What health care reform means for you
Ok, like wow. I am still surprised that the health care reform bill got passed. The debate was so intense between the Democrats and Republicans. And here we are, with it approved in Congress.
Here are some links explaining what it means for you and your money:
1) Washingtonpost.com has an awesome interactive graphic that lets your plug in your information to see how health care reform impacts you. Yay newspapers! 
2) 10 immediate benefits of health care reform.
3) How some health care premiums may change.
4) Information on the student loan reform vote that piggy backed on the health reform bill and passed in the House.
Whew! So what do you think? Yay for nay for health care reform? Do you have health care? What about student loans?
4 Responses to What health care reform means for you
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I love it – of course I make less than 88K and buy my own healthcare. I’ve also been in ER triage awaiting stitches behind people with conditions like, a cough, a stomach ache and an itchy spot one’s back (I couldn’t make this up.)
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This is awful. I make less than 37K, currently owe over a thousand dollars in deductibles for just the last few months, and have a chronic, albeit thankfully fairly benign disease that requires medication and monitoring. Even so, I would rather have NO health insurance than have the government manage it. Why?
-The money-pool is finite. Some people will be turned away. Given the historic inefficiency of bureaucracy (think DMV), this will mean that life-saving procedures will have to be administered through the same kind of system that requires half an hour and $125 dollars just to put a couple of stickers on your license plate. I have a relative in Norway (which has a socialist health-care system) who tried three different times to get a hip operation. She was actually told she had to leave again while laying on the operating table!
-Speaking of money, government healthcare is going to cost a lot. That extra money has to come from the taxpayers.
-Opportunity cost to employers and businesses means that the money spent on healthcare will pinch other parts of the economy. Prices in other areas will go up.
-This is constitutional rape. The majority of Americans and the American states have loudly cried out against this, but still it was passed by those who claim to represent us. They think the ends justify the means. Where does such reasoning stop?
-Did you know that you can go to jail for not buying federally mandated health insurance? That’s right; it’s now a crime to not buy health insurance. You must be protected from yourself.By the way Coco, the reason you had to sit behind people with itchy spots and tummy-aches is because the health industry and healthy insurance industry are mired in red tape and separated from consumers such as yourself. I know exactly what you mean! It took me years and years and thousands of wasted dollars before I could finally figure out what my condition was, because my doctor wasn’t comfortable doing anything except pelvic exams, and she wanted to make sure her butt was covered. We had to do every expensive and unecessary test before moving on to what it really was, and if I requested to move on to the next test after returning from school, she insisted that too much time had passed and that we needed to start from square one because it was “standard procedure,” and we “just had to make sure.” She would have been checking my ovaries for cysts until I developed breast cancer or osteoporosis.
So the answer is tort reform; we need a better healthcare system…not a more bureaucratic one.
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Thanks so much for posting these useful links.
I’m very happy the healthcare bill passed. I am lucky enough to be in an awesome union with good healthcare benefits, so it won’t affect me personally. But I feel so bad for people who suffer health problems, and then risk financial ruin because of it.
Right now we have a close friend who went into a coma after having a baby. She and her husband are in a union, but if they didn’t have good health care, the expenses would cause them to be in debt for the rest of their lives.
There is a big misconception that this healthcare is somehow “government run.” That is not the case. The public option part isn’t even in the bill. This bill tells insurance companies they can’t deny people based on pre-existing conditions, etc. It doesn’t turn everything over to the government. That is a misunderstanding.
It is also not the case that the majority of people didn’t want the bill to pass. That depends on what data you look at. When people started being skeptical due to the fear tactics that were used- making people think it would be turned over to a government agency, for example, or the use of “death panels,” then it became more unpopular. But when it is asked as a general question about wanting the health care problem to be solved, an overwhelming majority of the public is in favor. And again, I think they will be happy with it when they understand what’s really in it, especially when it helps the majority of Americans.
It was a very vocal minority that was against this bill, and in my opinion they didn’t even understand it, because it will actually help most of them.
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Yes, that’s right; healthcare is technically only about extending coverage for “kids” up to age 26, and forcing insurance companies to cover children with preexisting conditions, at this point; but it’s going to change, just as Social Security, originally conceived in 1934 as an optional savings plan for the someday-to-be-elderly, has now become an expensive and unsustainable drain that barely keeps above water the heads of those few who receive back any of the money they’ve been forced to pay since they started working as 14 year olds. Healthcare will be the same; insurance companies are going to go out of business, and government will have to step in with a public option to meet the mandates of its own bill. Even if some of the companies are able to remain in business, it won’t matter, because the demand for health-insurance (everyone who doesn’t want to be punished by law is going to have a “demand” for health-insurance after 2014, whether they actually want it or not) will be too high to meet the supply, which is already being cut by the new law, because of the new demands on health insurance companies. This is just basic economics, and it can’t be circumvented by legislation. Imagine a graph with a demand curve extending from the top left corner to the bottom right corner, and a supply curve extending from the bottom left corner to the top right corner. the point at which they cross is the “equilibrium” point, which is what the price for the product is. At this point in healthcare, the demand curve has shifted right, but the supply curve has shifted left, because of the higher costs imposed on the healthcare and insurance industry. This means costs are going up, and they’re going somewhere! So, the public option is eventually inevitable under this plan. And it’s not going to be pretty, as we can see from Canada, where a pregnant woman was flown to Montana to have a baby because their none of their hospitals had room, and Norway and Sweden. It’s too bad; it’s an awful step in American history, and it’s going to change the face of our society and our national psyche in highly regrettable ways.
Now, do I think insurance companies are wonderful, philanthropic organizations that are doing their absolute best for their customers? No! Do I think people with preexisting conditions should have no insurance options? No! Do I want children with preexisting conditions to die? Of course not! And neither do any of the people who oppose the healthcare bill. That is just nonsense. We oppose it because it is going to make a bad problem worse. What needs to change is the economic way these needs are met. Changing the laws to say “you have to provide this and this” is going to do nothing, because if it were economically feasible for the companies to do so, they would already be doing it.
I’m really not trying to be contentious with anyone here. But I think it’s absolutely vital that American citizens know what we’re getting into, because it’s going to change our futures drastically. Thank you for letting us post, Natalie…I’ll stop clogging up your comments here!P.S. Rasmusson: 54% of voters oppose health care. Numbers haven’t budged in months. Only 17% think the plan will lower cost of health care. Definitely not enough of a margin to justify our representatives voting for the thing! http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare/september_2009/health_care_reform
Coco