NorthWest Florida Republican

H.R.3200 – America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 was introduced on July 31, 2009. President Obama wanted this act voted on and passed before the Senate left for summer recess on Aug 7th.

This bill has over 1000 pages and would take an average person several days if not weeks to read through it. I’m certain it isn’t as good a read as a novel.

Yet there seems to be this insane rush to pass legislation that no one has properly read. Probably not even the Author of the bill, John Dingle (D)- MI has read this bill.

If you think that there needs to be some health care reform, you may be right. But does that mean that our current system of health care should be replaced by a government run system similiar to other government run systems such as US Postal Service, Social Security and Medicare? All services which are failing.

Why do you want to add another service to the government to run when they can’t run the ones they have without causing massive spending deficits. It just means that the new health care service will be running in the red once things really start to get going.

What is the rush? Why can’t we look at the bill? Is Congress afraid that we will find things in it that we don’t like? Is the President afraid that we will find things we won’t like? Why are the Unions pushing for this so hard? Why do the Democrats who support this legislation not want people to ask questions about it? What is it about this bill that they don’t want you to see or know?

There has been a great series of articles by kbanaian on HotAir about the questions that should be asked at Townhall meetings.

So read this and find some questions. Here would be mine:

1. The bill imposes a very stiff fine on employers for noncompliance of $100/day per employee if it is determined they are not in compliance with providing qualifying coverage, but a much smaller fine if it’s unintentional. The burden of proof appears to be on the employer if it’s determined the employer was not “employing reasonable diligence”. Who makes that determination of reasonable diligence? If someone is determined to be intentionally in violation, how could an employer appeal the fine?
2. Likewise, the Commissioner of the Health Choices Administration is permitted to “terminate the election of any employer” to provide a plan. Does this place all of those employees in the government exchange? Again, how does an employer or its employees appeal this decision and seek to provide their own remedy?
3. Can you explain the exceptions in the calculation of the wage base on which I pay the 8% (or less, for small employers) if I drop my insurance and put my employees on the government plan? (There are several, see subsection (b) in Section 412, you can refer to this for the calculation of wages that the section modifies.) If you find a legislator that can actually explain that, give them a gold star and point them out. They must have tried to read the bill.

Here is another question you should be asking yourself if you are a business owner.
Why would I want to pay for health insurance and a tax when I can only pay for one by dropping health insurance?
Do I “Pay” employee salaries of more than $250,000? If so, I guess we will be paying a tax.

All of them are great questions. Why can’t the Congressmen and Congresswomen answer these questions? More than likely because they haven’t had a chance to read the bill. Because it wasn’t ready for them to look at before they were asked to vote on it.

But they were expected to vote on it. Even if they hadn’t read it. Similar to how the Stimulus bill, Cap and Trade, Cash for Clunkers passed. And who knows what Pork is in the bill.

So why the rush? Why are they worried that it won’t get passed if they don’t take their time and do it right? Find out what people really want. Not what the President wants.

This is the wrong direction. People want reform of health care. More affordable health care that doesn’t take up a third of their post tax income. They don’t want a replacement of the health care they currently have. Nor do they want a replacement of the current health care system.

Just something that isn’t quite as frustrating and a bit more affordable for everyone.