Finally, the health care bill has been passed. I have mixed feelings about it myself. Mostly I think it’s a good thing but we all know Congress can take the simplest thing and make something ridiculously complicated of it so when they start out with something as complicated as insurance it’s more than a little scary to think about what we might get stuck with. Like most acts of Congress, the health care bill will have both good effects and bad effects and people who were against it will see only the bad and people who were for it will insist that the bad isn’t all that bad.
It’s a huge bill and I don’t know any more about it than any of the people out there who are absolutely certain that they know either that it’s a terrible, terrible thing or that it’s A Great Day For America. Two things I know that I don’t like about it – one, there’s no public option and two, that everyone will be required by law to buy insurance. This will turn a lot of ordinary citizens into criminals and give the government one more thing to have to spend money and effort on enforcing. Allegedly there will be assistance for people who cannot afford to buy insurance but what the government thinks people can afford and what they can actually afford are usually far, far apart.
The main good thing about it is that insurance companies will no longer be allowed to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions or cancel policies after people make claims. And it’s about darn time! I can’t believe they’ve been allowed to get away with such behavior for so long. Other than that, I have to admit that I can’t think of any more good points right now. Some “experts” say that this bill will help reduce the deficit but I’m having trouble understanding how. I am also skeptical about the claim that it will make insurance more affordable. It seems to me that it’s more likely to do the opposite.
One other thing that has always bothered me about insurance companies is that they don’t always cover the treatments patients need and care is often dependent on what treatments insurance covers. Treatment should be decided by doctors and their patients, not insurance companies. I don’t know if the bill has done anything about this or not.
But, in spite of my misgivings, I’m still glad it passed. At least they finally did something about health care. This is only a start. There will be fixes, which will be much easier to pass than the original bill. Life will go on and soon we will hardly ever think about this. Someday public health care will be as sacred as Social Security and most of our children and grandchildren will not even be aware that getting it passed in the first place involved such a huge controversy.
EOAAWKI = End Of America As We Know It
