Salisbury News

Some information is leaking out on the Senate (Baucus) bill. From no less a source than Newt Gingrich comes, -

*Nonpartisan analysis found that, of the $2.8 billion in penalties on those that do not purchase health care insurance$2 billion will be paid by those earning less than $120,000 for a family of four.

* The bill is kept deficit neutral by imposing unfunded mandates on the states of $250 to $300 billion dollars.

* An analysis claims 88 million people will lose their current insurance under government health care.

* The Mayo clinic executive director said, "We will have to violate our values in order to stay in business and reduce our access to government patients."

* The bill creates an "independent Medicare commission" with the ability to deny benefits to the elderly or disabled based on a government calculation of the costs verses the benefits.

* Imposes a tax on medical technology companies and drug makers that will raise the cost of drugs and devices such as pacemakers, eyeglasses and hearing aides.

* imposes a tax on businesses that do not provide insurance coverage.

* The CBO says the bill will still leave 25 million uninsured.

Other sources say, -
* $404 billion will be cut from Medicare as 30 million baby boomers are added to the program.
* There will be tax imposed on employer paid health care insurance. This would fall most heavily on the middle class.

If and when, the congress allows us to read the legislation, which many of them say they will not, we will be able to determine the validity of the above. We can only hope nothing worse will come out.

Joel