Healthcare Bill passes Senate

[AlP]

As far as I know the bill passed has the mandate.  This might hit my family hard financially.  We aren't adequately insured right now, so I'll have to see what I'll need to change.  We are basically on the edge of most assistance programs and the government subsidies offered, if they are still offered in the version passed, will still take quite a chunk out.  I'm applying for a state plan that helps middle income people right now, but we might not quite qualify.  Since I freelance and own my own business and my monthly income is variable, it all depends on how they calculate my earnings and applying for help is a nightmare.  Jobs are very difficult to find in my area, but depending on costs, I may have to quit freelancing to fit in to the income guidelines or find full time work that can provide health insurance (But I don't know how I'm going to juggle fulltime-work along with a child who may have some kind of behavior disorder along with gifted).  My husbands work was charging an outlandish amount for health insurance so that's why we couldn't afford that.

I don't know yet.  It really all comes down to the math. I've been reading the bill to find out what it means for us, and wondering what else we can cut back on to afford it.  Just one more fire to attend to.

I always had this crazy idea that if went to college and earned my degree I wouldn't have to fight tooth and nail to make it financially.

I'm a little scared.  Just gotta keep going, though.  Maybe something will work out.

It seems they aren't going to start penalizing people for not carrying insurance until 2013, at which point they will increase the penality over a number of years to a total of $750 per year. It looks like there will be credits for people earning less 400% of the Federal Poverty Level. Numbers here.

[Will]

I keep thinking of Bob Dylan lyrics:

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

[Whitney]

This might hit my family hard financially.  

That is what I'm worried about...I already can't really afford health insurance so if whatever they did made it more expensive then I'm worse off than before the 'reform.'  I had health insurance when I was employed but when COBRA ran out it became unaffordable until I get the equivalent of my previous salary again (well more than that since I have debts to pay down too and my prev employer was covering insurance on top of salary).

Health insurance for one person ranges from about 350 to 600 or more a month...my rent in college was 350.  It is insane that I could keep an extra apartment in Oklahoma for the same amount as health insurance esp when I rarely need to go to the doctor because I don't get sick that often and my husband hasn't used his plan at all even though he should at least go in for a check up.  Assuming they don't force us to have to buy health insurance, I've been considering just creating a health savings account since major surgery would bankrupt us even with insurance anyway.

Insurance in general just seems like a huge scam to me...you pay in and odds are you'll pay in more over time than you take out and if you do need a lot of help at some point they try to back out of covering you or what you still have to pay is too much for your budget.

I'm also one of those people who gets denied coverage for pre-existing conditions since I had open heart surgery when I was 2 years old.  I'm otherwise in great health.

AIP, thanks for posting that update (I had already written the above so I'm just going to post it).  I'll be fine by 2013 as far as being able to afford health insurance goes...but others won't; so my comments about if it is somewhat of a scam and what has reform done to help still stand.

[Sheeplauncher]

@templeboy
"Don't try and say the government should stay out of healthcare. Healthcare is one of the main responsibilities of a government, and the US system is simply backwards and needs fixing. If you are not happy with the public option, you pay for the private option. Whether the heavily compromised reform bill achieves enough of what it needs to be achieved is questionable. But the intent behind it is to fix a system which is dreadfully, dreadfully broken, and I fully support Obamas attempt at reform."

I will say though i understand the argument i just think its deeply flawed...

First of all health care is not a legitimate role of government(because of the constitution)....Yes the mentality in Europe and other places is that is but in the USA it is not a fundamental right or anything the government should be involved in because everything the government runs is bankrupt(Amtrak, post office, medicare/medicade ETC) and it is not something the government has the right to regulate:"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." (10th amendment). If the founding fathers of this country thought that being taken care of medically was a fundamental right then don't you think they would have set up a system to accommodate for that? Health care is a good and like any other good it can operate via the laws of supply and demand. Look at laser eye surgery in the USA. the government barley regulates it and costs are at all time lows and quality and equipment have vastly improved. Now yes the system needs fixing.... but this bill is only going to make insurance companies richer and is filled with terrible policy(Nebraska is exempt from all taxes related to the bill). Also we are basically bankrupt and can't pay for this monster.... So whats going to happen is the federal reserve will just supply the currency(fiat money) needed which will further inflate our dollar. Never mind the retarded taxes in this bill. Inflation is worst "tax" you can have and there has to be a consequence to all this reckless spending. We just keeping spending and spending and yet things get worse ( sounds a lot like japan in the 90s using Keynesian economics and there economy failing horribly).


@Whitney
"How would it violate the constitution when medicare/medicaid does not?"

They both do but congress doesn't care anymore...

[Ultima22689]

How do they violate the constitution Sheeplauncher.

[LARA]

AIP wrote:  It seems they aren't going to start penalizing people for not carrying insurance until 2013

That's good info, AIP, thanks for posting it.   This gives people time.  I still am not so fond of the mandate.  Looking at some of the problems Social Security has right now, I worry that another big social program could end up with similar flaws.  But that's for future generations to worry about...

[AlP]

Senate approves broad healthcare reform

President Barack Obama’s hopes of overhauling the US’s inefficient and inequitable healthcare system moved a giant step closer to being realised on Thursday, when the Senate passed a sweeping reform bill that would see 94 per cent of Americans with health insurance.

The vote, held shortly after 7am on Christmas eve after almost a month of haggling, was passed by 60-39, with all 58 Democrats and two aligned independents voting in favour.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4f65e0e4-f087-11de-839a-00144feab49a.html

This isn't over. They still have to merge the House and Senate bills and agree on it. Then it's the President's turn.

[Ultima22689]

That means there is no danger then, it's going to pass, of anything they might get the public option back in there, tis possible.

[AlP]

A liberal perspective on the merging of the House and Senate healthcare reforms.

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?art ... conference

[Ellainix]

I just wish there was a governing body to represent Americans.

[AlP]

This is like the link I posted a while back but for the bills that passed the house and the senate. Side by side comparison of bills.

[theTwiz]

I just wish there was a governing body to represent Americans.