By the time Congress reconvenes in January to wrestle with the two competing versions, support for the bill will have dwindled to a perilous point. This reduced level of support will just serve to make senators and congressmen more intransigent in the negotiations. Since the bill will need 60 votes in the Senate after the conference report, Lieberman, Maine's Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, and a handful of other moderates will each have a veto. And, collectively, the liberals in each chamber will have onem as well.
Weeks and months of wrangling will ensue. The result could be the defeat of the bill or its amendment in positive ways (for those opposed to it).
Our task is to reduce public support for the bill by publicizing its provisions, notably:
1. The $400 billion cut in Medicare.
2. The inevitable scarcity that will result from the addition of 35 million new patients with no new doctors or nurses.
3. The fine on the uninsured of 2.5 percent of their income if they don't buy insurance.
4. The high cost of these mandatory insurance policies ($15,000 per family).
5. The low level of subsidy available for the uninsured (only after they pay 8 percen to 12 percent of their incomes).
6. The likelihood of a $1,700 increase in the average family's premiums.
7. The possibility of up to five years in prison for failing to buy insurance or pay the fine.
8. The taxation of medical devices like pacemakers, wheelchairs, prosthetic limbs, hearing aids, etc.
9. The tax on sick people (increasing the threshold for deducting medical expenses from 7.5 percent to 10 percent of income.
10. The additional fiscal burden on the states of the increase in Medicaid eligibility.
11. The 40 percent tax on health insurance premiums that will effect households earning more than $75,000 by the fifth year of the plan.
We can still win this fight!