The House Health Bill: Energy and Commerce Amendments

Robert Moffit / August 10, 2009

The House Energy and Commerce Committee was the last to mark up their health care bill, but the decisions in Energy and Commerce mirrored those of the Education and Labor and Ways and Means sessions. In every case,members of Congress have already gone on record in deciding the most contentious issues in the debate.Taxpayers should take note of several key decisions that the Energy and Commerce Committee members made:

Gutting Consumer Choice: (Stearns #9, Rogers and Gingrey #10) The President and his congressional allies routinely insist that if Americans like the health insurance that they currently have, they can keep it. But the simple fact is that this is a presidential promise that will not be kept if the House bill, in its current form, is signed into law. Under the House bill, the federal government is authorized to determine what health benefits must be included in Americans’ health insurance plans and federal officials will determine the health plans that would be considered “acceptable” coverage under the law. (more…)