WASHINGTON, July 22 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- There are many provisions in the House Tri-Committee health reform bill (H.R. 3200) that concern citizens who care greatly about the freedom to choose their health care. Some of the key concerns are that the bill:
* Eliminates Existing Private Insurance Coverage (i.e., Eliminates Your Choice of Insurance that Is Not "Acceptable" to the Federal Government, But Is Just Fine With You and Your Family)
* Includes the AMA-Backed/Insurance Industry-Backed Mandate for Individuals to Purchase Health Insurance
* Denies Coverage for Unlicensed Alternative Providers
* Paves the Way for Use of Machine-Readable Health-Plan ID Cards for Everyone
* Establishes a "Real Time" Data System (to Determine Financial Responsibility and Eligibility for Health Care)
* Promotes Child Home Visits
* Moves 83.4 million people from private to public insurance
* Includes a Single-Payer Health-Care Amendment
* Requires Everyone to Buy a Health Plan Essentially Written by the Federal HHS Secretary
"It is vitally important for Americans to understand that these anti-freedom and anti-privacy provisions will be enforced through a mandate for health insurance," says Sue Blevins, president of the Institute for Health Freedom in Washington, D.C.
"Once government says you must buy an 'acceptable' plan, it dictates what that means, including what the benefits will cover or not cover, and who will or will not be a legal health care provider. It also leads to identifying and tracking individuals and their health care utilization. The bottom line is that a health insurance mandate is THE key to government-dictated health care," she stresses.
"The federal government should not be forcing people to buy certain products through an industry-backed insurance mandate. Coercion is not the American way. Health freedom of choice and privacy is," Blevins says.
Inconvenient Truths about the Health-Insurance Mandate
Greg Scandlen, director of Consumers for Health Care Choices at the Chicago-based Heartland Institute, notes that "Washington interest groups support an individual mandate because they are trying to shift the responsibility to the least politically powerful. But here are two important truths about a health insurance mandate: (1) It doesn't work (consider, for example, that auto coverage is mandated, but 15% of drivers are uninsured); and (2) It is popular only with the people not affected. In Massachusetts 60% of those directly affected say the law is hurting them. Only 22% say it is helping them. Instead of dictating to the uninsured we should be listening to them. They are telling us the coverage that is available today is not attractive. They are right."
Moreover, according to another recent Rasmussen survey 56 percent of Americans oppose a health insurance mandate, while 31 percent support it and 14 percent aren't sure.
Sources for this press release are posted online at: http://www.forhealthfreedom.org/Publications/Privacy/NoMandateForHealthInsurance.html
Contact:Sue Blevins, president Institute for Health Freedom 202/429-6610 sblevins@ForHealthFreedom.org
SOURCE Institute for Health Freedom Copyright©2009 PR Newswire. All rights reserved |