HC Bill: More Harm Than Good

Here's my problem: even if the recently passed health care "reform" bill were to benefit me personally or even primarily, I would have voted against it.

The reason is not because I'm against making the health care system better, or that I don't care about poor or sick people, but rather because of all the OTHER things that were hidden in the bill. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: omnibus bills are bad and are designed to hide things that couldn't get passed on their own.

From my previous post:

It's little flubs like this that just make my point for me: omnibus bills are bad. It's bad governance. An Omnibus bill can be defined as a legislative bill which provides for a number of miscellaneous enactments or appropriations. In plain terms, this means "a kitchen sink bill". This is how legislative pork gets passed -- buried in attachments, riders, and amendments to a larger spending bill that "must" get passed.

If even half of the stuff that got introduced made it into the final version, it is still sickening. What does takeover of student loans by the Government have to do with health care?? [The bill needed the $$$ to count as "savings".]

Abortion coverage accounting tricks? Still in there. Obama's Executive Order promise? Worthless. Here is the money quote:

I hereby direct the Director of OMB and the Secretary of HHS to develop ... a model set of segregation guidelines for state health insurance commissioners to use when determining whether exchange plans are complying with the Act’s segregation requirements ... [and] to interpret the Act’s segregation requirements.

So whether you believe that the bill preserves the spirit of the Hyde Amendment or not, the (promised) EO is about how to do the accounting of abortion payments. Get it? Segregation guidelines to be written and interpreted by the Secretary of HHS (who I'm sure is impartial).

And maybe a hundred other things.

So the question is, which of these things are worth insuring 32 million Americans at the expense of the other 275 million? Invasion of privacy? Invasion of financial records? Mandatory purchase of coverage on pain of tax, fine, or imprisonment? Lack of conscience protection? Rationing? Financial instability?

Maybe, just maybe, there is a better way than a one-size-fits-all solution, hmm? The Devil is always in the details. So to recap -- principle: good; execution: more harm than good.