ObamaCare: Top Ten Reasons Why It's Wrong For America

Revised and updated September 16, 2009

1. Millions Will Lose Their Current Insurance. Period. End of Story: President Obama wants Americans to believe they can keep their insurance if they like, but research from the government, private research firms, and think tanks show this is not the case. The economic incentives plus a government-run health plan as proposed in the House bill (H.R. 3200), would cause 88.1 million people to see their current employer-sponsored health plan disappear.
2. Individual Mandate Means Less Liberty and More Taxes: Although he once opposed the idea, President Obama is now open to the imposition of an individual mandate that would require all Americans to have federally approved health insurance. This unprecedented federal directive not only takes away your individual freedom but could cost you as well. Lawmakers are considering a penalty or tax for those who don't buy government-approved health plans.
3. Your Health Care Coverage Will Probably Change Anyway: Even if you kept your private insurance, eventually most remaining plans--whether employer plans or individual plans--would have to conform to new federal benefit standards. Moreover, the necessary plan "upgrades" will undoubtedly cost you more in premiums.
4. The Umpire Is Also the First Baseman: The main argument for a "public option" is that it would increase competition. However, if the federal government creates a health care plan that it controls and also sets the rules for the private plans, there is little doubt that Washington would put its private sector "competitors" out of business sooner or later.
5. The Fed Picks Your Treatment: President Obama said: "They're going to have to give up paying for things that don't make them healthier...If there's a blue pill and a red pill, and the blue pill is half the price of the red pill and works just as well, why not pay half for the thing that's going to make you well." Does that sound like a government that will stay out of your health care decisions?
6. Higher Taxes Than Europe Hurt Small Businesses: A proposed surtax on the wealthy, included in the House Bill (H.R. 3200), will actually hit hundreds of thousands of small business ownerswho are dealing with a recession. If it is enacted, America's top earners and job creators will carry a larger overall tax burden than France, Italy, Germany, Japan, etc., with a total average tax rate greater than 52%. Is that the right recipe for jobs and wage growth?
7. Who Makes Medical Decisions? What is the right medical treatment and should bureaucrats determine what Americans can or cannot have? While the House and Senate language is vague, amendments offered in House and Senate committees to block government rationing of care were routinely defeated. Cost or a federal health board could be the deciding factors. President Obama himself admitted this when he said, "Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller," when asked about an elderly woman who needed a pacemaker.
8. Taxpayer-Funded Abortions?Nineteen Democrats recently asked the President to not sign any bill that doesn't explicitly exclude "abortion from the scope of any government-defined or subsidized health insurance plan" or any bill that allows a federal health board to "recommend abortion services be included under covered benefits or as part of a benefits package." Currently, these provisions do not exist.
9. It's Not Paid For: The CBO says the current House plan would increase the deficit by $239 billion over 10 years. And that number will likely continue to rise over the long term. Similar entitlement bills in the past, including Medicare, have scored much lower than their actual eventual cost. A new study released by the Peterson Foundation estimates the House bill would add $1 trillion to the deficit in the second decade.
10. Rushing It, Not Reading It: We've been down this road before--with the failed stimulus package. Back then, we also heard that we were in a crisis and that we needed to pass a 1,000-plus-page bill in a few hours--without reading it--or we would have 8% unemployment. Well, we know what happened. One Congressman even said it's pointless to read the reform bills without two days and two lawyers to make sense of it. Deception is the only reason to rush through a bill nobody truly understands.