“Speaker Pelosi and her team are gleefully proclaiming that their health care reform bill is budget neutral and cost under the arbitrary $900 billion limit that President Obama had set for health reform. So exuberant are they in announcing their supposed success at crafting “affordable” legislation that they are rushing the bill to the floor while implying that the American people support their efforts.

“Nothing could be further from the truth.

“The frightening reality for the American taxpayer and anyone who will need health care in the future is that she is hiding the true costs of these bills and doing so in ways that will be disastrous to our nation’s long-term fiscal health.

“The first big myth is that this bill is deficit neutral and will not raise long-term government spending because it pays for itself.  This is nonsense and the Democrats know it.  Instead, they use fancy budget gimmicks to mask billions of dollars in additional costs. Already, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released a statement saying that the Pelosi health care bill will cost $1.2 trillion and not the $890 billion figure that Democrats were touting. Furthermore, CBO notes that many of these types of cost-saving measures, such as cutting Medicare reimbursements for providers, rarely occur. For example, Medicare reimbursements cuts for physicians have been on the books since 2002, but not once has Congress allowed those cuts to happen. The reason for this is clear -- if Congress did allow proposed cuts to providers such as hospitals, doctors, nursing homes and hospice care to occur, CBO notes that it would put Medicare recipients' access to care in grave danger.

“But the Pelosi health care bill does not reform the formula that controls Medicare reimbursement rates for doctors. Instead, Democrats have introduced a separate bill costing over $200 billion—on top of the TRILLION plus bill already introduced--so they don’t have to include the cost of fixing this outdated formula in their already overpriced bill.

“That is not the only way in which they are hiding the real impact of their health care reform efforts. There are too many outrageous provisions to list them all, but here are a few examples:

• We knew Democrats would raise taxes to pay for their plans, so the fact that this bill includes a “surtax” on individuals making over a certain income is no surprise.  What they don’t admit is that this is really surtax on small businesses, which make up the majority of high-income filers. Furthermore, this tax will continue to entrap more and more middle class Americans every year as their incomes go up because, like the Alternative Minimum Tax, it is not indexed for inflation. 
• The Democrats claim that this bill will greatly expand coverage to people who currently don’t have health insurance. What they don’t tell you is that most of these people will be covered through a dramatic expansion of Medicaid, from 100% to 150% of federal poverty level.  Starting in 2014, it will cost states, including Idaho, $34 billion to comply with another unfunded federal mandate--something state budgets simply cannot afford.
• Under the Pelosi plan, if you choose not to purchase health insurance, you will have to pay a penalty. And if you choose not to pay the penalty, the government can arrest you.  You will no longer get to choose whether or not you will purchase health insurance in the future because government will have already decided for you.
• For those of you who already have health insurance through your employer, this bill will put that coverage at risk. The Pelosi plan will implement expensive new mandates on all employer-provided health insurance, including yours, which businesses either must follow or face with new taxes and penalties. For many employers, it will make more business sense to eliminate jobs or drop employees’ health insurance and pay the penalties than comply with Uncle Sam’s new rules.

“There isn’t space in this small column to illustrate all of the ways in which the Pelosi health plan falls short of their rhetoric. But the few examples I am able to provide above should give anyone pause before you fall victim to their outrageous claim that their TRILLION plus bill will save you and the American people money.

“I don’t believe it and I hope you won’t either.”

If you would like to read all 1,990 pages of Pelosi’s bill, click here.