Forget President Obama's speech. The important details are in the bills working their way through Congress. Forbes analyzes them here. The quick summary is that these bills are awful. Congress realized that they will never pass a bill that adds a trillion dollars to the national debt. They are pledged to come up with a bill that is "deficit neutral".
How can you increase health care coverage without decreasing costs and still call it deficit neutral? By taxing everything in sight.
For example, if you get good health care benefits now (more than $8,000 per individual or $21,000 per family) then your insurer will be taxed a 35% excise tax. Does anyone seriously think that this will not be passed on to the insured or that it will not result in a cap on insurance benefits? So much for promises about not forcing you to change coverage.
There are other new taxes. Drug companies will be taxed $2.3 billion per year divided by their market share. Medical device companies will also be taxed this way. These taxes are designed to be passed on as increased costs so that private enterprise will take the blame instead of Obamacare. At the same time, new incentives will force people to sign up for the public option. It will not be forced on people but it will be the only show in town.
Small businesses will be hit hard. I would not say that the Democrats are planning this but they probably aren't losing any sleep over it, either. Since FDR, Democrats have preferred dealing with a few large companies rather than many small ones. It is easier to control an unionize large businesses.
This health care plan must be scrapped. It takes the worst of the current system and make it even worse. This will be a disaster for the country if it passes.
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