Congress voted 219 to 212 Sunday to pass the health care bill. President Obama signed it Tuesday. The bill forces an additional, estimated 32 million citizens and legal residents to acquire health insurance.
Paul Krugman, in a July 2009 New York Times column, argued that Obama’s health reform isn’t closed to “human consequences” While insurance premiums doubled this decade and took a human toll, Obama will aid in reforming Medicare and “protecting” less fortunate Americans, securing the middle class, Krugman. Still, this reform is an unmatched step by the government to mandate private decisions and human rights. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said it herself: “We have this responsibility to ensure that health care in America is a right, not a privilege.”
But who is the government to determine what defines a human right, let alone to impose one?
Health care is a “right” that people could be fined for refusing. Starting in 2014, the IRS will slam any citizen or legal resident without a health care plan with fines of $95, or 1 percent of their income, whichever is greater. That number will jump to $695, or 2.5 percent, in 2016.
Further implications of the bill are personal: Is it acceptable for the quality of health care to decrease for some patients as it increases for others? Dr. Pouya Bahrami, of L.A.’s Good Samaritan Hospital, told ABC News Monday that he fears just this. Bahrami said doctors will be forced to meet with more patients, and the crunch for time could lead to medical mistakes, lack of care and little time to discuss health problems with individuals. This is counterproductive.
Fiscally, the bill is irresponsible. It will cost upwards of $1 trillion and will potentially increase the federal deficit, contrary to the Congressional Budget Office’s prediction that the bill will decrease the deficit by up to $138 billion over the next decade. Medicare, already floundering, can’t afford to forfeit the proposed $463 billion for the new system. The expenses will have to come from elsewhere. Other costs considered, the bill will likely increase the deficit by $582 billion over the next decade, according to a report by the U.S. Budget Committee. That number will soar to $1.65 trillion in two decades, and our generation will foot the bill.
The bill has yet to win America over. A CNN/Opinion Research poll found that almost 60 percent of Americans were against the bill as of Monday. No Republican representatives voted for the bill in the house, and 39 Democrats voted against it. This bill isn’t just about health care, party lines or reform. It marks a tremendous shift in power from the hands of the people to the hands of the elite on Capitol Hill.
As the generation that will experience the fullest effects of this reform, we ought to adopt an educated and concerned posture.
