During the health care debate in 2009 and 2010, a serious issue emerged -- the number of pages in congressional bills. I'm not kidding. The Republicans wanted short bills, and the health care reform bill was way, way too long (proving that it did too much and would end civilization as we know it). There was outrage across the country. Angry opponents of reform went to congressional town hall meetings brandishing huge stacks of paper. Then Minority Leader Boehner, foreshadowing his leadership priorities today, used a nationally televised address to condemn the length of the health care bill three times in as many minutes.
The extremists went wild. Rumors swept across the land. Some Tea Party types claimed the bill was 10,000 pages. Slate called the explosive stack-of-paper obsession "peculiar." Ultimately, the New York Times set the record straight: "In the original version," the Times said, "H.R. 3590 as passed by the Senate on Dec. 24, 2009, ran to some 2,400 pages, although with a very large font, triple spacing and huge left and right margins." The newspaper went on to explain that, "With normal margins the document probably would shrink to about 500 pages or so." Which meant the bill was not really that long when compared to other major bills, such as the financial reform law and past budget deals.
In the November mid-term elections, the Republicans ran on a platform of change, and change is what we got. Not only will the House Republicans vote to repeal the new health care law this week, they're going to do so with a bill that's only two pages long.
This is a triumph of conciseness, a 247-word beacon of brevity. The low word-count works especially well for the GOP, given the party's unfinished "repeal and replace" campaign pledge. The Republicans addressed repeal, but they haven't quite gotten to the "replace" part. That, we're told, is a work in progress, and the question is being referred to various House committees to kick around for months.
In Sunday's Washington Post, reporter Amy Goldstein noted that the Republican repeal vote is "the prelude to a two-pronged strategy that is likely to last throughout the year, or longer." Great. Just what we need -- another interminable debate on health care when the Republicans ought to be focusing on bipartisan solutions to create jobs. Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), the new House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman, said it "may take time" for the GOP to develop a health care plan. Upton, who has been in Congress since 1987, has had only 24 years to come up with some health care ideas of his own. Instead, he hired Julie Goon, the former top lobbyist for the health insurance industry's biggest trade group, as his special adviser.
I'm not sure what the Republican "replace" plan is (or how many pages it will be), but I know their two-page repeal bill is a bad deal for America's families, seniors and small businesses.
The Republican repeal bill will take away dozens of benefits and important consumer protections that are making a real difference in peoples' lives right now. When the Republicans vote for repeal, they'll be taking away people's newly won freedom from fear of insurers denying their care, dropping them when their sick and imposing double-digit premium hikes with impunity. They'll be booting young adults off their parents' health plans. They'll be telling seniors they have to pay back the $250 donut hole checks they received to help buy prescription medications and give up their new 50% discount on brand-name drugs. The Republican repeal plan will force nearly 900,000 American families a year into bankruptcy because of huge medical bills. And it will take job-creating tax credits away from small businesses.
Speaker John Boehner and the Republicans don't want the public to know the truth about the Affordable Care Act and what their repeal plan will take away from America's consumers. And you can bet the debate about repeal will be filled with misleading information from Boehner and the new Republican majority. To help folks see beyond the rhetoric, Health Care for America Now made a chart that tells the truth. You can read and download a printable, high-resolution version with citations here and below.
Click here to download the above as a printable fact sheet with citations.
Follow Ethan Rome on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@HCAN
Clay Farris Naff: God Knows You Have the Right to Refuse Obamacare!
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/09/how-american-health-care-killed-my-father/7617/
If you do read this and have your ah-ha moment, and I did, please pass it on. If you don't read this, then I'll simply state what I concluded and already knew...there is no need for health insurance carriers as they operate today. The public option need only be a catastrophic policy and the cure to all our problems is simply the elimination of old tax provisions and we literally need to blow up the current employer based system. The author's plan would allow all of us to take almost all control back in our financing health care and at the end of the day have something to show for all those premiums we pay year after year, rather than end up with absolutely no assets with the current state.
always be nonprofit. When I graduated from UVa Medical School in 1962, I was in favor of not-for-
profit health care. I followed that feeling throughout my practice life, and was on salary for a nonprofit
health plan. I could not have been more happy. No confines on my practice, and pleased patients.
I even made a few house calls, and worked many nights and week ends. I am satisfied. It was fun.
Now I see a slightly callous change in medicine. There are fewer high quality students, and they
wish to go into high paying sub-specialties. This is the nemesis of American medicine. Step back!
Keep the health care, repeal the mandate.
country's support. Cheap at the price.
It makes me wonder what else they are doing while distracting us with HCR repeal.
No other country in the world allows insurance companies to decide if and when we live or die. It's a disgrace that any of our politicians think this is acceptable, BUT IT'S NOT ACCEPTABLE FOR THEM? WE PAY FOR POLITICIANS TO HAVE HEALTH CARE FOR LIFE AND THEY GET ALL FREAKED OUT IF THEY THINK THEY HAVE TO GO WITHOUT IT FOR A FEW WEEKS. IMAGINE GOING WITHOUT IT A LIFETIME LIKE MANY AMERICANS DO???
WHAT A DISGRACE THESE RIGHT WING LIARS ARE. THEY WON'T GIVE THEIR TAXPAYER HEALTH CARE BUT THEY DENY TAXPAYERS THE SAME THING.
France is more productive than we are yet it's citizens get several weeks of paid vacation a year. Great maternity care and home support for new moms. You can even get a paid vacation so you can go recover after chemo or such other exhausting treatment.
Job-killing, eh?
The right calls HCR a job killer but came out last week and said it would create 159 new agencies plus all of the support agencies around it. It's a job creating bill and not a job crushing or job killing bill at all.
There will be thousands of jobs created and they will get good paying, long term jobs with benefits. So of course the GOP will vote against it.