While I agree with your overall condemnation of the bill, I can not help but to point out the problems in the article that are simply untrue. In a time that has become bi-partisan as we have found ourselves in, it seems we should pay extra attention to the details in spelling out an opinion.
In your article you state that a small company with 20 employees could face a $2,000 tax per employee resulting in a $40,000 tax/penalty. Fortunately the bill requires that this does not apply to companies with less that 35 employees, so they would have no extra tax/penalty. Also for companies with more than 35 employees, only the 36th employee and so forth would be counted. So a company who does not provide adequate insurance for 50 employees would only pay the tax for 15 of them. That results in a $70,000 difference and furthermore makes your point moot.
Your second problem is with the abortion section. While you are correct that a different President could rescind it, you fail to mention that there is already legislation on the books that prevents federal funds being given to pay for abortions. This hoopla was completely created for political purposes by the media, and then senators like Stupak had to give it credence or else his constituents would think he was ignoring the issue. Fortunately, there never was an issue. Even if the language in the bill had never been put there, and there was no executive order, it would still be illegal for federal funds to pay for abortions.
On several sidenotes, the AGs of the states filing the lawsuits all acknowledge they have no legal precedent and they will probably all face a 9-0 decision against them by a conservative court. In addition your closing paragraph of doctor's offices being swarmed and logjammed is ridiculous since the ER is already swarmed and face 8+ hours in many larger cities. This is caused by people going to the ER instead of their on call doctor for many problems. This creates a logjam as well as a heavy increase in price due to increased charges by the ER. This bill would actually do more to prevent less wait times, not longer as you purported.
As a closing, people without health insurance still get a lot of health care and it is usually at an extremely high price. The tax payers still pay for this health care. What I am getting at is this, we already pay for their health care. By mandating health insurance we can ensure that more people will pay more for their insurance and have more responsibility. This may or may not happen, and I am not convinced. But the idea is not to limit personal freedom but instead to ensure more personal responsibility.
Once again, I agree with your conclusion. I am not a fan of the health care bill. I don't trust the ability of the government to actually lower costs without killing competition which will lead to universal health care. My only concern is the lack of accurate facts in your arguments and using more emotion than logic to arrive at your conclusion. We can win the fight on health care, but these tactics are not how to do it.
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