The estimates also cover important reinvestments in Medicare and Medicaid, including phasing in the closing of the “donut” hole in the Medicare drug benefit.
The estimates issued by the CBO are good news for President Obama and the Democrats in congress because they show that indeed, health insurance reform can be deficit neutral and pay for itself.
Here is what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had to say on her blog:
"The CBO report confirms that The America’s Affordable Health Choices Act delivers on a critical promise President Obama and the House have made to the American people: health insurance reform legislation will be paid for.
After an historic day yesterday when two out of three committees in the House passed the legislation, Congress has made major progress on health insurance reform that will put patients and doctors back in charge, ensure quality, affordable, and accessible health care for America’s middle class and control the spiraling costs of health care through innovative reforms.
As the legislative process moves forward, we will continue to look for ways to squeeze more savings out of the system."
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The House Health Care Bill, 1,018-page document, released this week (July 14th, 2009) reveals some concerns as noted by http://www.healthinsurancetexas.biz and http://www.selecthealth.biz Mike Oliphant serves as health care consultant with these two popular websites in Utah. He also is a serving board member with Utah Association of Health Underwriters. A provision within this bill 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.
This translates into those who currently have private individual coverage won't be able to change it. It is likely that those same people will suffer abnormally high rate increases over time which would force them out of coverage. Nor will those who leave a company to work for themselves be free to buy individual plans from private carriers.
From the beginning, www.benefitsmanager.net and www.dentalinsuranceutah.net warned that if the government gets into the business of offering subsidized health insurance coverage, the private insurance market will wither. Drawn by a public option that will be 30% to 40% cheaper than their current premiums because taxpayers will be funding it, employers will gladly scrap their private plans and go with Washington's coverage. The nonpartisan Lewin Group estimated in April that 120 million or more Americans could lose their group coverage at work and end up in such a program. That would leave private carriers with 50 million or fewer customers. This could cause the market to, as Lewin Vice President John Sheils put it, "fizzle out altogether."
What wasn't known until now is that the bill itself will kill the market for private individual coverage by not letting any new policies be written after the public option becomes law. The legislation is also likely to finish off health savings accounts, a goal that Democrats have had for years. They want to crush that alternative because nothing gives individuals more control over their medical care, and the government less, than HSAs. With HSAs out of the way, a key obstacle to the left's expansion of the welfare state will be removed.
SelectHealth.biz states that the public option won't be an option for many, but rather a mandate for buying government care. A free people should be outraged at this advance of soft tyranny. Washington does not have the constitutional or moral authority to outlaw private markets in which parties voluntarily participate. It shouldn't be killing business opportunities, or limiting choices, or legislating major changes in Americans' lives.
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