It requires pretty much everyone to sign up for health care insurance by 2012, and by doing the funky-Washington math, decreases the national deficit by $30 billion. Riiight.
This new bill:
- taxes medical devices 2.5 percent
- adds marriage and family therapists and mental health counselors as Medicare providers.
- requires restaurants to put calorie information on the front of menus
- provides for a Tribal Health Programs, which gives extra taxpayer money to doctors who decide to work on Indian reservations. It also sets aside special benefits for Indian women.
- expands Medicaid to 150% of the federal poverty level
- makes vending machine operators post nutrition facts of products on the side of their vending machines.
- draws its definition of "toxicity" from five different sections in the Federal Code
- defines "small employer" as a company that has a payroll of less than $750,000.