Perhaps so, suggests this editorial from Investor’s Business Daily:
It didn’t take long to run into an “uh-oh” moment when reading the House’s “health care for all Americans” bill. Right there on Page 16 is a provision making individual private medical insurance illegal.
When we first saw the paragraph Tuesday, just after the 1,018-page document was released, we thought we surely must be misreading it. So we sought help from the House Ways and Means Committee.
It turns out we were right: The provision would indeed outlaw individual private coverage. Under the Orwellian header of “Protecting The Choice To Keep Current Coverage,” the “Limitation On New Enrollment” section of the bill clearly states:
“Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day” of the year the legislation becomes law.
So we can all keep our coverage, just as promised — with, of course, exceptions: Those who currently have private individual coverage won’t be able to change it. Nor will those who leave a company to work for themselves be free to buy individual plans from private carriers.
Our English cousins aren’t too amused, either, with the way Congressional Democrats are handling the matter. In a piece subtitled “The House of Representatives turns its back on common sense,” The Economist had this to say:
Rather than finance this large expansion of coverage through savings found within the health system, as Mr Obama had prudently requested, the Democratic party’s leadership plans to pay for it by imposing an ill-advised tax on business and a steep “surcharge” on the wealthy. Companies with payrolls bigger than $250,000 per year must provide health cover for employees or face a hefty fine. The bill also plans to raise over $500 billion by increasing taxes on those making over $350,000 a year by up to 5.4%.
And, oh, by the way, if we keep up our spending spree, our federal interest payments, as a percentage of GDP, will more than double in just ten years.
