Healthcare Lands A Punch

Healthcare Lands Punch. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. The new healthcare laws are really getting a lot of people's attention especially those who do not have any coverage currently. Washington's Republican Congressman "Doc" Hasting says things have not really progressed quite the way they were sold. HASTINGS: Let's start with the basic premise of this. Number one, it was supposed to be health insurance reform and number two it is supposed to save the taxpayers money. We are now only 3 or 4 months removed from the passage of the bill before it even takes effect wholly and we find out number one that it will cost $100 billion dollars more than what was projected and number two, health insurance costs are set to increase on the average by 9% next year. If it's health reform, that's hardly reform and I don't know where $100 billion dollars in taxpayer money to fund this is cost savings? He says that as more people delve into the actual bill and dig around they are finding things that aren't setting well. HASTINGS: Where we are right now is this bill is set to take effect over a period of years and we're getting these estimates more and more and I think the American people and others are reading this 2700 page bill and are finding nuances in there that frankly are contrary to what was suggested to be the benefits of this bill. I think that's one of the reasons why polling data suggests more and more American's are disturbed about this. This will also have a dramatic effect on insurance companies as well. HASTINGS: If the issue was health insurance reform the obvious solution is to open more opportunities to buy health insurance. This bill goes the opposite direction and I think what is indicative of this is the price increases by the insurance companies that are probably hedging at a time when they are going to have to expand their coverage whether the purchaser of the insurance policy wants to expand it or not and health insurance costs are going to go up. Hastings sees more and more insurance companies getting out of the business and that part being taken over by the government so you essentially would have government run healthcare. Another aspect that is disturbing is that many spouses who work a part-time job would be mandated to buy insurance. HASTINGS: If she were to buy healthcare on the open market in Washington State whatever policy she were to buy it would have 38 mandates. She would have to buy acupuncture coverage whether she wanted it or not. The solution to that is to allow spouses an opportunity to go across state lines and buy a policy that they could tailor and fit them. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.