(Washington, D.C.) – The Council Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW), the nation’s premier taxpayer watchdog lobbying group, yesterday began blasting an e-mail action alert to more than 100,000 of its members and supporters across the country, urging them to contact their member of Congress to express opposition to H.R. 3962, the 1990-page, $1 trillion Pelosi House healthcare reform bill, which may be voted on this week.  The alert reads, in part: 

“Quite frankly, America cannot afford even the minimum price tag for Speaker Pelosi’s healthcare scheme when the federal deficit stands at an all-time record and the national debt is projected to nearly double over the next 10 years.  What’s more, President Obama has said that his healthcare ‘reform’ will cut costs in the long run, but CBO’s preliminary analysis of H.R. 3962 found that the bill would bend the federal cost curve for healthcare UP, not down.

“H.R. 3962 would also inflict a whole host of new taxes and costly mandates on individuals and businesses as American families struggle to make ends meet and unemployment approaches double digits.

“For example, the bill would impose an individual mandate tax of up to 2.5 percent of income on individuals earning as little as $9,350 who do not purchase ‘acceptable health care coverage.’  The National Federation of Independent Business estimates that the employer mandate in H.R. 3962 will disproportionately affect small businesses, triggering up to 1.6 million lost jobs.  The direct impact on families of all the new rules, regulations, and tax increases will be an additional $500 per year in the cost of insurance. 

“H.R. 3962 creates 111 new federal boards, bureaucracies, commissions, and programs.  It also expands Medicaid to all individuals with incomes below 150 percent of the federal poverty level, an estimated 10 million Americans.

“President Obama has repeatedly vowed that ‘if you like your health plan, you can keep it,’ but the so-called ‘public health insurance option’ that Speaker Pelosi included in her bill at the urging of her pro-socialized medicine backers will quickly undermine private insurance by undercutting its costs.  A study earlier this year by The Lewin Group, a respected economics consulting firm, projected that 83.4 million Americans would lose the private coverage they have today if a ‘public option’ becomes law.

“Make no mistake.  With these cuts to Medicare coming as the Baby Boomers are retiring and the program is facing bankruptcy in just seven years, seniors will be the first to experience rationing and a decline in their quality of care!”

CCAGW is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste, the nation’s largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.