The House of Representatives is expected to vote TOMORROW on H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) disastrous healthcare reform bill.
I urge you, if you haven’t already, to tell your U.S. Representative that you OPPOSE this absolutely unaffordable government takeover of healthcare! You can click here to send a letter: https://secure2.convio.net/cagw/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=611
As if the original House healthcare reform bill that sparked outrage at congressional town hall meetings in August weren’t bad enough, Speaker Pelosi has now crafted a 1,990-page regulatory and fiscal nightmare.
CCAGW Member, H.R. 3962 poses a fundamental threat not only to our nation’s and your own financial health and prosperity, but to every American’s individual liberties and right to free choice!
According to an initial estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), H.R. 3962 will cost our country a minimum of $894 billion over 10 years. Robert Pear of The New York Times reported on October 30, “By the most commonly used yardstick, the bill would cost $1.05 trillion over 10 years.” Historically, healthcare programs have cost more than predicted — in 1990 Medicare spending was nearly 10 times what was originally estimated in 1967 — and this is the biggest healthcare plan in history.
Quite frankly, America cannot afford even the minimum price tag for Speaker Pelosi’s healthcare scheme when the federal deficit stands at an all-time record and the national debt is projected to nearly double over the next 10 years.
What’s more, President Obama has said that his healthcare “reform” will cut costs in the long run, but CBO’s preliminary analysis of H.R. 3962 found that the bill would bend the federal cost curve for healthcare UP, not down.
H.R. 3962 would also inflict a whole host of new taxes and costly mandates on individuals and businesses as American families struggle to make ends meet and unemployment approaches double digits.
For example, the bill would impose an individual mandate tax of up to 2.5 percent of income on individuals earning as little as $9,350 who do not purchase “acceptable health care coverage.” The National Federation of Independent Business estimates that the employer mandate in H.R. 3962 will disproportionately affect small businesses, triggering up to 1.6 million lost jobs. The direct impact on families of all the new rules, regulations, and tax increases will be an additional $500 per year in the cost of insurance.
And I can’t believe I’m saying this, CCAGW Member, but the financial burden of this healthcare plan to our government and the costs to American businesses, taxpayers, and our economy aren’t even the worst of it.
The most dangerous part of Speaker Pelosi’s healthcare “reform” bill is that it paves the way to a complete government takeover of healthcare in this country that will dramatically expand the size of government; allow bureaucrats and politicians to dictate your choice of doctors, treatments, and medicines; and ration quality care to control costs.
H.R. 3962 creates 111 new federal boards, bureaucracies, commissions, and programs. It also expands Medicaid to all individuals with incomes below 150 percent of the federal poverty level, an estimated 10 million Americans.
President Obama has repeatedly vowed that “if you like your health plan, you can keep it,” but the so-called “public health insurance option” that Speaker Pelosi included in her bill at the urging of her pro-socialized medicine backers will quickly undermine private insurance by undercutting its costs. A study earlier this year by The Lewin Group, a respected economics consulting firm, projected that 83.4 million Americans would lose the private coverage they have today if a “public option” becomes law.
On top of everything else, Speaker Pelosi proposes to pay for this government takeover of healthcare with massive cuts to Medicare. Those include more than $170 billion in cuts to Medicare Advantage Plans that will gut the program, forcing the more than 10 million seniors who opt for it back into traditional fee-for-service Medicare, which has higher out-of-pocket expenses.
Make no mistake. With these cuts to Medicare coming as the Baby Boomers are retiring and the program is facing bankruptcy in just seven years, seniors will be the first to experience rationing and a decline in their quality of care!
CCAGW Member, that’s why it’s so vitally important that you tell your U.S. Representative to vote NO on H.R. 3962 today!
If we don’t succeed in blocking this very dangerous government takeover of our healthcare, you and I and all Americans will have no choice but to live under the mandates, restrictions, and rationing that federal bureaucrats and politicians in Washington will impose to curb costs.
The goal of Speaker Pelosi and her pro-socialized medicine backers is clear: to put all Americans under a single-payer, government-run healthcare system, like those in Canada and Great Britain, that will dictate our choice of doctors, treatments, and medicines and ration the care we can receive.
Time is short! The House will vote TOMORROW, Saturday, November 7. Tell your U.S. Representative today to vote NO on this costly and dangerous government takeover of healthcare.
‘Thomas A. Schatz is the President of Citizens Against Government Waste’