Before a Joint Session of Congress...

The President spoke last night for 45 minutes and outlined his plan for health care reform. What he said could have been drafted on one sheet of paper, and if that was all there was to it, most people would have been able to find common ground on enough of it to get something through congress this year. Unfortunately, the devil is in the details and if the details are all included in the 1,100 page catastrophe known as HR3200 then everything the President had to before the Joint Session of Congress was for naught. No one wants that bill. People have been telling their elected representatives for over a month back in their districts that they do not like the bill. National polling data has shown over and over again (it really doesn’t matter whose poll) that support for the House Bill as delivered was never there and quite frankly there were not enough votes in the Democrat controlled majority to pass the bill out before the public had a chance to take a look at it, and quite possibly now there may be less of a possibility of that happening. HR 3200 was scored (looked over for the purpose of determining the cost) by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office and was found not to be “deficit neutral” in fact it created billions of dollars of deficits in the out years (more than 10 years out) that could not be controlled. In affect the bill could not pay for itself, certainly not with savings from Medicare and taxes on high dollar health care plans of executives. If it is going to be paid for it has to be through higher taxes.

The President is serious about getting a bill through Congress this year. Unfortunately, he won’t be able to bring the Republican votes he is going to need unless there are serious concessions made with regard to the ability of individuals and small businesses to buy insurance coverage across state lines, and allowing small businesses to band together to purchase insurance in larger groups to bring premium cost down. Republicans are also not going to support a “Public Option” plan. The President said that only 5 percent of insured would migrate to a Public Option if it were made available. It should be obvious more now than ever that the President has never run a business, certainly one that had to purchase health care for its employees. Employer’s will dump their policies in droves and send employees running to a Public Option plan and be happy to pay an 8 percent tax on their payroll not to have to deal with Insurance and all of the headaches that go with it. This is especially true for small businesses that are exempt from the President’s plan will flee from their plans. The government does not belong in any Health Care system outside of their own until they fix the one they have, just ask the VA.

I think the President needs to tell his leaders in Congress to scrap what they have and start over with the one page that was in his speech and keep it simple enough that an 8th grader can read it in a few hours. No legislation needs to be that complex. “Thou Shalt Not Kill” has been working pretty well since Moses came down from Mount Sinai. It has been translated into every language and found its way into every law book in the world. You don’t need a book to explain it. Congress doesn’t need to be involved with the number of tongue depressors that can be issued to a clinic or hospital in a single month or year. The Agency that has responsibility can write the details and Congress has oversight and can change anything it does not like. There is only one special interest group that needs to be considered and that is the American People. I would hope that Congress would remember that every time they cast a vote.