include your health care coverage with your tax forms ever January. According to the Washington Examiner:


The Democrats' plan would require all Americans to have "acceptable" insurance coverage (the legislation includes long and complex definitions of "acceptable") and would designate the IRS as the agency charged with enforcing that requirement. On your yearly 1040 tax return, you would be required to attest that you have "acceptable" coverage. Of course, you might be lying, or simply confused about whether or not you are covered, so the IRS would need a way to check your claim for accuracy. Under current plans, insurers would be required to submit to the IRS something like the 1099 form in which taxpayers report outside income. The IRS would then check the information it receives from the insurers against what you have submitted on your tax form.

If it all matches up, you're fine. If it doesn't, you will hear from the IRS. And if you don't have "acceptable" coverage, you will be subject to substantial fines — fines that will be administered by the IRS.


Looking at this article something else comes to mind. Who's to say that the fines for not having "acceptable" insurance won't be $1000, $2000, or $5000 in the next 5 to 10 years?

On top of that you have companies like Walgreens who are refusing to accept any new Medicaid prescriptions because they're losing money. Doctors are Medicare patients or raising patient fees because of the cuts to Medicare to fund this new health care bill.

If the states Attorney Generals fail at their constitutionality challenge to this bill and the GOP can't get it repealed in November, then boys and girls we have officially crossed that plane into European style Socialism.