Understanding the "new" Kennedy health care bill (generations, regular, Dodd)

[Little-Acorn]

Here's an analysis by Keith Hennessey. I've read thru about 2/3 of the bill so far, and this jives pretty closely with what I've seen in it, though it's painful to have to slog through all that governmentese.

Most striking thing about it, is its statement that none of these government health care plans are mandatory - they are all optional, the bill says. Sure they are... except that if you opt not to join, you have to pay a heavy fine (they call it a new tax), and have to keep paying and paying, for what you are NOT receiving.

So when some talking head tells you "You don't have to do this if you don't want to, it's all your free choice", ask him if you also don't have to pay the "new tax" when you decline the government health care "option".

Some things I haven't seen in this bill, or in this analysis:

1.) If a doctor recommends an expensive procedure (MRI, Caesarian section, etc.), what are the chances the government will veto it for being "too expensive"?

2.) If they do veto a procedure, and you still want it, and you volunteer to pay for it yourself, are you forbidden to do so? If you are, what is the penalty for doing it?

3.) If a doctor volunteers to treat you for direct payment (i.e. you pay for treatement with your own money), is he forbidden to do so? What is the penalty?

4.) It's commonly said that there are presently 50 million Americans who don't have health care coverage. One goal of this bill, is to provide it for them, in addition to the rest (250 million). Yet another goal is to LOWER overall costs. How do we propose to increase the services provided by 50 million more people, while LOWERING costs? Will the result be quotas, where some services are refused? Long waiting lines, like those presently endured by England and Canada?

5.) How much will all this cost?

6.) Who will pay for it? Since everyone gets the same level of treatment, will everyone pay an equal share of the costs?

All these "details" are missing from the parts I have read. Yet they are extremely important parts of any plan. Has anyone seen the answers to these questions? What are they?

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KeithHennessey.com- Understanding the Kennedy health care bill

Understanding the Kennedy health care bill

Over the weekend a draft of Senator Kennedy’s (D-MA) health care bill leaked...

Calling it the “Kennedy” bill is something of an overstatement. Senator Kennedy chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee, and his staff wrote the draft. By all reports, however, Chairman Kennedy’s health is preventing him from being heavily involved in the drafting. Senator Reid has designated Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) to supervise the process, but as best I can tell, it’s really the Kennedy committee staff who are making most of the key decisions. For now I will call it the Kennedy-Dodd bill.

Read more at the link.

[Little-Acorn]

Some people are comparing this to Hillarycare during her first administration in 1993, but I believe there's not enough details in this Kennedy bill, to make the comparison. Large chunks are missing here.

Hillary tried to nationalize the health care industry back in 1993, of course, and got hooted out of town as a result.

Hillary made two mistakes in 1993:

1.) She put all the details in the very first bill, instead of leaving them out as this bill does, so people had nothing to object to and then putting them in at the last moment as this bill seems intent on doing.

2.) She published a book describing it, again in full detail. This was probably the biggest political mistake in her career. Liberals always try to govern against the will of the people. Apparently Hillary made the mistake of thinking that since she liked socialized medicine so much, regular Americans would like it, too. The bill was resoundingly rejected, and Democrats got tossed out of every majority in government at the next election, for the first time in generations.

Looks like Teddy isn't making the same mistakes twice. Lots of missing details here, nothing that really says how this will be implemented. He's concealing his real plans from the voters as long as he can, so that when they are finally put in (maybe after House and Senate have each approved "their" versions and it goes to the final Reconciliation committee), voters have very little time to analyze the info and call their Rep or Senator to tell them to vote against it.

[texdav]

No she estimated the bill wrong as to cost and other senator caughyt it. But you need all the details because otherwise those leftout do not become law. Its like passing a bill and no funding;it become a unfunded mandate.The cost must be spelled out and the detail all there.