Health Care Bill 101

Here is just a sampling of what is contained in the Health Care bill:

1. The health care bill is 1,018 pages. But at least they gave us a full week to read it!

2. One troublesome provision calls for a home visitation program that would bring state workers into the homes of young families to improve “the well-being, health, and development of children”. Lawmakers intent on increasing the federal role in education into the preschool years have inserted the language into the mammoth health care bill.

3. Amendment #201- Based on this amendment, taxpayer dollars used to subsidize insurance for a low-income citizen, regardless of how he or she feels about abortion, can also be spent on an abortion obtained by someone else in the same insurance network. Moreover, under the Senate Committee bill, the federal government would determine the standard benefits that an insurance plan must include in order to exist on the market. In effect, as a result of the Mikulski amendment, all health plans would have to cover abortion services.

4. Amendment #205- Medicaid is a poorly performing welfare program. Ideally, it should be reformed, not expanded. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) introduced this amendment to ensure that the Committee bill’s provisions do not expand Medicaid eligibility standards and attempt to increase the number of Medicaid enrollees.

5. Amendemnt #226- Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) proposed an amendment that would require all members of Congress and their staffs to enroll in the newly created public health insurance plan. This means that they would be required to give up their private insurance coverage (nationwide there are 283 plans competing for federal employees’ dollars), which is today provided through the popular and successful Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP).

6. Amendments set to prevent higher taxes and medical care rationing failed and could not be added to the bill!

Please use the links on this blog to email your representatives and tell them to vote no!!!