Watched it live as it happened. I think I'll move to Suriname.
Because...? The US is pretty much the last Western country without a health care insurance available to every citizen. I must say that I (along with many other Europeans, it seems) have a very hard time understanding why so many people seem to be against Obama's health care bill. What is so bad about it? What is so bad about not being completely in the hands of Eli Lily & Co?
For me, it's because there is no public option, which would be the government offering an option to buy health insurance from them. Instead, we will be forced to buy health insurance from one of the health insurance companies, who have had no limits placed on what they can charge for their policies, or we will have to pay a fine of 2.5% of our annual income or up to $695, whichever is larger. Also, they will not have to cover adults with pre-existing conditions for another four years and they will not have to cover children with pre-existing conditions for six months, although the fines for not buying health insurance start right away. Because of this bill, health insurance companies' stocks have risen significantly, even though they have fought the new regulations that will be placed on them tooth and nail because they don't want to be forced to cover people with pre-existing conditions.
So you'll be forced into their hands? That fine, if you don't buy from a health care company, will it just be a punishment or will it actually cover something?
This is fucked up.
The fine would just be a punishment and it would not pay for health insurance.
For me personally, right now we have health insurance through my husband's employer, so I think we will have health insurance and we won't have to pay a fine.
Several years ago, my husband lost his job which had health insurance that covered us, so we paid the COBRA coverage for the eighteen months we were able to do it, then we were unable to find private health insurance that would cover our daughter. Eventually, we discovered that we were entitled to purchase "continuation coverage" from the same insurance company we had paid the COBRA to, because they offered such a policy and could not turn us down. If we were in such a situation again, perhaps the fact that insurance companies can't exclude children from coverage due to pre-existing conditions after six months pass would be helpful to us, but if they can charge any price they want for this coverage, perhaps we would be unable to pay it anyway. If this happens, then we would have to pay a fine, which I think is completely ridiculous.
There is a dwarf famiily on television here, the Roloffs. The parents and one of their children are dwarfs and they can't buy health insurance because they have pre-existing conditions and the dad is self-employed. However, they pay out of pocket for their medical expenses. Under the new law, they will have to purchase health insurance somehow or else they would be fined. Perhaps some high risk pools will be set up so they can actually buy coverage that will cover the parents as well as their chilldren, but health insurance companies won't have to cover adults with pre-existing conditions for another four years. Why should they be forced to buy something that won't even cover their pre-existing conditions?
What I wanted was nationalized health care that would put health insurance companies out of business, but this is not what we have.