I’ve been reading HR 3200 as much as possible. I’m not quite ready yet to put together a final take on it, but I am starting to get concerned about how Medicare is being changed in the proposed legislation.

I want to read it through again to make sure I’m putting it together correctly, but right now it seems to me that reimbursements under Medicare are going to be limited/cut significantly and I suspect that this is where the Democrats are trying to find some money to pay for the expansion of health care benefits to those now uninsured.

It may take me another day or two to finish reading this monstrosity through and put it all together. I’m stopping about every 2 or 3 pages and writing notes, and that takes a longtime to do.

I also see where there is this Health Insurance Exchange where private insurance is supposed to “compete” with the public option. But how does a private entity “compete” against an entity that can use the public check book to eat it’s losses?

Oh and there is a provision providing for the auditing at will of the private plans by the government…and the private plan has to reimburse the government for the cost.