Deciphering Obama's Health Care Reform Bill

The recent bill for health care reform has attracted a lot of debate in health care forums. The main concern with the bill is that it will limit Americans' choices when considering health care options, and will give the government an unprecedented amount of control over America's health care needs. The purpose of this article is to objectively review the bill and provide subjective criticism both for and against the reform.

I recently stumbled over a summation of the health care reform bill that seemed terse and slanted. In an effort to verify the contents of the article, I looked up the actual bill to compare the short summary given in the summation to the legalese of the true health care reform bill. Here is what I found:

The purpose of the bill is given in these exact words (for the rest of this article, all italics are direct quotes from the bill itself. The only adaptations made reflect formatting changes-the words themselves are unaltered):

6 (1) IN GENERAL.-The purpose of this division

7 is to provide affordable, quality health care for all

8 Americans and reduce the growth in health care

9 spending.

In addition to the opening statement of the bill, the purpose is clearly laid out as follows (selections taken from Sec. 100 of bill):

6 (B) creates a new Health Insurance Ex-

7 change, with a public health insurance option

8 alongside private plans;

11 (D) initiates shared responsibility among

12 workers, employers, and the government;

13 so that all Americans have coverage of essential

14 health benefits.

These are some of the main facets of the bill and seem to be straightforward. Some people believe that, in the 1017 pages of political jargon, these concepts are manipulated in such a way as to betray the true goals of health care reform. The following will begin a side-by-side comparison of the summation with the actual text from the bill. Look back for future articles that further elucidate the summation.

The summation begins by stating:

"Page 16: States that if you have insurance at the time of the bill becoming law and change, you will be required to take a similar plan. If that is not available, you will be required to take the gov option!"

This statement is referring to the following writing in the bill:

11 (A) IN GENERAL.-Except as provided in

12 this paragraph, the individual health insurance

13 issuer offering such coverage does not enroll

14 any individual in such coverage if the first ef-

15 fective date of coverage is on or after the first

16 day of Y1.

Here, the "individual health insurance issuer" refers to the current health insurance company (HMO, PPO, etc. For explanations of these, check here) one is covered under. "Y1" is the year 2013-the first year that the bill will take effect.

The true sentiment of this statement seems to merely be a definition of "grandfathering in." Given the fact that this statement falls under Sec. 102 (a) GRANDFATHERED HEALTH INSURANCE DEFINED, it seems like a necessary step to define the idiomatic expression of "grandfathering." In layman's terms, the writing above states, "If you are already enrolled in a health care provider's service, then you fall under the status of grandfathered health insurance provided your enrollment did not start after the enactment of this bill."

It's difficult to understand why anyone could interpret this otherwise provided it comes directly after the heading Sec. 102 PROTECTING THE CHOICE TO KEEP CURRENT COVERAGE. What follows in this section are prohibitions against health care companies that seek to change their terms and conditions of an existing plan. This means health insurance companies cannot raise premiums or change coinsurance rates once they are already established in a person's existing health care plan.

This is only one explanation for a list of over fifty qualms with the proposed health care bill. The point of this article is to show that a single line, written by a single person, can easily be swallowed as truth granted the reader does not follow up with his own research. If you are presented an opinion, make sure you understand the foundation for that opinion. If you believe everything you read, you will end up swindled out of one of our greatest freedoms: choice.

Sources:

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:h3200ih.pdf

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2300451/posts