Subject:
Senator Reid's "opt out" proposal
To:
President Barack Obama
Sen. Christopher Bond
Sen. Claire McCaskill
Rep. Sam Graves
October 27, 2009
Dear Leaders,
We are told the Health Care Reform bill includes a Public OPTION. That sounds pretty optional, doesn't it? So, why is Senator Reid proposing an "opt out" feature? Is that redundant, or is there a problem with the Public OPTION not really being optional in the first place?
Following are features of the bill that nearly guarantee that the public option would become the only option in a very short time, and that private insurance would soon cease to exist:
1. The bill prevents citizens from buying new private health care insurance, period. If you don't like your private insurance, your only other option would be the public option.
2. It prohibits citizens from even keeping their existing private insurance, unless their coverages don't change at all, and unless their plan remains fully compliant with some government standard that isn't specified in the bill. A panel - one that we will trust, no doubt - would establish and maintain that standard after the bill's passage. Does your private plan comply now, and will it remain compliant as the panel changes the standard over time?
3) For citizens who manage to keep their private insurance despite these obstacles, the bill would tax their private health insurance premiums at the truly obscene rate of 40%.
4) The very existence of a public option would create an enormous incentive for employers to eliminate any private insurance benefit, which would force employees to accept public option coverage.
Taken together, these features of the bill would drive most private health insurance consumers to the public option, in sufficient numbers to put nearly every American health insurance company out of business. Effectively, this would make the public option the only option. With no private option available, any "opt out" provision is just as fraudulent as calling the public option an option. There simply wouldn't be anything to "opt out" to.
Once again, the American legislature is attempting to perpetrate legislative fraud upon the people of the country. Yet, the American people aren't as stupid as the nation's executive and legislative branches pretend. We know that all of the effects of these bills are completely by design, and that no feature of these bills are accidental. These are NOT unintended consequences. We know that Senator Reid's "opt out" provision is meaningless, and is just a weak attempt to create a perception of compromise. We're not buying it.
Clearly, Nevada should vote out Senator Reid in 2010, and Reid is only the first of many who must go.
Weatherby Lake , MO
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