Passes Burden of Health Care Costs to the Illiterate and Poor

The recently passed House version of health care (H.R. 3962) will cut Medicare for seniors, increase profits for insurance companies and impose a cost burden on the poorest and illiterate citizens

The Congressonal Budget Office (CBO) estimates the Act's net cost at $894 billion over 10 years. However, those net costs would be offset by the combination of other spending changes, which CBO estimates would save $426 billion, and receipts resulting from the income tax surcharge on high-income individuals and other provisions, which JCT and CBO estimate would increase federal revenues by $572 billion over that period.

However, some savings come from cuts in Medicare. The American Health Care Associaton (AHCA), reports that the Act includes $23.9 billion in Medicare cuts and when combined with the $12 billion in cuts that went into effect on October 1, makes Medicare unsustainable and therefore detrimental to the nation's seniors.

Some income is expected to come from requiring the uninsured to purchase overage insurance and imposing penalties on the most illiterate and underpaid of the Nations citizens who cannot afford coverage. According to the National Coalition on Health Care, "it is conceivable that by next year, 57 to 60 million Americans will be uninsured."

Like far too many legislative acts, H.R. 3962 falls most heavily on the poor and illiterate who are essentially disenfranchised from the political process. It is that group that will be victimized by health care reform if the provision requiring people to purchase insurance eventually becomes law without a competitive public option to keep prices low.

According to the National Right to Read Foundation, 42 million adult Americans can not read and 50 million can only read at the 4th or 5th grade level. Further, one out of every four teenagers drops out of high school, and of those who graduate, one out of every four has the equivalent or less than an eighth grade education. Further, the number of functionally illiterate adults is increasing by approximately two and one quarter million persons each year. This number includes nearly 1 million young people who drop out of school before graduation, 400,000 legal immigrants, 100,000 refugees, and 800,000 illegal immigrants, and 20 percent of all high school graduates.

An additional 237 billion dollars a year in unrealized earnings is forfeited by people who lack such basic reading skills, according to Literacy Volunteers of America. These are the people, who cannot afford insurance now, and who will be forced to purchase insurance from the private sector under H.R. 3962. Forcing the poor and illiterate to purchase health care, under penalty of law, is unconscionable.