-- $1,700 more in insurance premiums for the average family.
-- Medical devices like wheelchairs and hearing aids get taxed.
-- Those who are sick must pay an average of about $600 more a
year in income taxes because the bill raises the threshold for deducting
medical expenses from 7.5 percent of income to 10 percent.
-- A $404 billion cut in Medicare.
-- Ending the subsidized Medicare Advantage insurance for costs
over and above Medicare. Without Medicare Advantage, the elderly can only
augment Medicare by buying Medigap coverage for which no subsidy is
available and whose premiums are higher (offered, conveniently enough, by
Obama's buddies at the AARP).
-- No importation of Canadian medicines and no competitive
bidding to hold down prescription drug costs (Obama's deal to get Pharma's
support and advertising dollars).
-- A shortage of medical personnel and equipment as 30 million
new patients are added without any expansion of the population of doctors
and nurses. This shortage will make rationing inevitable, even if it
shortens life expectancies among the elderly.
And, all of this assumes that the House bill, which imposes a
4.5 percent payroll tax (which will discourage new employment), does not
pass -- and that the cost estimates of this program prove realistic. Despite
the Congressional Budget Office's concurrence, one can't help noticing that
Massachusetts' program was estimated to cost $200 million in 2005 and now
costs $700 million!
This health care bill is, indeed, Obama's first tax on the
middle class.