Obamacare: taxes, fines, will reduce care

"Bad Medicine--ObamaCare is hazardous to your health." (Wall Street Journal)"

"...But the bill would start off by imposing annual fees of $6.7 billion on health insurance companies, $4 billion on medical device producers, $2.3 billion on drug manufacturers and $750 million on clinical laboratories, all of which would surely be passed on to consumers in higher prices. The insurance companies' $6.7 billion fees alone would come to some 60% of the industry's after tax earnings.

"And then American families who do not have health insurance--the people the Democrats claim they're trying to help--would be assessed finds of between $750 to $1,900 a year. All this reflects Congress's simple objective: government rather than individual control of our health care.
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But America's health care is not doing badly. Indeed a National Center for Policy Analysis study from last March shows how much better we are doing than countries like Canada, Britain, and other European nations that have government health care control:

"Breast-cancer mortality is 52% higher in Germany and 88% higher in Britain than in the U.S.
Prostate-cancer mortality is 457% higher in Norway and 604% higher in Britain than in the U.S.
Eighty-nine percent of middle-aged women in the U.S. have had a mammogram, compared with 72% in Canada.

"Fifty-four percent of men in the U.S. have had a prostate-specific antigen test, compared with 16% of Canadian men.

"As for the availability of health care, another study shows that 74% of those in the U.S. meet for scheduled doctors appointments within four weeks, while only 42% of British and 40% of Canadians do. Only 10% of Americans wait longer than two months, while 33% of Brits and 42% of Canadians wait that long.

"On average, doctors in a survey say neurosurgery should be performed within 5.8 weeks, but in Canada it takes about 31 weeks. And orthopedic surgery should be within 11 weeks, but in Canada it takes 37 weeks. So it is pretty clear that government health-insurance monopoly is dangerously inefficient. ..."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204488304574433343630176378.html