Fw: Freedom Stealing.....

Sent: Sunday, July 26, 2009 4:29 PM
Subject: Freedom Stealing.....

Subject: Freedom stealing

Retirees:

This came from Investors Business Daily -- July 15 , 2009

I normally don't forward articles to you as I know we all have different opinions but this appears that my freedoms are being stolen.

Jim Chappell

It's Not An Option

Posted 07/15/2009 06:46 PM ET

Congress: 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.

From the beginning, opponents of the public option plan have 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.

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.

It took just 16 pages of reading to find this naked attempt by the political powers to increase their reach. It's scary to think how many more breaches of liberty we'll come across in the final 1,002.

5 comments:

Marc with a C said...

TL;DR.

Anything that claims that somehow creating a public health insurance policy represents a loss of freedom far more concerning than illegal surveillance, the Patriot Act, and the whole 9 yards deserves to receive their share of the public option in GITMO.

Anonymous said...

"It took just 16 pages of reading to find this naked attempt by the political powers to increase their reach. It's scary to think how many more breaches of liberty we'll come across in the final 1,002."

Please. This is all blatant lies and b.s. from the Big Insurance who doesn't want citizens to have adequate access to health care at a reasonable rate. That's it in a nutshell. Big Ins. is making RECORD PROFITS in this recession while ALSO increasing their fees.

Rightwingtards shriek and whine about Goldman Sachs getting big bonuses (well so do I), but they are quite silent and complacent about Big Ins CEOs getting HUGE salaries & bonuses, while totally ripping us off. No suprises there, though. Just Republican "business as usual."

But repugnantards have been well manipulated and brainwashed into behaving like Pavlov's dogs at slightest flick of their corporate overlords' wrists. SCARY!!! BOOGA BOOGA, and et voila: conservatard teabaggers are acting out at Town Hall meetings (and please recall that not so long ago, when W ever showed up some so-called "public" forum, everyone was thoroughly vetted & you couldn't so much as wear a T shirt with Democratic language on it) and disrupt the process.

I also like how they call the Lewin Group as "non-partisan." My @ss; that is one of the most rightwing partisan groups going.

Ugh: outright lies all of it.

Don't get fooled by $hit like this.

Potato Head said...

The claim that public insurance will be tax-subsidized, is of course a lie, but you know that won't stop them from claiming it's true.

Anonymous said...

It's a shame that lying is not merely allowed by considered standard practice by conservative and/or insurance company shills these days.

Why try to make people's lives better when you can just put out an ad saying, "The President himself with visit you in the night dressed as the Grim Reaper"?

Anonymous said...

Well, the e-mail is obviously mostly (all) lies, but I did want to take issue with this:

"Washington does not have the constitutional or moral authority to outlaw private markets in which parties voluntarily participate."

I agree. This is why Washington (and state and local governments) never get involved in non-coerced prostitution, the drug trade, murder-for-hire...

Oh, wait...sometimes private markets in which parties voluntarily participate are seen by the majority as being harmful and dangerous (not that I am saying all of my examples above are necessarily). Then, the government steps in as they should with regards to health care.

If this person were out advocating for the legalization of drugs and prostitution, then maybe this statement would be less hypocritical. Sadly, I have a feeling my (hypothetical) RWF advocating for small government and legal pot (pass it on if you believe in Jesus) wouldn't get very far....

 
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