Health Care Bill Would Be Disaster For The Poor
Monday, December 21st, 2009
Most Americans are aware that buried somewhere in the 2,000-page health care reform bill are provisions for cutting the already- strapped Medicare program by billions of dollars. Few are aware that the bill also cuts expenditures on county hospitals currently serving the poor.
In Chicago, for example, those without health insurance go to the county hospital where they are treated without regard to whether they have health insurance. If the bill is passed, however, many of these county hospitals will either have to close their doors or deny treatment to those without health insurance.
Although the bill passed by the Senate has been depicted as using coercive means to require those currently uninsured to buy insurance they cannot afford, or as imposing additional new taxes on the American working man and family, that bill is based on a fundamental lack of understanding of how the health care needs of the nation’s poor are currently served.
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