Obamacare

I was cruising on Facebook this afternoon after waking up (for I work nights you see), and saw a lot of vitriolic statements from folks who I can only assume are very mad.  I say this because a lot (and I do mean A LOT) of them were using the "CAPS LOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL" rule when they typed their thoughts into the "What's on your mind" box and the comments section for each entry.

What are they mad about?  They are mad about the Health Care Reform bill which passed last night.

Some of the myriad things in this bill...  For the first time ever, American citizens of a certain wage class and up will be required to purchase health insurance.  The dividing line is what bureaucrats call the "poverty line" which is actually defined much lower that what the opponents of this bill claim.  To ensure that folks who are at the actual poverty line instead of the arbitrary one that congress sets don't go broke, the bill provides for government subsidies to health insurance costs.  This bill also makes the provision that "large businesses," here defined as any business that employs 50 or more people must provide company subsidized health insurance to their employees, as well as offering the government subsidy.  I'm "hoping" that this will also give hospitals the power to kick people out of the emergency room who could be seen by their regular doctors, and free up the emergency room for...  well...  emergencies.

For most of you reading this, you've probably already made up your mind and decided that this is a puff-piece for the Health Care Reform bill that was passed last night.  For those of you, I say, no.  While I do not think our current health care system works, this reform is not the answer.  This reform will change the way businesses hire people.  Those same "large businesses" will become the victims.  One of the provisions in this bill is that if a "large business" has a single employee who qualifies for and accepts the government subsidy, the company must offset that cost.  If a company decides not to offer health insurance to their employees, they must pay a $3000 per employee per year fine.  If a company has a workforce where two thirds of the employees are accepting the government subsidy, then the employer will be subject to a $3000 per employee per year "fee" in addition to the costs of offering health insurance.  What's to keep company's from laying off employees who would be more likely to accept the subsidy, and not hiring people who might be eligible?  Or laying off everyone who is not eligible for the subsidy, so that they can just pay the fine and not worry about insurance costs?

Another one of the hidden clauses in the Health Care Reform is the "marriage clause."  Say you have two, reasonably healthy, but single young to middle-aged adults that are living together.  They can be expected to pay an average of around $2,200 annually for health insurance, combined.  Then say these two people are madly in love and decide to get married.  Immediately, their health insurance jumps to over $12,000.  WHY?  This wasn't explained in the article I read, but I can only assume that it's because the married couples are expected to shoulder the burden for their single counterparts.  Is it because we're more solvent?  Because we are better savers when we're married?

None of what I presented above was mentioned in those posts on Facebook though.  There was a lot of name calling (Barack Hussein Osama, Barack Osama, Osama Obama, etc).  There was a tidbit about how this is the first step towards government funded abortions, even though via executive order (that ever favorite tool that President Bush used to revoke the Posse Comitatus Act, which was thankfully restored in 2008), President Obama specifically forbade the use of government funding to pay for abortions.

What really pissed me off was a comment I read about how our duly-elected lawmakers do not have the right to pass laws like this.  Ladies and gentlemen, let me give you a brief history of the United States.  Our country is a republic, which by definition is a system of government where the people choose their leaders and vest in them the power to pass and enforce laws.  We are not a true democracy like the Greek city-states of old, because we would never be able to get anything done for spending all of our time voting on measures.  We the people decided a long time ago that we would elect our leaders by majority rule, and that those leaders would have the power and the authority to govern us by passing laws that they felt were for the public good.  The fact that this bill passed means that not enough people were interested in contacting their elected leaders to get enough of those leaders to vote against it.  We in America are very lucky that we have this right to talk to our leaders in this way.

So for those of you who are against "Obamacare," how many of you took the time to write, email or call your congressman to let them know that you, as a concerned citizen were against this bill?  I know that I did.