10 Ways Senate Health Reform Hurts You

The Senate health reform bill is all fire and brimstone for the folks over at Firedoglake. The “con job” legislation “isn’t a ‘starter home,’ it’s a sink hole,” Jane Hamsher writes, and “it needs to die so something else can take its place.” Why, you ask? Ten reasons:

• $$$: "Forces you to pay up to 8% of your income to private insurance corporations."
• More $$$: "Penalties of up to 2% of your annual income" if you don't buy insurance.

• Yet more $$$: Coverage mandatory for some who can't afford "$11,900 in annual out-of-pocket expenses over and above their annual premiums."
• Anti-choice: The bill is "designed to trigger a challenge to Roe v. Wade."
• Worse care: Taxes on existing employer plans will decrease benefits.
• No returns: Taxes would start now, but advantages don't materialize until 2014.
• 300%: That's how much more the elderly could be charged.
• Drugs: Big Pharma gets a handout, and you get charged more.
• More drugs: No importation of cheaper alternatives.
• $$$, again: "In 10 years, your family’s insurance premium will be $10,000 more annually than it is right now."

(More health care reform stories.)