The day that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was made available on the Internet, I began reading it. I figured that since I am so involved with my career as a Registered Nurse and health care industry entrepreneur, I needed to see for myself what was really in it. I read for hours, re-reading many paragraphs due to verbiage was difficult to understand. I found the opposite to be true in other areas with passages so compelling that it was hard to stop reading. Much to my surprise, it was these areas that had absolutely nothing to do with “health care”.
I have read the entire bill two more times — start to finish. My general conclusion is that this bill is the swindle of our lifetime. I was astounded to see the hit that small businesses like my own will take. Insurance premiums were undoubtedly going to increase and capital gains taxes would go up an additional 3.8 %. Expenditures of $600 or more would require a W-9, adding the burden of hiring someone to administer this new paperwork. The taxation measures aimed at small businesses are so frightening that I began to reconsider my hiring plans and explored the very dark possibility that my small business would not survive another two years. My business at this writing is growing and is profitable but this law leaves its future uncertain.
As I began piecing together more of this monstrosity, I kept hearing from and about people who haven’t read the bill (it’s no light read for sure), including business owners like me, Members of Congress, and otherwise well-educated “commentators” who spoke of the financial components that “aren’t in the bill”. Yes it’s true. These burdens are in the health care bill. I will be writing about them going forward.
Coming up: Thoughts on “repeal vs. break it up/amend it”, Virginia’s updates on the constitutionality of the Commerce Clause, and entitlement reform (Medicare/Medicaid).
Photo by Darren Shaw.