RSS Feed Archive for the 'Health Care' Category
All Senator Harry Reid wants for Christmas is a massive health care reform bill. Let’s hope he doesn’t get anything from his wish list this year.
The U.S. Senate has been working overtime and on weekends to push through legislation that will increase the government’s role in health care, expand Medicare and do little to control costs in our health care system. In fact, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) found that the Senate bill will increase national health care expenditures by $234 billion, or 0.7 percent, over the next decade. That doesn’t sound like the kind of health care reform we need.
Congress is at it again, using the excuse of the swine flu to mandate paid sick leave. This time the pig’s nose is under the tent.
Last week the House Education and Labor Committee held a hearing on a proposal, H.R. 3991, the Emergency Influenza Containment Act. If passed, this bill would require employers with as few as 15 employees to provide five days of paid sick leave per 12 month period to all full or part time workers who are sent home by their employer or directed to stay home by their employer because of contagious illness such as the H1N1 virus. The Senate also held a hearing on the issue.
On November 7 around 11:15 pm when a lot of people were asleep, the House of Representatives passed (by two votes) a massive 2,032 page health care reform bill (HR 3962) that will cost $1.3 trillion, impose new taxes and mandate employers to provide health care coverage. It is the wrong prescription for our economy, for consumers and for businesses of all sizes.
The bill amounts to a federal takeover of our health care system. It creates 111 new boards, bureaucracies, commissions and programs! A few samples include the Health Choices Administration, Council for Emergency Care, National Women’s Health Information Center and the Public Health Investment Fund (a full list of all 111 new bureaucracies can be found below).
There was another way. House Republicans offered some common sense ideas that the National Center for Policy Analysis has been pushing for years – giving our small businesses the ability to cross state lines to purchase health care, providing them access to more affordable health care for their employees. The alternative also works to reduce health care costs by enacting medical liability reform.
There is a new Fortune 500 company in Washington, DC and it is called the federal government.
October 3rd marked the one-year anniversary of the largest government bailout in U.S. history. The passage of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) gave our government (and taxpayers) a majority ownership stake in most of our financial services companies. This is one anniversary we shouldn’t be excited to celebrate.
In the year since the TARP was launched, things have gone from bad to worse. In the last nine months we have watched as the federal government took over General Motors; passed a “stimulus” bill that did little to stimulate small business or our economy; transformed itself into a used car salesman with the Cash for Clunkers program; and it is now working around the clock to take over our health care system.
The President addressed Congress and the nation in an effort to sell his health care reform plan. He laid out only a few details of his 10-year, $900 billion plan to re-shape America’s health care system. He made the “public” option one of the main centerpieces of his speech but gave very little information on how individuals and businesses, especially small businesses, would be impacted. Maybe that is because we all know the answer – higher taxes and more mandates.
In his speech the President welcomed ideas from all sides of the debate. Well here are a few:
- Support health care portability so that people can carry their insurance from job to job or have access to insurance when they are between jobs. Allow small businesses to purchase individually owned health insurance with pretax dollars;
- Oppose the bill developed by the House of Representatives that would increase taxes on our small businesses to pay for health care and impose a stiff penalty on those who don’t offer health care to their employees;
- Oppose the Senate’s attempts to place new restrictions on Health Savings Accounts (HSAs).
- Support allowing businesses to cross state lines to purchase health care for their employees which will increase access and make health care more affordable.
It is going to take more than just a good speech to produce health care reform legislation that preserves consumer choice and access to quality, affordable health care. Congress and the President need to re-think their approach and produce free market alternatives.
Congress returns to Washington, DC this week to pick up where they left off on health care reform. It will likely be a very different debate than what we heard in July.
All across the country, thousands of people turned out in August at town hall meetings and other events to express their opposition to the health care reform bills moving through Congress. Those who turned out to express their opposition were people from across the political spectrum. Small business owners concerned about mandates, seniors concerned about the level of care they would receive under a government run program and people from the disabilities community concerned about limiting their access.
It is clear that those pushing for a government run health care system, or public option, are out of step with what people want out of health care reform. Moderate Democrats, many who expressed support for a public option earlier this year, are now taking a second look at the House health care bill that will raise taxes and impose a surtax on our small businesses. Even the President has started to realize he has a very difficult sales job ahead of him and will speak before a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night.
What is happening shouldn't surprise any of us. We all agree that more needs to be done to reign in health care costs and improve the system. But a government run system that is paid for by taxing individuals and small businesses is not the answer.
Congress needs to seriously re-think its approach on health care. They need to be more open to ideas that make sense like allowing businesses to cross state lines to purchase health insurance for their employees, consider making health care portable so people can carry it from job to job and look for ways to reduce costs rather than impose new taxes.
Last week as the Cash for Clunkers car program announced all the money was gone after only a week; it reminded me of a quote Thomas Jefferson left for us. " A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have." As the deficit soars and the spending escalates, what happens when we run out of money to fund a government run health care system? We better think about these things. After all, we the people fund the government. Government doesn't make money.
We can breathe a sigh of relief that Congress will break for August without voting on health care reform. Let's hope the American people will voice their opinions to these federal elected officials that we need to let the free market work. We need alternatives to "Obamacare" that will not kill small business jobs and not destroy the private insurance market.
Minimum Wage Increase and Health Care Reform – A Perfect Storm for Small Business
The cost of doing business in the United States just got more expensive.
On Friday the federal minimum wage was increased for the third time in three years, jumping from $6.55 an hour to $7.25 an hour, a staggering 10.7 percent jump. This comes at a time when unemployment is rising and people are finding it difficult to find a job and employers are struggling to keep their doors open.
According to a 2003 study by economists at the Federal Reserve, a 2-3 percent decrease in employment can be expected from a 10 percent increase in the minimum wage. In fact, small business owners will be paying 40.8 percent more per hour than they were paying in January 2007. Unemployment was 4.6 percent then, today it is 9.5 percent.
Good for the Goose?—Will Congress have the same health care plan as Small Business Owners?
Last week, Senator Tom Coburn (R-Ok), also known as Dr. Coburn, pressed the Senate Health Committee to approve his idea of requiring members of congress to enroll in whatever "public plan" is passed to compete with private insurance companies. On the House side, they have unveiled its 1,018 page health care proposal that costs nearly $1 billion per page and still doesn't solve the problem of providing coverage to all Americans. What say you about this? Please comment http://terry-neese-blog.com/
In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, under the House bill the number of Americans without health insurance increases over the next three years.
The House proposal would extend insurance to 37 million (still leaving 17 million uninsured) Americans over the next decade, covering more by expanding Medicaid and providing subsidies to help the uninsured meet the new federal mandate to purchase insurance.
Who is going to pay for increased coverage? Small business for one– big time! Sign this petition to stop government takeover of health care: http://www.freeourhealthcarenow.com/
The House of Representatives unveiled its 1,018 page health care proposal that costs nearly $1 billion per page and doesn't solve the problem. There is enough in the massive $1.2 trillion bill to make everyone sick.
The proposal would extend insurance to 37 million (still leaving 17 million uninsured) Americans over the next decade, covering more by expanding Medicaid and providing subsidies to help the uninsured meet the new federal mandate to purchase insurance.
Who is going to pay for increased coverage? Small business for one.
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