MYTH: If you like your health insurance, you can keep it
FACT: If you like your health insurance, you may LOSE it

May 5, 2010

Dear Colleague:

I wanted to make sure you saw the Fortune magazine blockbuster report showing that major US companies are recognizing the extraordinary risk of continuing to provide health benefits for their workers under the recently passed health law.

It finds "many companies are examining a course that was heretofore unthinkable, dumping the health care coverage they provide to their workers in exchange for paying penalty fees to the government."

If this happens -and there is every incentive for it to - the costs of the health law would skyrocket, and tens of millions would lose their employer-provided plans. This will send fear into the hearts of working Americans who have been promised if they like their current health insurance coverage, they can keep it.

Stability may not be an option. The costs of the fines, penalties, mandates, and risk under the new law are significant but not as great as the skyrocketing cost of maintaining their employee’s coverage.

These revelations came by way of an ill-fated Energy and Commerce Committee investigation, in which Democrats wanted to scold companies for revising their SEC filings. Democrats requested and received 1,100 pages of documents and quickly cancelled the hearing because the documents revealed what the rest of America knew. Clearly they did not want the full story to be told.

The health care law made retiree benefits more expensive. The SEC required that these new costs be disclosed. Democrats cried foul, even though they were warned in advanced.

The documents obtained also show the companies analyzed the impact of the law and the conclusions are undeniable: It is cheaper to pay the fines for not providing coverage than to continue to provide it.

This process has done a great service to the country. While the bill is law, the debate hasn’t stopped. It is imperative that we continue to keep the pressure on the Majority and the Administration to answer to the severe harm their legislation is already having on the American taxpayer and worker.

I encourage you to visit the Energy and Commerce Committee’s minority website to learn about just one of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s many devastating consequences: http://bit.ly/9VBmjQ.

Sincerely,

Michael Burgess, M.D.
Member of Congress

To view the Dear Colleague,click here.

To view the video of Rep. Burgess discussing this on the House floor, click here.

**For more information on my work on health care, please visit www.healthcaucus.org.