Reading the Bill

12 August 2009
H.R. 3200 Yesterday I began reading the Healthcare bill in it's entirety, which puts me one step ahead of congress. In my first scan I was overwhelmed by the amount of government intervention into the healthcare system, this thing is massive. One thing caught my eye though, premium pricing. The premiums for socialized medicine are of course covered by cost sharing, you make more, you pay more. Under section 243(b)(2) "PREMIUM PERCENTAGE LIMITS BASED ON TABLE- The Commissioner shall establish premium percentage limits so that for individuals whose family income is within an income tier specified in the table in subsection (d) such percentage limits shall increase, on a sliding scale in a linear manner, from the initial premium percentage to the final premium percentage specified in such table for such income tier."

If you make less you pay less. So, then, what is the incentive to make more? There is none. If everything is shared, people get lazy. Some people stop working all together and the high earners don't see the point of 60 hour weeks when they are not reaping the benefits and others are getting the exact same thing with little or no work. One of the problems with this is that this shrinks the amount of money in the pool and so cuts must be made. Cuts in things like hospital staff, equipment, and research. It also leads to a society that is undesirable.

The very idea of the American Dream is at stake. This was once a place where people could accomplish anything with some ingenuity and a lot of hard work, where millionaires were made. The incentives to do this have been slipping away for quite some time, but this program will destroy the American Dream. It's sad.

If you want to read the bill with me it's available at http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3200/text?version=ih&nid=t0:ih:926

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