No Triumph on Health Care
H.R. 3200, America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, was reported out of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, the most important of five committees that considered the bill, on July 31.
The committee vote was 31 in favor, 28 against. Of the total of 59 committee members, 36 are Democrats, 23 are Republicans. All Republicans, along with five Democrats, voted against the bill. This was achieved only after significant changes designed to satisfy moderate Democrats whose support was questionable while keeping the support of all other Democrats.
An Associated Press report described this vote as “a triumph for President Barack Obama.” The New York Times was a bit more balanced, describing it as “the beginnings of a consensus.” The Washington Post report was better and more even-handed.
This was certainly no “triumph” for President Obama or anyone else, and the only “consensus” it reflected was agreement among most Democrats. Obama wanted broad health care reform to be enacted quickly with bipartisan support. It isn’t as broad as he wanted, it’s possible that it won’t be signed into law this year at all, and the bill couldn’t be more partisan. Even Obama recognizes this, as he continues to back away from the reform he wanted in hopes of getting at least something.
The graphic above, prepared by the Republican opposition, is partly nonsense; if you wanted to you could make an absurd flow chart to show the process of getting a drivers’ license or going to the supermarket. But it does make the point that the Democrats’ health care reform aspirations attempt to implement a very complex system of even greater government management of one-sixth of the U.S. economy.
If you want to spend a whole lot of time researching the bill and the legislative process, you can do that. The information is available. You can spend countless hours reading and trying to figure it out, and after you’ve spent more time than the average member of Congress will spend before he or she votes on the bill, you still won’t have a comprehensive understanding of what the bill does, much less what the uncountable number of unintended consequences might be.
According to a recent poll, a small majority of Americans oppose the current health reform bill, and they’re most concerned about the cost of reform. If democracy means anything at all, members of Congress will listen to the people and start over again. If it takes another year or two or five to get it done right, so what?
I’m not opposed to health care reform. I agree that health care in America costs too much, and the cost is increasing at an unsustainable rate. I agree that health care should be accessible to all Americans, even though the number of those uninsured is somewhat contrived. What I don’t want is for Congress to pass and the President to sign a massive reform bill that no one fully understands and that could make the health care system in America far worse.
We can be thankful that at least the bill wasn’t rammed through and signed this month, as the President and many Democrats wanted. At least members of Congress now have to go home and listen to the growing number of constituents who oppose this particular reform effort.
Here are a few sources worth reading, including a full text of H.R. 3200. However, it has to be noted that the bill will most likely be modified further as it heads to an eventual vote in the full House, and it will certainly change when reconciled with whatever version the Senate may eventually pass.
Dems win approval of health bill in committee, Associated Press/Breitbart.com
Health Bill Clears Hurdle and Hints at Consensus, The New York Times
Obama Trims Sails On Health Reform, The Washington Post
H.R.3200 – America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, OpenCongress
Preliminary analysis of H.R. 3200, Congressional Budget Office
H.R. 3200: America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, Committee Assignments, GovTrack.us
America’s Affordable Health Choices Act, a summary prepared by the House Committees on Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce, and Education and Labor
America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, full text of the bill as reported out of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce (.pdf file, 1018 pages)
United States House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Wikipedia
(This article was also posted at Opinion Forum.)
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It seem to me that no matter what is done not every one will be happy with it… personally I just happy something is being done… Something is betting then nothing.
.-= Art Low´s last blog ..Digesting Phenols =-.
It is far too costly; the wait is too lengthy; and frequently, physicians seem hurried, spending slight time with their patients, and reacting thoughtlessly to the needs of those entrusted to their care.
For months now since Health care reform suddenly become the main issue on the national agenda. We have been bombarded with the incessant accusation that the English/British form of the single-payer system is about unequivocal–RATIONING? YES! This is the truth now, but it wasn’t always that way. It wasn’t until the Globalist plan to take over the originally named Common Market, that health care in England started to suffer. In Jan. 1, 1973, original known to Brits as the Common Market. The “One Market” that was created in 1993 states that people, money, services, and trade can move freely within the European Union. Currently over 450 million EU citizens are provided with these special options.
The indigenous British people’s lives had already been disrupted by the importation of cheap labor from Commonwealth countries to drive the buses and run British Railway. Then family unification started and illegal immigration and the beginning of spiraling crime. RATIONING AND REDUCED HEALTH CARE CAME TO ENGLAND WITH AN OVERLOAD OF LEGAL AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION, SUDDENLY THE UNITED KINGDOM FOUND THEMSELVES IN A TERRIBLE QUANDARY OF HUNDREDS OF THOUSAND OF REFUGEES AND ASYLUM SEEKERS. ALL PAID FOR BY THE BRITISH/ENGLISH TAXPAYER.
In spite of the restrictive immigration policies which have been in place since the 1970s in most Member States Of The European Union, large numbers of legal and illegal migrants have continued to come to the EU together with asylum-seekers and illegal labor. Taking advantage of individuals seeking an improved life, smuggling and skin trafficking networks have taken hold across the EU. The inception of these relative dates in when one of the greatest Universal Health care system, came to a grinding halt of quality.
The system was simple? You paid your insurance stamps and the employer paid his? End of story. The years I worked in the Mother country, I received three minor surgeries, teeth and dentistry, and eye care. WITH NO PREMIUMS, NO-PAYS, NO DEDUCTIONS AND CERTAINLY NO PRE EXISTING CONDITIONS? ONCE I SPENT THREE MONTHS IN EAST GRINSTEAD HOSPITAL WITH A BACK PROBLEM. MY COST–NOTHING! WE CANNOT AND SHOULD NOT SUPPORT THE MILLIONS OF ILLEGAL ALIENS AND FAMILIES WITH TRILLION DOLLAR HEALTH CARE. IT WILL LEAD TO RATIONING ON A GRAND SCALE! AS ALWAYS THE TAXPAYER WILL FOOT THE BILL FOR BUSINESS WELFARE.
CALL YOUR POLITICIAN IN WASHINGTON 202-224-3121 I Want a health care system–even government run. BUT IT”S SURE TO FAIL, IF TAXES ARE BEING EXTORTED TO PAY FOR FREE HEALTH CARE FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS? Support for the bi-partisan E-VERIFY PART OF THE SAVE Act, which will expand E-Verify and protect American Workers! We must focus on the behemoth problem in terminating illegal immigrants-and the jobs that attract illegal aliens. WE WILL ALWAYS BE PAYING FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS, UNLESS WE DO SOMETHING NOW? Many GOP members are against a Path to citizenship for lawbreakers, so we mostly need the phones ringing in the ears of Democrats, who see the millions of illegal aliens as a positive voting block.
WE MUST STOP IT NOW OF SUFFER FROM IRREVERSIBLE POPULATION GROWTH.
DEMAND NO AMNESTY! NO FAMILY UNIFICATION KNOWN AS CHAIN MIGRATION! BUILD THE ORIGINAL FENCE! NO MORE HEALTH CARE OR ANY OTHER KIND OF BENEFITS FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. CLOSE THE BORDER AND STATION THE NATIONAL GUARD. $2.5 TRILLION DOLLARS, JUST IN RETIREMENT BENEFITS? Learn uncorrupted facts at NUMBERSUSA.
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