Our View

Don’t let it happen.

Don’t let Congress adopt a $3 trillion, government-controlled health-care system.

It will be a disaster — economically and socially. We already have two bankrupt social systems — Social
Security and Medicare, with a third to be sure, the prescription-drug entitlement. We don’t need another massive government entitlement that will mortgage our children and grandchildren’s futures even more and destroy their freedom.

What makes anyone think a government that operates a $1.8 trillion annual deficit and carries $56 trillion of public debt ($36 trillion for Medicare, $6.6 trillion for Social Security) will operate a national health-care system responsibly? It will never happen.

While Congress continues to wrangle over the details, here is some of what has surfaced so far:

• The House plan includes $500 billion of new taxes on the wealthy (now there’s a way to stimulate the economy!);

• A mandate that all employers must provide health insurance or pay a penalty tax of 8% of a company’s total payroll (talk about a job killer!);

• Government-run insurance plans that would be priced 10% below private insurance plans. This is another doozy.

The results would be disastrous for taxpayers. Just think of the state-owned Citizens Property Insurance Co. here in Florida. It charges below-actuarially sound insurance rates. These below-market rates, in turn, make it all but impossible for private insurers to compete, swell the rolls of the publicly owned insurance company and — here’s the kicker — put Florida taxpayers on the hook to make up billions in dollars in the claims shortfalls that Citizens will be unable to pay.

In other words, a national health-insurance system will be another Medicare/Social Security disaster. It will be a house of Madoff/Nadel cards.

To get even more of a sense of what’s at stake, be sure to read Rick Scott’s article below. Scott, a Naples resident, is founder of Conservatives for Patients Rights (CPR) and is waging a campaign to stop a national health-care plan and leave the system in the hands of private consumers.

Scott believes victory is within reach. But he needs our help. Two ways to help are to: 1) send money to CPR; and 2) inundate U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, Florida’s Democratic senator, with phone calls, letters, faxes and e-mails. Nelson supports universal health care. Let Nelson know this is the wrong way to go.

With how much more debt do you want to saddle the next generations? How much more debt do you want to saddle the next generation?

CONTACT BILL NELSON

Sen. Bill Nelson
716 Senate Hart Office Building
Washington, D.C., 20510
Ph: 202-224-5274
Fax: 202-228-2183
E-mail: http://www.billnelson.senate.gov/contact/email.cfm