Health Care Bill a Bloated Mess

Two-thousand page monster is 'irredeemable'
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 27, 2009 10:56 AM CST
Health Care Bill a Bloated Mess
Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, holds a copy of the health care bill, trussed in sturdy rope, in front of the US Capitol during a Republican news conference.   (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

The Senate heath care reform bill is an “irredeemable” mess that would create “an overregulated, overbureaucratized system of surpassing arbitrariness and inefficiency,” rails Charles Krauthammer. The problem with our system is that it’s complicated and inefficient, and therefore expensive. But the 2,074-page Senate bill would only make it more complicated, inefficient and expensive, creating “hundreds of new provisions, regulations, mandates, committees, and other arbitrary bureaucratic inventions.”

The bill is loaded with “numbers picked out of a hat,” and mandates controlling what individuals must buy, and insurers charge, writes Krauthammer in the Washington Post. They decree, for example, that 20-somethings will have to pay twice or three times as much in premiums. The right health care bill would be simple, instituting tort reform, abolishing the rule against purchasing insurance across state lines, and taxing employer health benefits. “It would take 20 pages, not 2,000.” (More Charles Krauthammer stories.)

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