Elizabeth Borelli
College Libertarian
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Today in the House of Representatives, a new health care reform bill passed. Now, for a long time I’ve been on the fence about the idea of health care reform, realizing that many of the problems we have with health care are government created and they need to clean up their mess – while at the same time knowing that whenever the government attempts to fix something they broke it tends to go horribly, terribly wrong.
The Affordable Health Care for America Act makes health care mandatory for citizens. Those who do not meet the requirements for or cannot afford health insurance as provided insurance companies will be given federal subsidies for their health care. Employers will be required to offer health care to all employees, and most Americans would be required by law to carry insurance. Those who do not, for whatever reason, would face penalties, most likely fines.
As I’m still on my parents health insurance and therefore don’t really know very much about the world of insurance, there are of course a few things I am still on the fence about. While I do believe that making it mandatory for people to take government money to get insurance whether they want to or not is thoroughly messed up, it may be more economically responsible to make health insurance mandatory. Of course, I have no way of knowing for sure, but apparently we will find out.
In addition, one of the rules in the new bill is that insurance companies would no longer be able to deny coverage to those with pre-existing medical conditions. The insurance companies are not non-profit, they do have to make money and their ability to deny insurance for such conditions prevents people from taking advantage of the system.
One thing I am most definitely NOT on the fence about is that the conservatives from both parties came together to impose tough restrictions on abortion coverage. Why is this issue even being touched upon? It’s a surgical procedure that isn’t aesthetic. Although it is purely a personal decision, there are other, lesser things that insurance completely covers that are purely aesthetic and equally personally decided. Acne medication, example A.
Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri had this to say:
“I worry that the House bill does not clearly prevent federal funds from being used for abortion services…As a pro-life member of Congress, I cannot support a reform bill that would allow taxpayers to fund abortions.”
Found in this article
Although the bill does state clearly that the provisions and prohibitions of coverage set forth earlier in the bill will have no effect on any state laws regarding abortion and its coverage, nor will they have any effect on federal laws regarding:
“conscience protection; willingness or refusal to provide abortion; and discrimination on the basis of the willingness or refusal to provide, pay for, cover, or refer for abortion or to provide or participate in training to provide abortion.”
Found in the full text of the bill
Basically, all I take away from this whole mess is that the government is continuing their trend of seizing power wherever they can in rather vague and easily misunderstood terms. They took it upon themselves to discuss, debate, and vote upon issues that don’t necessarily directly affect any of them (they’re all provided for by government provided health care, which is conveniently not touched upon in the bill) but greatly affect WE THE PEOPLE. How many of you had a vote or a say in any of this? As a woman I find it particularly offensive that a male-dominated government not only decided to screw around with health care, but also decided to bring abortion, a woman’s issue, into the mix. Whole different can of worms, but I’ll just throw this out there: most pro-life people’s viewpoint come from their religious beliefs. That’s completely fine, but we have such a thing as the separation of church and state, and abortion is one of those issues that sort of blurs the line, and no one knows how to deal with it tactfully and intelligently. Therefore, it should just be left alone as is.
So…opinions and thoughts about this bill please? A summary can be found HERE and a detailed summary HERE
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Liz: Thanks for this post. I appreciate that you freely admit what you don’t know or don’t have experience with. I also completely agree with you that usually when the govt tries to fix something it broke in the first place, things usually only end up worse. My biggest concern is that this is one more step toward a totalitarian government. Govt has NO business in private industry and the House bill certainly creates a business section in the federal govt to provide health insurance (the public option). Here’s the problem with that in its most basic terms: health insurance companies, as you pointed out, are FOR PROFIT. The govt won’t run its health insurance company that way because it will always have OUR tax dollars to keep the company afloat, failing or otherwise. In fact, EXPECTING the “company” to lose money, the govt has built additional taxes into the House bill. This is just one example of govt growth that is out of control. It has to stop. Hopefully the 2010 elections and 2012 elections will make this message abundantly clear to those elected.