Saturday, November 14, 2009

Palin: House Health Bill Should Be DOA

by Rick Pedrazza Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said Americans should be vigilant in investigating the ramifications of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s healthcare bill while at the same time letting their senators know Obamacare should be viewed as dead on arrival.

“Some provisions sound so outrageous as to be considered impossible to fathom, but they’re right there in the bill in black and white,” Palin wrote on her Facebook page. Palin noted that page 297 of the bill explains the punishment for not purchasing government mandated health insurance.

“If you don’t buy what the government considers ‘acceptable healthcare coverage,’ you’re going to be hit with a tax of at least 2.5% of your income,” she wrote. “And if you don’t pay that new tax, you could be fined as much as $250,000 and sentenced to up to five years in prison.”

Palin said Pelosi’s bill will make the penalty for opting out very harsh in order to force Americans to buy coverage.

“The only way to keep this government run health care plan afloat is for everyone to buy into it – especially young and healthy people. That means that they will have to penalize citizens if we choose not to buy a plan that will cost a minimum of about $15,000 per family per year.”

Palin noted that Sen. Max Baucus' bill that came out of the Senate last month does just the opposite. It calls for a much lighter penalty ($750 maximum) for people who don’t buy government approved health coverage, she wrote, making it cheaper to pay the fine than to pay for the coverage.

“With a recession on, who can blame families for not wanting to pay $15,000 for a government mandated health care plan?” she wrote. “

Palin said the Baucus bill forces insurance companies “to cover everyone, regardless of pre-existing conditions. Think about what that means. A lot of people – especially young and healthy people – will just pay the penalty instead of purchasing coverage because they’ll figure that it’ll always be there if they get sick, as government has promised. That’s what will happen, and when it does it will totally undermine the very concept of insurance.

Palin noted that those who are healthy now pay for those who are sick.

“If your insurance pool only contains sick people, it’s a bust. And that’s what this government plan will be. Without all of those young and healthy people paying into the pool and defraying the costs, the government will have to pony up more and more money, and who knows how long the whole crazy plan will last before it goes broke – and our country with it!”

Palin said the bureaucratic mess created by Obamacare “will penalize people so harshly that they could be hit with huge taxes and even possible jail time, or the government makes the penalty a slap on the wrist and undermines the plan from the get-go. Forcing individuals to buy health insurance seems unconstitutional, yet Congress wants to foist it on us anyway,” she said.

Palin said there are other ways to reform health care without violating the Constitution and personal liberties.

“Let’s get back to discussing market-driven, patient-centered, result-driven solutions, like, for example, allowing people to purchase insurance across state lines, tackling existing government waste and fraud, and reforming medical malpractice laws (tort reform) to stop unwarranted lawsuits that force doctors to order unnecessary procedures just to cover themselves. Let your Senators know that the Pelosi Bill should be dead on arrival. Once we go down this big government path, it will be virtually impossible to reverse course. Let’s fight for the reform that makes sense for Americans before it’s too late.”

© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

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