Quote:
Originally Posted by PBO
I don't have a clear understanding of where US health care was & is being taken too
Can someone give me the abridged version so I can avoid hours of research?
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The new bill does several things in attempt to solve the problems below, however its fair to say the bill prioritizes increased coverage rather than decreasing costs. Both probably will occur, but its debatable how much and by when. No one actually knows for sure, and anyone who says otherwise is FOS.
Pre-existing exclusions are banned, as is recision and lifetime caps. However, this obviously creates a huge new cost for ins companies if they have to actually pay for people who get sick.
So, the Bill mandates that taxpayers purchase or recieve some sort of HC Ins from a private company. The idea is to bring more people into the pool, and defer the risk across a larger pool, so premiums will not have to rise to cover the new costs. Many uninsured are low risk young people with little medical expenses.
To help some low income people afford the insurance, the govt will provide needs based subsidies to buy the ins. There are tax fines of 2% of income if no policy is held. Very poor are just put into medicaid.
To pay for the subsidies, the Bill cuts some Federal programs, as well as raise taxes on some medical industries, as well some wealthy people. Some very high cost employer provided health plans are taxed (they are currently tax exempt.)
Other things in the bill as well, but not worth mentioning here.
Much of these provisions will roll-out over time, with most provisions in effect by 2014.
Ironically, the system that was signed into law was modelled after conservative Republican plans that were offered in the 90's as an alternative to Clinton's health reform plan, and a plan enacted by a Republican governor in the state of Massachusetts in the Naughties.
Conservatives generally oppose the plan enacted by Obama and the Democrats, typically based on the mandated insurance requirement.
Many liberal Democrats were upset with (but in the end voted for) the plan, and favored direct buy-ins to the govt run health programs of Medicare, or some combination of a nationalized health service that cut out the Insurance Company middlemen entirely.
In the end, no one got what they really wanted, but the plan was mostly forced by strict Republican opposition, and a handful of centrist Democratic Senators who were against expansion of govt into the Health Insurance sector. Much of the language, politics and dispersions on radio and opinion news has been vitrolic and anger filled.
However, most polls show a slight majority in favor of the new legislation, which trending towards increased support of the reforms.
You can make your own judgements of the quality of our system and reforms.
Beyond that, I don't really want to get involved in this thread as the whole issue has been a flamefest in this country for over a year, and this is destined to become one of
those threads that we were asked not to start up again by Mike.
Calling each other Communists, Baby Killers, House Negroes, Liars, Sell Outs, Elitists, etc gets tiresome after a year and there is no likely way the law is going to change anytime soon.