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Harry Reid to Cancer Patients: Wait Until Next Year

December 11, 2009

Democrats have promised that their healthcare legislation would eliminate pre-existing health conditions as an excuse for insurance companies to deny or terminate coverage to individuals.

They further promised that under their plan, no insurance company would be allowed to put an annual or lifetime limitation on the dollar amount of coverage to their policy holders.

We agree with those objectives, and it was therefore heartening to read Section 2710: "No Lifetime Or Annual Limits", of the Senate's healthcare bill, which reads:

"A group health plan and a health insurance issuer offering group or individual health insurance coverage may not establish lifetime or annual limits on benefits for any participant or beneficiary".

Unfortunately, what Harry Reid giveth, Harry Reid taketh away.

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When Senator Reid issued his version of the bill, Section 2710 had morphed into Section 2711, which reads as follows:

SEC. 2711: "NO LIFETIME OR ANNUAL LIMITS"

(a) IN GENERAL, a group health plan and a health insurance issuer offering group or individual health insurance coverage may not establish:

Have you got that?

Under this vaunted new bill that President Obama and the Democrats promised would stop the insurance companies from preying on the sick and infirm, NOTHING CHANGES with respect to annual limits on coverage.

Current law stays the same. The Secretary of Health and Human Services, under Section 1302(b) of this bill, decides what is or is not "unreasonable."

You don't believe us?

Sec. 1302 (b) (2) LIMITATION (A) IN GENERAL, the Secretary shall ensure that the scope of the essential health benefits under paragraph (1) is equal to the scope of benefits provided under a typical employer plan, as determined by the Secretary. To inform this determination, the Secretary of Labor shall conduct a survey (for HHS) of employer-sponsored coverage to determine the benefits typically covered by employers, including multi employer plans, and provide a report on such survey to the Secretary.

Now do you understand?

The Secretary of Health and Human Services, under this and all future presidents, will decide if it's ok to limit your annual health insurance coverage based upon "the scope of benefits provided under a typical employer plan".

They can still cut off your coverage if you have cancer and have exceeded whatever the Secretary determines to be a "reasonable" annual dollar amount.

The health insurers are likely to lobby this and all future Secretaries of HHS to accept their definition of reasonable.

That's ok. If you've used up your "reasonable" annual benefits for cancer treatments, you could just wait until the following year to continue treating your cancer.

The language with regard to lifetime benefits is ambiguous, but if they cut off your cancer treatments in July, your lifetime might not last until the following January.

Do you remember during the 2008 campaign when Barack Obama told the story of his mother dying of cancer and arguing with her insurance company over continuing to pay her benefits?

How exactly would that "change" under your plan, Mr. President?

Here's a question: Who got Harry Reid to insert this amendment, and why didn't he highlight it in red so as to allow the Senate and the American people to know that he had performed this sleight of hand.

To find the answer, ask another question: Cui Bono? (To Whose Benefit; literally, As A Benefit to Whom?)

Or, in the vernacular, "follow the money".

Is it possible that Senator Reid, who has been railing against the "evil insurance companies" who deny care to sick and dying Americans, has been doing their bidding behind closed doors?

We don't know, but we do know this: Whatever this healthcare bill is about, it's not about helping the American people.

It would cut one-half trillion dollars from Medicare, thereby rationing medical services to the most vulnerable people in our society, the elderly.

It would cause thousands of doctors to leave the profession, because Medicare would pay them less than the inadequate amounts that they now receive for treating seniors.

It would raise taxes on the middle class, thereby wrecking our economy.

It would provide at least ten million illegal aliens and their families with health insurance provided by the taxpayers, and the result of that would be that we would pay for their care while we stand in line behind them for ours.

Most egregiously, it would empower federal bureaucrats, answerable to no one, to determine who would or would not receive medical care, and what type of care they would receive.

There would no longer be a doctor/patient relationship. There would be a doctor/government relationship, and the patient would be a pawn.

After nearly one year of debate, the President and Congress have come up with this massive government takeover of seventeen percent of our economy and have managed to devise a scheme which would fix nothing, but would make matters worse.

If they truly wanted to correct the problems with our healthcare system, they would do the following:

  1. Require all health insurance companies to cover anyone who can pay the premiums, regardless of preexisting health conditions, age, gender or other characteristics.
  2. Prohibit annual or lifetime dollar limitations on benefits or coverage.
  3. Repeal the anti-trust exclusion for health insurers.
  4. Allow health insurance companies to sell policies across state lines so that there would be competition and lower prices in all markets.
  5. Allow individuals to join local, state or national groups for the purpose of buying group health insurance, and make the premiums tax-deductible on federal, state, and local returns.
  6. In order to induce insurance companies to cover everyone, require everyone to buy health insurance. This would not require fines or taxes. Persons who refuse to buy health insurance would be denied driver's licenses, passports, voter registration cards, and social security numbers.
  7. There are about forty-one million people without health insurance in this country. Ten million of them are young people who don't think they need it. Require them to buy it. Ten million of them can't afford the premiums; subsidize them. The rest are illegal aliens and their families. Send them home.
  8. The country needs twice as many doctors and nurses and half as many lawyers. Convert half of the nation's law schools into medical schools.

Problem solved. Two thousand-page bills and Nobel Laureates not required.

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