IBD: Individual Private Health Insurance Illegal Under House Bill

This post proves the point, as if it even needs to be proven, that you have to go to the editorial pages of publications like the Wall Street Journal and Investors Business Daily to get your news when leftists are in control of the government.

When the topic is statist health care, that's doubly true.

IBDeditorials.com got to Page 16 of the House's health care bill, did the investigative work the establishment media was either too lazy to do -- or worse, other outlets did the work and didn't think readers should know what IBD found.

Yesterday afternoon, IBD laid the following bombshell on its readers (HT to dscott; I also heard Rush mention this a short time ago; bolds after title are mine):

It's Not An Option

Congress: It didn't take long to run into an "uh-oh" moment when reading the House's "health care for all Americans" bill. Right there on Page 16 is a provision making individual private medical insurance illegal.

When we first saw the paragraph Tuesday, just after the 1,018-page document was released, we thought we surely must be misreading it. So we sought help from the House Ways and Means Committee.

It turns out we were right: The provision would indeed outlaw individual private coverage.Under the Orwellian header of "Protecting The Choice To Keep Current Coverage," the "Limitation On New Enrollment" section of the bill clearly states:

"Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day" of the year the legislation becomes law.

So we can all keep our coverage, just as promised — with, of course, exceptions: Those who currently have private individual coverage won't be able to change it. Nor will those who leave a company to work for themselves be free to buy individual plans from private carriers.

From the beginning, opponents of the public option plan have warned that if the government gets into the business of offering subsidized health insurance coverage, the private insurance market will wither.

..... What wasn't known until now is that the bill itself will kill the market for private individual coverage by not letting any new policies be written after the public option becomes law.

..... The public option won't be an option for many, but rather a mandate for buying government care. A free people should be outraged at this advance of soft tyranny.

As I commented to dscott earlier today, "So Obama’s definition of a 'level playing field' is one where his private competitors can’t get any new customers."

The fact that little old IBD (no offense, guys, but I know your resources are relatively thin) had to find and investigate all of this on its own should be a cause for shame in every major newsroom in America. More than likely, it is not.

Yes, the House bill writers really tried to obfuscate their handiwork. It's very easy to breeze over "does not" without realizing that it really means "cannot." But IBD caught it, and hundreds of other supposed "real journalists" did not.

Here is all of what the Associated Press had to say about health care legislation at 2:37 this afternoon (saved here at host):

The overall House bill, which would cover around 94 percent of non-elderly residents, would create a government-run plan to compete with private insurers, require individuals to get insurance and large companies to provide it and tax the wealthiest Americans.

..... The Senate health panel's $615 billion measure would require individuals to get health insurance and employers to contribute to the cost. The bill calls for the government to provide financial assistance with premiums for individuals and families making up to four times the federal poverty level, or about $88,000 for a family of four, a broad cross-section of the middle class.

I guess the end of new individual private insurance wasn't that important.

Somebody at the AP, AFP, Reuters, other wires, the New York Times, the Washington Post, all major newspapers, the alphabet news channels (including Fox in this case), and so many other self-important establishment media outlets needs to explain to the public they supposedly serve why they didn't detect and investigate what IBD found.

They can't. Consumers of meaningful news, be advised. If you're not reading IBD's and WSJ's editorials, there's a high chance you're not truly informed. If you rely on the rest of the establishment media, there's a high chance you're misinformed.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.