So, I saw this thing the other day where some kid (early 20s) went to what appeared to be a tea party rally and started asking people about the healthcare bill. Everyone was opposed to it, but no one (that he showed anyway) could give a legitimate answer about what was in the bill or what specifically they didn't like about it.
It's pretty clear that a lot of people trust certain entities, but haven't done enough reserach themselves.
Personally, I don't know 100% what is in the bill, but there are some highlights. Healthcare in this bill is not technically socialized. However, it is a step in the direction of socialization. The "socialized" part of this bill is that anyone making less than $14K/year will have their healthcare paid for by the taxpayers. Anyone making less than I think $45 (don't know the exact number) will be subsidized.
Insurance companies will
- only be able to offer plans that keep children on the plan until they are 26.
- only be able to offer plans that don't have lifetime ceilings.
- only be able to offer plans that don't descriminate based on pre-existing conditions.
- etc.
I intentionally word it this way because some insurance companies already offer such...except for the keeping children until they are 26, I think current standard is 21. Ironically, I think that provision is the least needed, but the one that actually ends up insuring more of the currently uninsured than the subsidies do. A great majority of the people currently uninsured in this country are college students in good health that realistically don't need much insurance and could buy it for $70/month if they wanted it, but choose not to. Yes, for a college student, $70/month is difficult, but certainly doable.
But the point is, insurance companies will cover just about anything you want them to cover, but they will set their prices accordingly. The upshot is that the government is using the cost of premiums as a tool to say that health care costs are rising.
Oh, and they are forcing the American people to purchase insurance or pay a fine, which is unconstitutional, but we'll see what the courts say. The reason for that is because by disallowing pre-existing conditions, you create a situation where no one needs health insurance because you can always go out and buy it whenever you need to use it. However, the upshot is that if insurance companies know you have to buy their product, they will naturally raise their prices for that reason alone, on top of all the legitimate reasons why premiums are going to increase.
In short, expect insurance premiums to increase significantly and taxes will also increase significantly to pay for all of the subsidies (capital gains tax increases by over 35%, for example - so don't bother investing). So while it isn't technically socialized medicine (where taxpayers pay for everyone), it is definitely a socialized basis of redistribution.
The good news: if you have a medical emergency, you will no longer go bankrupt trying to pay for it. The bad news: we will all go bankrupt just paying for the new premiums and taxes.
I expect that a few years down the road, they will claim that insurance companies are just greedy raising premiums even under this new law and we need to do even more, etc, etc, and we will end up with socialized medicine because the government will claim that they left things up to the market and see where that got us...