...they're going to ask for your health care. It seems congress has grown weary of nibbling away at our personal rights bit by bit. They have decided it's time to feast, and so HR 3200 was born.
HR 3200 proposes the creation of a public government run health insurance program that would "compete" with private plans. It would require every American to have government approved health care or pay a penalty tax. Meaning, after 2013 you have two options: keep your current health care plan for the rest of your life, or switch to one in which the government decides what treatments and benefits you should get. If you want to switch insurance in the private sector (non government approved) you will be taxed to pay for the socialized care as well as a penalty tax for not buying into the system, and will still have to pay the private insurance premiums. This system ensures that the vast majority of Americans will have no choice but to purchase a government approved insurance plan, which have no set cost limits. By setting/enforcing the rules while competing in the system, the government is virtually giving themselves the right to play umpire in their own baseball game, and we're just supposed to trust that they'll play fair.
Socialized health care will devastate the level of care that most Americans receive today. As with education, the poor will receive the worst level of care while the very wealthy will use the private sector to provide the best for their family. Notice you don't see any crappy private schools, because no one would voluntarily pay for them. Yet we see devastated public schools across the nation that, regardless of the level of funding, continue to struggle due to the corruption and greed that couldn't survive in the private sector. The same would be true with health care.
Medicare and Medicaid costs are sky high with no realistic plan to curb costs, and we are planning to cut funding to these programs to help pay for the trillion dollar proposed health insurance reform. How can we trust a government that cannot operate the medical programs it has in place to successfully manage our health care?
No other insurance system in the US works like the health care system and none of the other systems seem to be struggling the way health care is. Take, for instance, car insurance. You don't expect your car insurance to pay for routine maintenance like an oil change or new tires, yet you expect your medical insurance to pay for your yearly physical. Insurance is intended as a means of indemnity against the occurrence of an uncertain event (for instance a car crash in the case of car insurance, or a cancer diagnosis in the case of medical insurance). By returning health coverage to health insurance we would lower costs by reducing the over treatment that now drives up health care costs and encourage affordable rates and a high level of care through increased competition.
Even if HR 3200 were an effective medical reform plan, the reality is that we cannot afford it. How can we raise taxes in an already struggling economy that promises to get worse once the commercial real estate market crashes? This plan is predicted to cost almost $1,000,000,000,000,000 (trillion) and would add costs by creating number of new government agencies, each of which has building, operations, and employee costs that must be paid for by the tax payers. It would further reduce competition, thereby encouraging health care and insurance costs to rise even higher.
We all agree that we cannot afford to continue down the road we are currently on. However, we cannot afford this plan either! We need to retract laws and restrictions put in place by special interest groups that favor large companies (for instance, laws stating that we cannot purchase generic drugs from other countries at 1/10th the cost). Allow the free market to do its job for once, and we can resolve these issues. Don't take my word on it, research for yourselves. This is some of the most important legislation to pass through congress in our lifetime. Ours family's future is in your hands. Write your local representatives, and let them know your views.
HR3200 text below:
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