Health care bill: very imperfect, yet very needed

There are a lot of things wrong with the 2009/10 version of Health Care reform The process was horrific: backroom deals for votes in exchange for “favors”, a glaring absence of tort reform, no true drug pricing pressure, and it's still unclear whether insurance companies will acually have to truly compete. A complete lack of bi-partisanship on the bill is partially to blame for all thes failures and why the more meaty issues were left unaddressed-moving for an employer based system to a consumer driven one, shifting towards bundling as a pricing model, etc.
However, nothing is so wrong with this version of Health Care reform that would make it preferableto doing nothing, The status quo guarantees, $35+trillion in additional povermment debt in the coming decades due to shortfalls, in Medicare and Medicaid. The status quo guarantees that many more small businesses will have to shutter and larger enterprises will accelerate their movement of jobs overseas. Perhaps worst of all, the status quo guarantees to continue to devastate the lives of millions of Americans and thousands of families in Southern Ohio. With mounting job losses and growing job insecurity, families are increasingly going without coverage, without care of any kind, hoping that things somehow wourk out, Unfortunanely hope is not an effective strategy and the leading caus of bankruptcies in America (medical bills) will only cast a larger shadow.
This 09/10 version of reform is just the larest in a ling line-Nixton,Carter & Clinton all tried, and failed.In that time, insurance premiums for families and businesses have only skyrocketed. We must act now to reform the system. This bill is certainly not perfect. I've gone on the record with my perference for the bipartisan Wyden-Bennett Jealthy Americans Ace. Unfortunately, that bill did not receive the support ending discrimination based on pre-esisting conditions, creating insurance exchanges, and mist importantly, a lot of experiments and pilot probrams to work on cutting cost. This bill isn't perfect, but given that inaction will bankrupt American, close more American businesses, and continue to devastate American families allready incrisis- we must act now to do what we can

Por favor, vote el día de elecciones! Su voto es muy importante! -

Chili

Why do you think your over-sized federal government is allowed by the Constitution to force citizens to buy anything? Are you a progressive as the people who wrote this oppressive legislation? This legislation was authored by the insurance companies. They love it. More obligatory members. This type of government is moving us into a New World Order as promised by Bush (41). Our Congress and President are pimps for the Bankters. Recognize the enemy from within.

Larry

I always find it interesting to read what people have to say about how they will fix the health care situation. I am a pediatrician, and I believe one of the factors that few address is the issue of malpractice insurance and the amount of ridiculous suits against physicians. One of the reasons that health care costs so much is that we have to be able to generate enough income to offset the ever-growing costs of maintaining liability coverage. If suing can be contained to appropriate cases, premiums of liability insurance would hopefully come down, physicians could charge less of the their services, and then the costs could trickle down from there.

Christine – I agree completely. I believe strongly fundamental, true tort
reform (along with Rx negotiation) are critical and should be immediately
initiated with the next session of Congress. I haven’t taken a penny from
the Rx Pacs or trial attorneys. I’m free to do what makes common sense.
That’s this. Surya

The bill does not “Force ” you to buy anything. It simply charges you through increased tax if you don’t get insurance of some kind. Why shoud we who have insurance and pay or taxes have to pay for those who don’t get insurance then file bankrupcy when the medical bills roll in. Those unpaid bills go right back into the cost born by the insurance and in return by those who do the responsibel thing and get insured to start with. The bill was needed!