Reading the Fine Print in the Health Care Bill

by Phyllis Schlafly

July 31, 2009

The House Democrats' health care bill is entitled "America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009." No clue is given as to how long we will have a choice, but it will probably be only until the "public option" chases private insurance out of business.

The bill's subtitle states its purpose as health care for everyone, reducing "the growth in health care spending," "and for other purposes." Note that the goal is not to reduce spending but only the "growth" in spending, and we need to worry about the "other purposes" that will be added by the bureaucrats' regulations.

• The bill states that health-care benefits require "shared responsibility among workers, employers, and the government." That means the government will force all taxpayers to pay for health care for millions of people who don't now buy insurance because they don't need it, or because insurance doesn't cover what they do need. (p.5)
• The bill states that the government will investigate "self-insured employers not being able to pay obligations." Government agents will audit and then harass small business owners to force them to pay for insurance they cannot afford. (p.22)
• The bill provides for optional "nurse home visitation services" without specifying who has power to exercise the option. Among the various purposes listed are "increasing birth intervals between pregnancies" (this reminds us of China's policies to reduce childbirth by married couples), reducing "child abuse, neglect, and injury" (giving more authority to the already too powerful Child Protective Services), and promoting school readiness (will homeschooling be scorned?). (p.768)
• The bill covers family planning. Those are well-known code words for taxpayer-funded contraception and abortion, and will impose mandatory coverage of abortion on demand in all health plans. (p.772)
• The bill provides for "culturally and linguistically appropriate communication and health services," and "shall give priority to applicants that have developed partnerships with community organizations or with agencies with experience in language access." This opens up plenty of funding for health and translation services for illegal aliens. (pp.405 & 407)
• Title II of the bill creates a "Health Insurance Exchange," pretending to be a marketplace for health insurance plans. Of course, so long as the "public option" is subsidized by the taxpayers, it can always undersell private plans. (p.72)
• The government will specify the health benefits that must be included in any plan participating in the Health Insurance Exchange. If all private plans must include all government-specified benefits (which will surely include benefits unwanted by many people and will inevitably drive up costs), whatever happened to choice? (p.84)
• Anyone who does not enroll in an Exchange-participating plan will be "automatically enrolled under Medicaid." The government will thus use force to achieve its goal of universal coverage. (p.102)
• Employers will be subjected to a play-or-pay mandate. Those who do not provide health insurance to their employees must give the government a "contribution" equal to 8 percent of average wages paid. (p.149)
• Seniors must submit to "advance care planning consultation" (a.k.a. end-of-life discussions) every five years, or more often if there is "a significant change in the health condition of the individual, including diagnosis of a chronic, progressive, life-limiting disease, a life-threatening or terminal diagnosis or life-threatening injury." Will these consultants advise seniors to hurry up and die because they are costing too much money? (pp.425 & 429)
• Government bureaucrats will conduct "Comparative Effectiveness Research" to decide the effectiveness of treatments and drugs. That is the exotic label for rationing and, as House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-WI) admitted, drugs and treatments that are "found to be less effective and more expensive will no longer be prescribed." (pp.502 & 520)
• Government bureaucrats (not the medical profession) shall determine national priorities for research. (p.505)
• Preference in awarding grants or contracts will be given to entities that have trained "the greatest percentage" of public health workers in the government, and that have trained large percentages of "under-represented minority groups." (pp.909-910) Think ACORN!

The Senate bill's official summary also authorizes "home visits" to "improve immunization coverage." Will Americans tolerate a knock on the door from a government agent demanding that we and our children receive all government-ordered vaccines?

The fine print of the Democrats' health-care bill (which imposes incredible debt on our children) gives enormous power to the Obama bureaucrats to impose uniform, government-defined-benefits insurance, to decide how much we must pay or be hit with fines and penalties, and to determine what treatments and drugs are "effective" and will be permitted. This isn't America; this is Marxist Socialism.

What Happened in Guadalajara

by Phyllis Schlafly

August 21, 2009

President Obama went to Guadalajara, Mexico in August as part of his promise to "rejoin the World Community" and become a "citizen of the world." He participated in a conference with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

These cozy meetings of the so-called three amigos used to be labeled the Security and Prosperity Partnership (North American Union). The three North American heads of state met in Waco in 2005, in Cancun in 2006, in Quebec in 2007, and in New Orleans in 2008.

After conservatives exposed the mischievous goals, the amigos accepted the Hudson Institute's helpful suggestion to change their name. Now they call themselves the North American Leaders Summit.

Prestigious internationalist think tanks, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Hudson Institute, and the Center for Strategic & International Studies, explained the real purpose of these high-level get-togethers. These meetings were planned to be the first steps toward a North American Union modeled on the European Union, with open borders and a common currency, which Canada's Fraser Institute prematurely labeled the amero.

The words "union" and "amero" have become embarrassing, so the goal has now been identified as "economic integration" and "labor mobility." The Guadalajara joint statement reaffirmed the purpose of "integrated economies," and that still means allowing unlimited access for cheap labor from Mexico to take U.S. jobs.

President Calderon demanded unlimited "labor mobility" and asserted that it is "unthinkable" for the United States to function "without the contribution of the Mexican laborers and workers." He also wants free access for Mexican trucks to all U.S. roads and U.S. citizenship for Mexicans living illegally in the U.S.

Canada's Harper wants all three to pledge to work "together on a North American focus against climate change in order to assure and guarantee a new international covenant that is efficient and truly global." Harper also complained about the "buy American" provision in our 787 billion dollar Stimulus law.

Obama reaffirmed his commitment to pass the Cap and Trade bill so he would be hailed as a hero at the upcoming United Nations climate-change conference in Copenhagen. He promised to "take the lead by reducing U.S. emissions by 80 percent by 2050" and to "work with other nations to cut global emissions in half."

Obama also promised to "continue to work to fix America's broken immigration system," which most people see as code words for amnesty for illegal aliens. He did not promise to stop the flow of illegal drugs and people coming across our southern border, but he did say he wanted "to stem the illegal southbound flow of American guns and cash that helps fuel this extraordinary violence."

In other words, he was blaming the United States for Mexican drug violence. In fact, most of the guns found at Mexican crime scenes are not American, and U.S. taxpayers are already generously footing the bill to train Mexicans to fight the drug war. Fortunately, Obama did not pledge to open our roads to Mexican trucks, which may be his only concession to American public opinion so far in his presidency. Congressional law forbids the entry of Mexican trucks, and the latest Rasmussen Survey shows that 66 percent of Americans oppose lifting this congressional ban.

Under NAFTA, the United States agreed to let Mexican trucks operate freely in our country after 1999 so long as they meet U.S. safety standards. But they have never met them; and nothing in NAFTA requires us to admit trucks that don't meet U.S. standards.

Highway safety is the primary reason why Americans are adamantly opposed to allowing Mexican trucks on our roads. The problem is not only the wear and tear on our deteriorating highways from additional tens of thousands of heavier, environmentally dirtier trucks. U.S. truck drivers are limited to ten consecutive hours of service, but Mexican drivers typically drive up to 20 hours a day. Even if limits are imposed, nobody knows how many hours they are behind the wheel before reaching the border.

In contrast to U.S. requirements for truck drivers, Mexico has no credible system of driver training, licensing, drug testing, physical and age requirements, safety inspections even for brakes, weight limits, insurance, or nationwide criminal or driving-record databases.

U.S. law requires commercial drivers to be able to "read and speak the English language sufficiently to converse with the general public, to understand highway traffic signs and signals in the English language, to respond to official inquiries, and to make entries on reports and records." But Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters testified at a Senate committee hearing last year that when Mexican drivers respond to our questions in Spanish.

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