If you listened to President Obama addressing Congress last week, you heard that nothing is going to change but everything is going to be better—and it won’t cost you a penny.
Rep. Eric Cantor, who has read the bill, gives five reasons that voters should be anxious about the president’s rhetoric versus the fine print. Here is only one of the concerns:
Keeping the plan you have if you like it: Is it true, as the president insists, that all Americans will be able to keep the health insurance they already have? On page 15, as part of Section 101, the government gives itself the power to declare what qualifies as acceptable health insurance. While Democrats highlight a provision in the next section titled “PROTECTING THE CHOICE TO KEEP CURRENT COVERAGE,” when you read the fine print a different story emerges. Subparagraph (a)(1) says that, for you to keep your insurance, your insurer can’t enroll anyone new into your plan. Meanwhile, subparagraph (a)(2) says the insurer can’t change the terms, conditions, or benefits of your plan. But if you have employer-based insurance, subsection (b) of this section says that, in reality, you only get to keep your current plan for, at most, five years if it fails to conform to all the new federal requirements.
While Cantor is reading the fine print, Democratic Senator from West Virginia, Jay Rockefeller, is looking at the big picture—and he says that the Max Baucus plan would mean a huge tax hike on the middle class, and that it would hit his constituency, including coal miners, particularly hard.