Here’s the press release from the 16th District Congressman:

Manzullo: “This is Not the Health Care Reform Americans Deserve”
Congressman to Oppose President’s Job-Killing Bill, Support Effective Alternatives

WASHINGTON – Congressman Don Manzullo today said the President’s $1 Trillion health care bill is a job-killing disaster that will slap Americans with massive tax increases and Medicare cuts immediately while delaying the bulk of the health care benefits until 2014. He will vote against the bill if it comes up for a vote today and support bipartisan alternatives that would make health care more affordable and accessible to the uninsured without having to wait 4 years for benefits.

Manzullo said the President’s bill is a massive government takeover of health care that would:

• Increase taxes on Americans by $569 billion.
• Cut Medicare benefits for seniors by $530 billion.
• Increase Americans’ health insurance premiums $2,100 by 2014, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.
• Put another 3 to 5 million Americans on the unemployment lines due to the heavy mandates that require employers to provide health care coverage to their employees and families whether they can afford it or not.
• Require the IRS to hire up to 16,500 additional workers to enforce all the new tax penalties on Americans who can’t afford to purchase health insurance.
• Make Americans wait until 2014 to receive the bulk of the benefits. In fact, the ban on pre-existing conditions doesn’t kick in until 2014 for adults.
• Put another 15 million Americans on Medicaid, a struggling program that pays such low reimbursement rates that 121 Walgreens stores in Washington announced last week they would no longer accept Medicaid for prescriptions.

Burden states with additional Medicaid share costs. The State of Illinois, already facing a $12 billion budget deficit with plans to cut $1.3 billion from local school funding, would have to pay $1.8 billion in additional Medicaid sharing costs to cover the additional enrollments.
Create a new 2.9 percent tax on life-saving medical devices.

Don Manzullo at his Town Hall Meeting on Health Care at McHenry County College.

“This bill is a disaster that will increase taxes, cut Medicare, raise health care premiums, and put millions more Americans on the unemployment lines. And amazingly, most of the benefits – including the ban on pre-existing conditions for adults – won’t be available for another 4 years,” Manzullo said.

“This bill is a hoax on the American people, and is certainly not the type of health care reform Americans deserve.

“We should instead be pursuing the bipartisan reforms that would make health care more affordable and accessible to Americans, and not make them wait 4 years for assistance.”

The former Chairman of the House Small Business Committee, Manzullo has long supported legislation that would help small employers purchase health insurance for their employees and their families. Of the 47 million uninsured Americans, 57 percent work for small employers who cant afford to offer them health insurance. The following two bills would go a long way to reduce the number of uninsured in America:

• HR 2360, the Small Business Health Options Program Act of 2009 (SHOP Act), would allow small employers to purchase health insurance at reduced group rates through national associations while still following state rules. Manzullo is one of 60 bipartisan cosponsors of HR 2360, which also enjoys support from the liberal Service Employees International Union (SEIU), AARP, and the conservative National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB). A companion bill in the Senate was authored by U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and enjoys similar bipartisan support.
• HR 1470, the Equity for Our Nation’s Self-Employed Act of 2009, would let small employers deduct their health insurance costs from their Social Security and Medicare tax liabilities, giving them the same deduction as large employers. The self-employed pay on average $12,106 annually for family health care coverage, and H.R. 1470 would save them $1,852 a year, according to the Kaiser Foundation. Manzullo is one of 48 bipartisan co-sponsors of HR 1470.

“These bills would dramatically reduce the costs of health insurance for small employers so they can better afford to provide coverage for their employees and their families. And they will reduce the rolls of the uninsured without increasing taxes, killing jobs, forcing Americans into a government-run program, and burdening our children and grandchildren with even more debt,” Manzullo added.

Manzullo also supports the following additional changes to America’s health care system:

1. Reforming our out-of-control medical liability system – Medical malpractice insurance continues to surge, skyrocketing health care costs and forcing doctors and other medical professionals to practice “defensive medicine,” which entails ordering costly and often unnecessary tests to cover all the bases from lawsuits. Manzullo is a cosponsor of the HEALTH Act (H.R. 1086) that would fully compensate victims for medical injuries but place reasonable caps on punitive and non-economic damages that often inflate the awards and contribute to out-of-control liability and health care costs.
2. Expanding tax-free availability to Health Savings Accounts — HSAs allow small business owners to offer more affordable high-deductible health insurance plans to their employees and make tax-deductible contributions to employee savings accounts to allow their employees to build equity and assume personal control of their health care needs. Congress should increase the tax deductibility for these insurance plans.
3. Preserving high-quality health care through America’s community health clinics – Manzullo supports continued funding of our community health clinic system, which provides high-quality health care to America’s low-income families. Manzullo has been a strong supporter of Rockford’s Crusader Clinic, which serves more than 40,000 needy patients in northern Illinois each year.
4. Creating refundable tax credits to help low-income Americans purchase health insurance – Low-income children are already covered through the federal SCHIP program, and Manzullo supports refundable tax credits to help low-income adults purchase health insurance.