Slashdot Mirror
House Passes Massive Medical Insurance Bill, 219-212
The votes are in: yesterday evening, after a last-minute compromise over abortion payments, the US House of Representatives narrowly passed a bill effecting major changes in American medical finance. From the BBC's coverage: "The president is expected to sign the House-passed Senate bill as early as Tuesday, after which it will be officially enacted into law. However, it will contain some very unpopular measures that Democratic senators have agreed to amend. The Senate will be able to make the required changes in a separate bill using a procedure known as reconciliation, which allows budget provisions to be approved with 51 votes - rather than the 60 needed to overcome blocking tactics." No Republican voted in favor of the bill; 34 Democrats voted against. As law, the system set forth would extend insurance coverage to an estimated 32 million Americans, impose new taxes on high-income earners as well as provide some tax breaks and subsidies for others, and considerably toughen the regulatory regime under which insurance companies operate. The anticipated insurance regime phases in (starting with children, and expanding to adults in 2014) a requirement that insurance providers accept those with preexisting conditions, and creates a system of fines, expected to be administered by the IRS, for those who fail or refuse to obtain health insurance.
Now we will wait and see if the apocalypse that conservatives told us this would bring arrives. Reasonable people realized some time ago that this bill most likely won't change much of anything in their lives. If the Democratic Party had a publicity group that was worth a shit, they would take advantage of that when the midterm elections come in November (at which point this bill will be law for several months and have done pretty well nothing that the fearmongerers had told us).
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
You pay $6400/year for insurance? Damn, either you're getting ripped off, or you have some chronic condition.
I live in a 3rd world country, and we have universal health care. It doesnt matter if you are poor and cant pay: if you have a heart attack, a ambulance will take you to the hospital, and you will have treatment. Well, you will not have 5 star treatment, with naked nurses and stuff, maybe you even have a room, but hey, this is a 3rd world country! They will ask you (or look in your wallet) if you have some private-insurance, and take you to a private hospital if you do. If all the public hospitals are full, the private ones WILL accept you, and the government will pay then later. Of course, it has some flaws. If you need som exam, u may wait for months (it depends on what state you are, some are better than others)... but if you have diseases like diabets, heart problems and stuff like that, you will have FREE medication, for the rest of your life.
>>Except for the 35-50 million who don't and can't get health insurance.
It's nice to see that people can still parrot talking points, even on Slashdot. That number, bandied about by winners like Pelosi, includes people that don't want health insurance. Our poor people are already covered, as are our elderly, and most working people get it through work. There IS a gap, but it's not as massive as airheads like our majority leaders say it is.