The Healthcare Reform Mandate Madness

Healthcare reform remained the top issue in D.C. this week. Everyone was talking about it. The President and the liberal leadership in Congress are still determined to include a public health insurance option in the plan. I have noted before how dangerous this is. Developments this week revealed another feature about the dangerous nature of the liberals’ plan—Mandates. Two mandate regimens are especially disturbing.

The Money Mandate

Under this mandate, everyone pays. Individuals are fined $1,000 under the Senate plan if they don’t have coverage. Business pays to cover employees, and it pays if it doesn’t cover employees. Jacob Goldstein, http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/07/15/comparing-employer-health-mandates-from-the-house-and-senate/, did some quick math on the cost to business of the money mandate in the Senate and House healthcare bills:

“Both would also require that all but the smallest employers either offer health insurance to their workers, or pay a penalty. But there are some key differences between the penalties that would be imposed by the two bills. The mandate in the Senate bill, which applies to businesses with more than 25 employees, requires companies to pay a penalty of $750 per full-time employee. Under the House bill, employers with payrolls of more than $400,000 a year would have to provide health insurance or pay an 8% penalty. Companies with payrolls between $250,000 and $400,000 would pay lower penalties; smaller companies wouldn’t be subject to the mandate. So if we do a quick, back-of-the-envelope calculation, we can imagine a 50-person company paying each employee $50,000 for a total payroll of $2.5 million a year. That company’s penalty under the House bill for not offering insurance would be $200,000, or $4,000 per employee. The Senate bill’s $750-per-employee penalty, by contrast, would add up to $37,500.”

And in case you missed it, the universal healthcare plan in Massachusetts, which is being touted by some as the model for a national plan, is already about to collapse. An article in the New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/16/us/16hospital.html?_r=1&emc=eta1, describes the plight of a major hospital as it wrestles with the requirement to provide care for everyone while the state cuts back on its contribution due to lack of funds. Here is the last paragraph from the article:

“The magnitude of the loss here can’t be solved on the program-cutting or expense-cutting side,” Mr. Traylor said. Professor Parmet said the hospital’s dissatisfaction with the new law should be a warning to Congress that “insurance alone doesn’t solve the problems” of the health care system. In fact, she said, it might exacerbate the financial problems of safety-net hospitals in the short term.”

In other words, there isn’t enough “waste” or “inefficiency” in the system to pay for the additional costs of government-run universal healthcare.

The Abortion Mandate

Through its actions this week, it has become clear that the Senate intends to mandate that every healthcare plan offered through the government's healthcare gateway provide abortion coverage. Here’s how it will work. The government creates an insurance gateway that people can enter to choose a healthcare plan. The plans the government makes available are all vetted by the government. If a plan doesn’t offer the coverage the government says it should offer, the plan doesn’t make the cut and isn’t available for people to choose from.

Activity in the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee reveals that the Senate leadership intends for every government-approved healthcare plan to provide abortion coverage. The Senate liberals beat back numerous attempts to prevent the inclusion of abortion coverage in government-approved health plans. There is only one reason to reject any attempt to prevent abortion as a covered item in health care—because they expect it to be required. Here are the results of just some of the amendments proposed by some Republicans in the HELP Committee to keep abortion out of the Senate healthcare plan:

Senator Hatch amendment: no federal funds could be used for abortion or for any health plans that include abortion, defeated with 11 yes, 12 no.

Senator Coburn amendment: to allow conscience protection for health care providers who do NOT want to do abortions, defeated with 11 yes, 12 no.

Senator Coburn amendment: to ensure that state abortion laws, like parental consent on abortion laws, are not overruled by the bill, defeated 11 yes, 12 no.

Senator Enzi amendment: to ensure that the bill cannot mandate abortion coverage, defeated with 11 yes, 12 no.

Then there’s Senator Dodd’s sham amendment: to protect those who cannot conscientiously perform abortion, “except in an emergency.” But “emergency” is left undefined and so can mean anything, including a woman who is feeling emotionally distraught, passed with voice vote.

The House bill, “America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009” (H.R. 3200), is at least as dangerous as the Senate bill on many fronts, including abortion mandates. National Right to Life just released their statement, http://www.nrlc.org/AHC/HR3200NRLCfactsheet.pdf, about the abortion mandate it carries. Here is their summary statement:

“The health care restructuring bill pending in the U .S. House…contains provisions that will result in federally mandated coverage of abortion on demand in virtually all of America's health plans. Once abortion is established as a federal "essential benefit," the bill will also require "access" to elective abortion, which will require many issuers to establish and staff new abortion-providing sites. Moreover, state laws that impede "access" to elective abortion (such as waiting periods and parental notification requirements) may be nullified as conflicting with the purposes of the federal law .In addition, the bill will result in the massive subsidization of elective abortion with tax dollars.”

Upcoming Webcast on the Abortion Mandate

The healthcare overhaul is turning out to be more about the radical pro-abortion agenda than making sure everyone has healthcare coverage. This is an issue every pro-life person must engage. A great way to start is to plan to participate in an upcoming webcast on the abortion mandate. The webcast will start at 9 p.m. ET on Thursday, July 23. Numerous family group and pro-life leaders will be on this webcast to talk about their concerns, including Richard Land. You can sign up here, http://www.stoptheabortionmandate.com/.

The healthcare battle is the most important battle we are facing today, and that’s saying a lot when you consider all that is going on. We need healthcare reform, but not the kind that liberals in Washington are trying to force on us.

Blessings,

Barrett