Saturday, April 3, 2010

Top Lies about the Health Insurance Reform Bill


MSNBC.com recently posted an article, "True or false? Top 7 health care fears" in which they do a good job debunking some of the Fox News and Tea Partier hysteria about health care. However, they somehow managed to not include these two fears, which seem like the top two:

1. My taxes will go up!
2. It's Socialism in America!

Of course, neither of things are true, unless you are in the 1.5% of American households that make more than $250k per year -- then your investment income will be taxed at a higher rate.

With no new government run health system being put in place and no pubic option, there isn't much in this bill that could be considered socialist, except for a slight expansion of Medicaid. Mostly, this bill is the opposite of Socialism, funneling 30 million new customers into the private insurance industry.

It will be interesting to see if this bill helps expand coverage and lower costs. Certainly, it seems like we have a much better chance with this bill than letting the previous status quo of continually rising costs and decreasing coverage continue. Not sure how the Republicans think they can win in November by trying to repeal the expanded benefits and the bill's tough new regulations on the insurance industry!

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