When All’s Said and Done, Here’s the Bottom Line

Radio Commentary, WMVV 90.7 New Life FM, November 6, 2009
By Sue Ella Deadwyler

Good morning, Jim. As soon as it was released, Americans for Tax Reform (www.atr.org) found 13 new taxes totaling $700 billion tucked in the 1,990-page H.R. 3962, introduced earlier this week. The bill is called “The Affordable Health Care for America Act,” but it’s grown to 2,032 pages, is NOT affordable and could cause 114 million Americans to lose the private health coverage they have now.

In fact, everyone loses. Business owners will be charged another 8 percent tax on their company payroll if they don’t pay 72.5 percent of their employees’ health coverage. People who don’t buy the government plan will have their income tax increased 2.5 percent OR pay the average cost of the government policy. In other words, if you don’t buy the insurance, you’ll pay for it, anyway. Single workers earning $500,000 and married couples filing joint earnings of $1 million will immediately pay 5.4 percent more income tax. Manufacturers of medical devices will be charged 2.5 percent more tax on wholesale orders. In 2011 the top federal tax rate will be 45 percent. Right now, it’s 39.6 percent. Then, in 2013 the government would completely control healthcare and no private individual health insurance could be sold.

This plan will drastically change the healthcare available to every individual in the United States … except the president, congress and other federal bureaucrats. They’ll keep their state-of-the-art private health insurance with all its perks, while the rest of us get only the minimum, rationed care allotted to us by people hired to run the Health Benefits Advisory Committee.

The plan does not reduce the cost of healthcare and the “death panels” are back in the bill. That means senior citizens must submit to end-of-life counseling every five years or every two-and-a-half-years if they have an ailment. This bill requires proof of citizenship for coverage, but it does not require proof of identity to get services. So, while the government gobbles up a sixth of legal private businesses, illegal identity thieves could be making all the money. Senator Chambliss, Senator Isakson and your U.S. Representative must vote NO on federal healthcare. Call 1 877 762-8762* and ask for their office. If you’ve called before, call again and again. For Georgia Insight I’m Sue Ella Deadwyler, your Capitol correspondent.