New US Health Care legislation is likely to resulting in requiring change of providers

This debate is not about whether or not people would be better off if they are forced by the government to do x, y, or z. It is solely about the truth of the assertion that under pending legislation, "if you like what you now have you will get to keep it." 1. Con has not contested the estimate that under proposed legislation 83 million people will lose their current health insurance. It was put at 119 million by the Lewen Group. Con claims that this ought not count as caused by the legislation, even though it follows as a consequence. The statement made repeatedly by the President is "that if you like what you now how have, you will get to keep it." That implies that he and his fellow advocates have taken into account all of the indirect effects of the legislation. The assertion was not that "this legislation will indirectly cause 83 million people to lose their health care." Not even, "ignoring indirect effects ..." The statement is made categorically that "if you like what you now have, you will get to keep it." I will use an extreme example to show Con's error in logic. Suppose the legislation said, "all employers who choose to continue their present health care will be promptly shot dead." Under Con's logic, if employers then discontinued their current coverage, it would not be a consequence of the legislation, but rather solely of employer choice. They could, after all, choose to be shot. Well, nobody is going to be shot. However, economic incentives are nonetheless extremely powerful, and their consequences are predictable. Congress passes economic incentive frequently with the well-founded presumption they will affect behavior. For example, there are hundreds of "tax loopholes" designed to cause specific behaviors -- such as the home mortgage interest deduction provides a strong incentive for home ownership. The rule is that indirect consequences are considered in legislation, and, of course, they should be. Con's notion that we should not now take them into account is unsustainable. Pass the proposed legislation and 83 million people will not get to keep what they now have. 2. I provided a link discussing the 65% actuarial requirement. That reference linked to the CBO http://www.cbo.gov... that explains the economic impact of actuarial requirements. The minimum requirement of the Baucus mark-up is 65% actuarial value. http://whitehouse.blogs.foxnews.com... Other legislation has the same 65% actuarial value requirement. So how many people would lose what they now have? "But insurers and actuaries say that one-third to one-half of policies bought by individuals and families fall short. About 17 million people buy insurance on their own, in this individual market. ... Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota, who helped write the Finance Committee bill, acknowledged that the federal standards were "high in relation to what is selling in the marketplace in some parts of the country. ... the Congressional Budget Office says, the actuarial value of policies bought in the individual insurance market now averages 55 percent to 60 percent." http://www.nytimes.com... Not counting plans provided by employers, about 9 or 10 million people would lose what they now have. Among the employer plans that would be outlawed is the well-publicized case of the health savings and insurance plan selected by a vote of the employees of Whole Foods. http://online.wsj.com... 4. I provided a reference summarizing each of the major health care legislation proposed by the ruling Democrats in Congress. Each one of them makes buying insurance mandatory, such as "Individuals must have insurance, enforced through tax penalty with hardship waivers." There is nothing ambiguous about that, and it is independent of the infamous p 16 of HR 3200. Con ignored the reference I gave, which covers virtually all pending legislation in favor of expressing confusion over an irrelevant citation he introduced. All of the legislation requires enrollment in health insurance, so if you now like buying services on the open market you will not get to keep what you now have. ""According to a new study from the Employment Policy Institute, authored by two economists from City University of New York (one, June O'Neill, spent four years as head of the Congressional Budget Office), 43 percent of the 47 million can afford insurance and choose not to purchase it." http://vincentgioiasblog.blogspot.com... Those 20 million people will not be permitted to keep what we now have. 4. Most of the interpretations of page 16 of HR 3200 are that it will greatly limit choice when a person either loses a job or starts his own business. However, it is legal jabbering that will ultimately be interpreted by a government bureaucracy to mean whatever they want it to mean. That is the pattern in all of the thousand page bills. So what it comes down to in these ambiguous areas is: do we trust the government to preserve as much choice as possible? Not a chance. Their business is making choices for you. 5. Con says, "The government sees that current prices and policies are outrageous, so they plan on 'showing them how it's done' so to speak. This should have the result of merely lowering costs, improving eligibility, and providing more coverage." I clearly pointed out in Round 2, that the way the government "does it" is to (a) use unlimited tax dollars to subsidize losses; (b) set payments to providers by law independent of costs and markets; (c) exempt themselves from regulations by the states, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and other laws; (d) exempt themselves from federal, state, and local taxes; (e) use taxpayers to raise capital at little or no cost; and (e) mandate that consumers buy their product. Con asserted that these advantages were insignificant, but provided no reason whatsoever why they were insignificant. Suppose you or I or Con wanted to start a grocery store, and somehow the advantages (a) through (e) were obtained over competitors. All competitors not having those advantages would be forced out of business. How could they possibly compete while the chosen store could rack up unending losses, require customers to buy product, escape taxes and regulation, and control what they paid providers? Health care is just the same. Con should tell us specifically what mechanisms private enterprise should use to compete with each of the five government advantages. How for example, should private enterprise compete with infinite taxpayer subsidies for loses? Or exemption from all regulations and taxes? One common bit of nonsense floating around is that health insurance companies could just cut profits. Total industry profits are $12.9 billion, corresponding to an industry average profit margin of 3%. http://www.cnsnews.com... Cut profits below 3% for very long and investors will choose to move capital to more profitable industries. The 3% profit is earned by cutting fraud and abuse. Fraud losses in private health care are commonly put at well below 1%, whereas in government-run Medicare estimates run as high as 20% of the approximately $500B in annual expenditures. http://www.npr.org... With perceived infinite resources and no profit motive, the government has little incentive to curb fraud and abuse. In sum, it is not possible for private enterprise to compete with government, so whatever private industry exists at the start of the introduction of the government option, it will rapidly reduced. People will not be able to keep what they now have because it will not exist. The resolution is clearly affirmed.