As a kid growing up in Topeka and then Holton, my mom and dad always told me it wasn’t polite to say, “I told you so.”

This time, I am going to break my folk’s rule.

It’s been three months since the new health care reform bill, called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), was signed into law. As academics and the media carefully study the 900 page bill, we’re learning that many of the promises made to the American people by the President and the Majority are already unraveling.

The President promised Americans that “if you like your insurance plan, you can keep it.” Well, not exactly. Under regulations proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services to implement the new law, more than 51 percent of American workers could lose the plans they currently have.

By the Administration’s own estimates, small businesses are especially affected - as many as 80 percent would not be able to continue to offer the plans they currently have. For many Kansans, this means their employer will drop their coverage altogether. Others will be forced to purchase a more expensive plan that complies with all of the new government mandates.

Either way, my fear that you won’t be able to keep the plan you like is being confirmed.

The President promised Americans that their Medicare benefits won’t change. However, the PPACA cuts over half a trillion dollars from Medicare, with over $100 billion cut from Medicare Advantage alone.

Despite claims from Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius that Medicare will remain “strong and solvent,” her own actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) has reported that PPACA’s cuts to Medicare could jeopardize access for seniors, saying that doctors who see a large percentage of Medicare patients “could find it difficult to remain profitable and...might end their participation in the program.”

For these seniors, their Medicare benefits most certainly will change.

Promises made to sick people unable to obtain insurance are also falling through. The law provides funding for increasing the size of state high risk pools where those with pre-existing conditions can obtain insurance until insurance companies must accept all patients in 2014. The Congressional Budget Office has said this effort will only provide health insurance for 200,000 people which is, by some estimates, about the number of uninsured in the State of Kansas alone. Out of concern these federal funds will dry up, the State of Kansas has limited new entrants into our high risk pool to just 25 per month. Experts predict these funds could run out in two years. Nineteen states have declined to participate at all.

Finally, the President promised Americans that the government won’t ration health care. But now President Obama has nominated Dr. Donald Berwick, a known advocate for government rationing of health care, to head CMS.

Recently Leader McConnell, Dr. Barrasso and I engaged in a conversation on the Senate floor speaking out against this nomination. The White House response to our discussion was telling:

“The fact is, rationing is rampant in the system today, as insurers make arbitrary decisions about who can get the care they need. Don Berwick wants to see a system in which those decisions are transparent – and that the people who make them are held accountable.”

So the government will, in fact, ration your health care. Transparently.

The media and the Administration are finally realizing what the majority of Americans and I knew all along: contrary to the President’s promises, this bill is a takeover of the American health care system. It will not improve health care in America. In fact, it will likely make it worse. Given the consequences for our country, being able to say to the Administration that “I told you so” is not a very satisfying feeling.

We ought to repeal this bill and replace it with a plan that would actually lower health care costs for all families, and protect patients and doctors from government interference into their most personal health care decisions.

-30-