Health Care: The Bill That Keeps On … Taking

It’s not like we didn’t see the handwriting on the wall. The democrats didn’t fool us one bit with their 2700+ page health-care bill that they said they had to pass in order for us to find out what was in there. When someone won’t tell you what they’re doing, it’s a sure sign they’re afraid of the response they’re going to get. Now they want to pat us on the back and issue soothing assurances that everything will be “just fine” while they stand back and watch this train wreck (that they engineered) threatening to destroy not only one of the best health-care systems in the world, but our economy, our freedom of association and our freedom of choice, as well.

Well, what have they done? It’s not pretty, and it’s a far cry from the unicorn and roses picture President Obama tried to paint.

Before the ink was dry on the bill, three major companies posted million and billion dollar losses to offset the effects of the bill which, from the beginning, required increased coverage. Obama and company were incensed, outraged, pointing threatening fingers, talking tough and calling for congressional hearings (which is about all they know how to do, unless it’s the American citizenry—then they take us to court and sue the pants off us).

But what could they say? These companies were reporting a legitimate loss and had the paperwork to back it up. You notice that story faded into the background pretty quickly. The president and congress didn’t want the commoners to sit up and take notice, and we know the main stream media isn’t going to report anything close to the truth.

The next rub came for small businesses—which represent 99.7 percent of ALL business in America.  Just so you know what small business means to our economy overall, take into consideration these facts from the U.S. Small Business Administration:

Small Businesses:

• Represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms.
• Employ just over half of all private sector employees.
• Pay 44 percent of total U.S. private payroll.
• Have generated 64 percent of net new jobs over the past 15 years.
• Create more than half of the nonfarm private gross domestic product (GDP).
• Hire 40 percent of high tech workers (such as scientists, engineers, and computer programmers).
• Are 52 percent home-based and 2 percent franchises.
• Made up 97.3 percent of all identified exporters and produced 30.2 percent of the known export value in FY 2007.
• Produce 13 times more patents per employee than large patenting firms; these patents are twice as likely as large firm patents to be among the one percent most cited.

This health-care bill mandated that businesses now file a 1099 for every firm that they do more than $600 a year worth of business with. A 1099 is a form used for reporting a myriad of things—from retirement benefits to income made from freelance and contract work. Usually this means about 4 to 8 forms a year for the average business. This new mandate bumps that up to an average of 90 to 100 per business, per year. This is going to be disastrous for our economy. Small business, which represents 99.7 percent of all firms (I want to keep hammering that number into your head!) will start doing business with just a select few big box retailers to offset the onerous paperwork this bill subjects them to.  Smaller businesses that have been servicing these other small businesses will dry up, much like they do when Wal-Mart comes to town. If our small businesses employ 44 percent of the U.S. private workforce, how can we afford this, especially in this economic downturn?

The simple answer is—we can’t.

Now we have insurance companies planning rate hikes of anywhere from 1% to 9% for individual and small business policies. The screams of outrage are heard all around but what did we expect, that we could force the insurance companies to increase coverage at no cost? Did we really think we could get something for nothing?

But wait! What about all those profits that the greedy health insurance companies are making off the misfortune of the American people? In 2009, those profits amounted to about 2.2%. That’s right…a little over two percent. Understand that in business terms, that’s unsustainable, and which is why some of the credit ratings for these firms were downgraded to a negative status. Even under the “greedy capitalistic” years of George W. Bush, insurance profits never exceeded 8 percent of revenue.

Farmers are doing better than that.

Barack Obama and the Democrats promised us that the new health-care bill would restrain increases in our insurance premiums. Then they forced the insurance companies to begin allowing adult children to stay on their parent’s policies until age 26; they eliminated co-payments for preventative care; and they eliminated coverage caps. Did they hope by doing this that this monstrosity would be easier for us to swallow? If so, how was all this going to be paid for?

They decimated Medicare to help crunch the numbers to push this thing through and told people to take a pain pill instead of searching out treatments for cancer.  They hoped that they could artificially lower costs until reality set in, by which time it’d be too late to do anything about it. All they have done is open up a Pandora’s Box, a path that will eventually see a single-payer system that will be as out of control as Medicare (or more), and as much or more of a boondoggle in administrative costs.

It hasn’t even been a year since the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act took effect, and look at the problems we’re already having. And of course, as Obama does best, he’s backpedaling on any statements that he made about the health care bill while trying to get it passed. No, he never said it would lower costs. No, he never said 31 million additional people could be insured for free without some price increases. And no, he never said that if you liked your insurance, you could keep it.

Obama’s gangster government is now presenting their “gangsta” side. Kathleen Sebelius, Health and Human Services Secretary, has issued a warning for the insurance industry… “There will be zero tolerance for this type of misinformation and unjustified rate increases.” Does Sebelius deny the additional costs to the insurance companies? Not at all. She just thinks that “according to our analysis and those of some industry and academic experts, any potential premium impact will be … minimal.”

Notice the use of words in this… “some” industry experts, “academic experts”… puhleeze, could we have some folks give us figures that have real-world experience? That’s the problem with this administration … everyone comes at problems like they’re word questions written on a blackboard. Theory is nice, but it’s totally irrelevant to reality. And no matter how many ways you try to rewrite the question, the end result is still the same.

And then comes the threat in her statement: “We will also keep track of insurers with a record of unjustified rate increases: Those plans may be excluded from health insurance Exchanges in 2014.”

As Michael Barrone of The Washington Examiner said, “The threat to use government regulation to destroy or harm someone’s business because they disagree with government officials is thuggery.” That is the least of it.

It’s against every tenet of freedom we hold dear as a country.

The best thing we can do is vote this November. We need to elect a Congress that will listen to the voice of the people, one that is truly a representative government of the citizens of this country. We need to defund and reverse this disastrous piece of legislation before it does any more damage to our economy and our lives.

Until then, use every means at your disposal to avoid the doctor in the first place. Eat wisely, exercise, avoid tobacco, and don’t abuse drugs … whatever it takes to keep you healthy. Learn about alternative medicines that are natural and time-proven.

One day, our herb gardens may be the only reliable means for maintaining our health.

Other articles in this issue:

• Planning an Off-Grid Existence? The Feds may be Watching You
• Storing Your Stuff Efficiently
• The Next Generation of Meals-Ready-to-Eat

If you liked this article you may be interested in this product from our sponsor.