Our New (D) Hospital Program

Paul Ryan doesn't like it.

...The legislation goes far beyond simply extending the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), a program intended to serve low-income, uninsured children whose family incomes were a little too high to qualify for Medicaid assistance. Instead, H.R 2 expands eligibility to include families making more than $80,000 a year, loosens citizenship verification standards, and moves millions of children who already have private insurance onto government-run health care. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Majority’s plan would shift about 2.4 million individuals currently enrolled in private health care plans to government-run health care.

The legislation attempts to pay for this massive expansion of an entitlement program by imposing an ill-conceived, regressive tax on tobacco and by attacking physician-owned hospitals. H.R. 2 not only eliminates the creation of physician-owned hospitals, but goes further by prohibiting the completion of those under construction – threatening jobs and forfeiting millions of dollars already invested in these facilities. This bill moves us further away from the goal of putting the patient and their physician as the nucleus of health care delivery.

The true cost of this entitlement expansion is deceptively hidden in the legislative language, but holds dramatic consequences for millions of children and taxpayers. After five years of attracting new SCHIP enrollees, the bill abruptly cuts SCHIP funding by 65% in 2014. This would effectively pull out the rug on 7 million children reliant on this program. If Congress decides not to kick these children off the program in 2014, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that it would cost taxpayers $42 billion more. This budget gimmick is either disingenuous to the taxpayer or disingenuous to millions of children.

Perhaps the O will exercise his first veto if this gets to his desk without modification by the Senate. $80K is not "poor," there's no good reason to include illegals, shutting down in-process construction projects is....ahhhhhh.....utterly incomprehensible, and the DoylieTrick of "now you see it, now you don't" financing is almost unconscionable.

But hey, that's QueenNancy.

Source: Ryan email.