Is She “Serious?” Pelosi Says Obamacare Is “Market-Oriented”
Reactions to yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling keep pouring in, and some of them have been, well, interesting. In an interview with ABC News, Nancy Pelosi called Obamacare “a market-oriented, private sector-oriented piece of legislation.”
The former Speaker famously asked “Are you serious?” when it came to Obamacare’s constitutionality. (Which is ironic, because even Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer ruled part of the law unconstitutional yesterday.) But our only response to Pelosi’s claim that Obamacare is market-oriented has to channel “Airplane!” “Surely you can’t be serious!”
Here are just ten reasons why Obamacare is a massive intrusion of government into the private lives and health care decisions of all Americans:
- Taxes American Businesses that do not provide Government Approved Health Plans. Beginning in 2014, businesses with more than 50 employees will be taxed $2,000 per employee if they do not provide government-approved health insurance for their employees.
- Forces More Americans into Medicaid – A Broken, Bankrupt Government Entitlement Program. The current Medicaid program is already bankrupting states and the federal government, yet the new law forces 25.9 million more people into this broken program. Medicaid patients are already denied access to about 40 percent of physicians because reimbursements are so low. Half those newly “insured” under the health care law will get their coverage through this government program – Medicaid.
- Puts The Federal Government In Charge of Your Health Insurance. The law created new rules and regulations for all health insurance in America. The government will decide what type of health care you must to purchase, what your plan must to cover and how much it costs. Even if you want to purchase a lower cost plan, you can’t.
- By one count, the law creates 159 new boards, offices, and panels in the Federal Government to make decisions about your health care. The Congressional Research Service determined that trying to count the endless number of new bureaucratic entities was “impossible” and an official count was “unknowable.”
- Gives the Obama Administration Secretary of Health and Human Services More Than 1,700 New or Expanded Powers – to Exert Control Over the Lives and Personal Health Care Decisions of Americans.
- Levies more than $550 billion dollars of taxes, fees, and penalties related to health care on American families and employers.
- Spends Tens of Billions of Taxpayer Dollars Just to Implement the Massive New Law. In their cost estimate of the law, the Congressional Budget Office said it could cost as much as $20 billion for the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Health and Human Services just to implement the law.
- Creates a New Panel of Government Bureaucrats to Cut Medicare. The Democrats’ law created a panel of politically-appointed bureaucrats who have the power to effectively to write laws regarding Medicare. Under the law, unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats will make personal Medicare decisions that automatically take effect unless Congress intervenes.
- Micromanages how patients can spend their own tax-free health care dollars. Under the law, the government imposes onerous new requirements on tax-free savings accounts that will limit their use and create costly barriers to qualified products by prohibiting the purchase of over the counter medical products unless prescribed by a doctor. Items such as pain relievers, cough medicine, and allergy medicine will now require a costly visit to the physician if an individual would like to purchase that item with the funds from their account.
- The law’s 2,700 pages was just the beginning, as Washington bureaucrats have written more than 12,000 pages – and counting – of additional regulations to restrict personal freedom and micromanage the private market. These massive new mandates being rolled out every day by Washington are increasing uncertainty, and making it difficult for small firms to expand and grow their businesses.
Former Speaker Pelosi – she of “we have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it” fame – may still have not read the 2700-page law, and therefore remains unaware of the government overreach included in it. But the American people know about all the mandates, regulations, and bureaucracy in the law, which is why the only thing bipartisan about Obamacare has been the opposition to it.