Congressman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) was in Houston last week to participate in a national program to end the Energy moratorium, or as he said “To put a face on the impact that the moratorium has had.” Before that meeting, he took time to meet with a group of lawyers, healthcare specialists and business folks to talk about healthcare and what it means to us.
I was especially intrigued with his diagram of the new healthcare system, a graphic representation of the 2500 pages of legislation passed by Congress this year. You can download the diagram to see more detail. The chart, developed by the staff of the joint economic committee of Congress is a graphic representation of the bill “page by page” and “section by section”. Look closely at the chart and you can see on each line the actual section of the law that it represents.
It is incredibly complex and as I listened to the congressman, I was wondering how big an impact this law will have on the construction industry. One thing I know right now is that the healthcare industry is like the guy who has one foot on the dock and one foot on the boat, not very certain which way to step. The existing reporting and support systems will be replaced by a massive new system that will essentially transform the way we get our healthcare in this country.
For construction companies, owners and ultimately for all of us, the impact will be higher insurance and healthcare costs, a shortage of qualified doctors to take care of the additional 30 million new patients being added to the roles and even more uncertainty in the costs of our day to day business operations. A scary proposition given the economic condition we are in today.
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