Sen. Bingaman: You Lie!

In case you missed it, New Mexico Sen. Jeff Bingaman recently defended the health care bill that Congress passed in an Albuquerque Journal piece entitled “Health Reform will Benefit New Mexico.” Unfortunately, Bingaman seems ignorant of the bill’s real impacts to the point where he repeats the untrue assertion that “New Mexicans who like the insurance coverage they have can continue to purchase the same insurance in the same way.”

Well, apparently Bingaman doesn’t know that the bill will have dramatic, negative consequences on Health Savings Accounts. As an owner of one of these “consumer driven health care policies,” I know better. The folks at the Heritage Foundation provide a more thorough analysis of the Bill’s impact on HSA’s here. According to Heritage:

The Obamacare law limits these consumer-controlled accounts in two ways: it restricts the types of health products you can purchase with your HSA money, and it reduces the amount of money you’ll be able to put into your FSA.

Unsurprisingly, there’s a price hike, too. It doubles—to a whopping 20 percent—the tax penalty for withdrawing HSA funds to cover non-medical expenses.

That hardly sounds like “same insurance in the same way.” Of course, Bingaman’s entire article is full of lies like “the new law more than pays for itself.” That is simply not the case, even if we assume that Congress will make the future cuts necessary to achieve the assumptions laid out in the legislation.

As a member of the Senate Finance Committee, Bingaman is fully aware that this health care legislation is going to drive America into deeper deficits and increase health care costs for average Americans. Unfortunately, to Jeff Bingaman, the truth about health care reform is worth covering up.