[Finnster]

IDK about this.. what they are really trying to do is have all the healthy people buy insurance to enlarge the money pool to expand the coverage for everyone. If you want to eliminate practices such as "lifetime payment caps" and "pre-existing condition exclusions," etc (ie ways for the insurance companies not to pay for you if you need major care) and not jack up rates a bunch, you have to bring more people into the pool to distribute the costs.
Ins companies made up those terms to save money, as paying for major care is really expensive.

In personal terms, I know my uncle had his thriving small business destroyed after he had a heart attack. It was just personal insurance, so they dropped him right after he got out of the hospital. No other ins company would cover him or the heart condit (pre-existing) and he had to layoff people, sell equip, and take money out of the biz just to cover angioplasties, stints and other care. He had quite a bit of $ to start with, but he was nearly bankrupt in a few years. He spent 100's of thousands out of pocket. His docs managed to get him onto Medicaid via disability after a number of years, but he had lost his business then. Gov't ins is the only one who would ever cover his ass now (esp after cancer and other crap that came.)
I can't see how this system is at all good for small business or anyone else not under large group care.

What's more F'd up is that people pay into ins companies as long as they are well, then get dropped as soon as they get older and really ill. The gov't (ie us taxpayers) then get stuck paying for all the most expensive medical care while the ins companies spend all their youth just collecting premiums for major profits.
No one will win advocating throwing granny out of the hospital and try to let her pay for 100's of $K's of cancer treatments on a tiny pension, so what do you do?

There needs to be tort reform as well, but doctors have huge incentives to just rack up tests and collect bills. I've been in the hospital several times and seen where Drs (not even yours) just come by to ask to see how the patient is, then charge them $400 for a Dr's visit/consultation.
They really need to address this issue of cost controls in any reform. If they just pass a Ins req w/o cutting costs, subsidize poor who can't afford it, we're just going to see a huge funneling of tax $ into the Ins companies.

I don't mind the Ins req to make the freeloaders pay their fair share into the system, but they better get good cost controls and new incentive structures in there. Ins companies can make their profits by increased volume, not by increased margins.