On March 27th of this year, Bill Owens, Congressman from the 23rd District in New York wrote a Letter to the Editor of the Syracuse Post titled, “Facts on health care law”. It took me awhile to trackdown the legislation (HR 4872) to which he referred.
It is sad to say! I don’t think Mr. Owens knew what bill was before him when he voted. I’m not sure any of his fellow members of Congress did either.
Congressman Owens claims his constituent’s complaints about the health care reform are misguided. He considers his constituents have been misinformed and he wanted to clear up a few of the items in HR 4872, which he claims is the number of the bill that was passed to reform our Health Care. Several items the Congressman claims his constituents misunderstand are, The bill . . .
- will short change family doctors and community hospitals,
- will cause those who already have health care insurance to lose it,
- is a big government takeover of 1/6th if our economy
- cuts into Medicare and reduces coverage for our Seniors
- creates 100,000 new federal jobs
- decreases health care for our troops
The following are the Congressman’s corrections to the misunderstandings . . .
- Sections 5301-5315, 5501-5509 ND 5601-5605 provide funding for the education of primary care doctors, other providers and community health centers.
- 4872 is not “equal to a big government takeover of one sixth of our economy.” Section 1311-1313 and 1321-1324 will “allow a market-based mechanisms and insurance exchanges to bring down the cost of health insurance by opening the market for private insurance companies to millions of new customers”.
- The bill strengthens Medicare by cutting unnecessary subsidies to insurance companies (Sections 3201-3202). (Sections 3001-3008) links payments to quality outcomes and, shared savings programs (Section 3022) or sustain Medicare (Sections 3401-3403)
As mentioned above, it took me some time to find the bill to which the Congressman was referring. To begin with, I found 6 versions of HR 4872. The only section that I could find, of all that the Congress-man sited, was 1311. In my copies, the title of that was “Expansion of Medicare-Covered Preventive Services at Federally Qualified Health Centers.” There was no mention of an insurance exchange and no sections 1312,1321-1324. The sixth copy of the bill lost its sections to titles with little, if any, relationship to the other five.
When did the Constitution allow the Congress to open markets for private businesses and where does HR 4872 give that privilege to the government?
How does the Congressional Budget Office determine reductions of budget deficits when one bill claims to eliminate $45B in uncompen-sated care (being paid now) and pouring those billions back into a program to provide better care and coverage for seniors. What care went uncompensated? And why?
Since it is the evil insurance companies that have caused our need for complete government reform, for what were we subsidizing them with tax-payer dollars? How many?
The Congressman sited Sections 5301-5315, 5501-5509 and 5601-5605 to fund education for primary care doctors, and other providers as well as funding community health centers. I do not find any of those sections in my six versions of 4872, so where are they funded?
So, Mr. Owens, it is sad that your constituency is making claims based on misinformation! You haven’t given them any better – you only further confused them!
Republican ‘nay-sayers’ are just as guilty as any of the Democrats that voted for this bill. Republican members of Congress did not expose the lies upon which reform was moved forward. Major American Companies are guilty of not joining in the chorus earlier about the costs to their bottom line.
Yes, Americans need health care reform! For over 200 years we Americans have been in charge of the store under a Constitution! This bill 4872, or whatever number(s) under which health care reform was passed, that is, IF it was passed, overrides the constitution.
