The Affordable Health Care act is NOT Government Insurance! The Mandate, the Supreme Court approved protects the profitability of the insurance industry by requiring everyone to buy insurance from them. Read this again and then actually read The Act.
The ACT requires the insurance companies to cover people who had, have or will have what the insurance industry has defined as “preexisting conditions “and has either refused to insure or has charged astronomical premiums.

Today, let's say you are diagnosed with an easily operable tumor. Later, you lose your job or your business goes under. You can't find a job with health insurance coverage for six months or your personal health policy lapses and it's months before you think you can afford to replace it. Congratulation, you have a preexisting condition!


Right now, if you become ill, let say you are diagnosed with Leukemia, and require treatment for an extended period of time, under your present policy; at some your present insurer most likely has set a maximum coverage limit. Make sure you carefully read all of the TOS for your policy.
Review Panels determine the effectiveness of treatments and procedures over all. It not only makes care more cost effective, it saves patients co-pay costs and unnecessary pain and suffering. If I was terminally ill, in hospice expecting just weeks to live I don’t want to undergo a painful orthopedic surgery which takes months to recover from. Right now, even if I am otherwise healthy, my insurance carrier can decide not to cover that orthopedic surgery.
I am not sure if Insurance Exchanges will eliminate agents. I will have to ask one. They may make them more effective. Don’t know yet.

As a nurse at Denver Health, I see the toll that not having health insurance has on our state, especially in psychiatry. You pay for it either way when people have no insurance. We have the highest suicide rate in the country and are #50 in psychiatric resources because we don't put any money into it. So people come to the ERs instead of a family doctor and your insurance company pays for it with higher hospital costs and passes it on to you with higher fees. Or your taxes pay for it. At least with the Affordable Healthcare people can get preventative care and avoid clogging the ER's. I am amazed at the silly things that people come to the ER with instead of a family doctor where they belong.

How do you propose to take care of those who can not take care of themselves, my dear brothers and sisters? Doesn't a centralized system that everyone pays into make the most sense? Your church can not afford to do it, nor can your other charitable organizations. That which we do to the least of us, we do to ourselves. Caring for each other and giving everyone a voice makes our country a wonderful place to live. Government health care saves lives. Insurance companies only care about the bottom line.

This is a fallacy. There are many different insurance companies and the increase in members for any given company most likely will not cover the increases in coverage required by the the act. Those increases in coverage (covered to age 26, no pre-existing condition exclusions, no lifetime caps, free mammograms, free contraceptives, among them) vastly increase the cost that the insurance companies must take into account when they set premiums. Thus premiums increase under the act.

The requirement to pay out 80% of premiums in actual care reduces the dollars available to pay the companies overhead. One of the major insurance companies in Colorado is in the process of outsourcing their claims review to Indonesia as I write this. This is putting Coloradans out of jobs.

I firmly believe that if this act is allowed to stand, without major changes in the provisions, we will be seeing all the private medical insurance companies go out of the medical insurance business within 15 years. Then we will have a single payer system and we will be paying all the increased costs through our taxes.

I believe that a better approach to our issues is that the government should step in to assist those with burdensome health costs but not be involved in paying for common, everyday medical needs. In other words, let the private industry continue providing care as it has done but have a catastrophic health care plan available from the government. I could also see possibly leaving in place the pre-existing condition exclusion ban as long as the companies could control their costs by using caps. Care beyond those caps would fall under the governments catastrophic program.

I humbly disagree with the premise that the Act wants people to get insurance from insurance companies. In fact the low initial opt-out cost for employers (1/12 of $2K or $167 per employee) allows companies to refuse this new higher cost health care, and thereby drive their employees to the government controlled providers. GOTCHA - the government is now not only the controller of your health plan, its your health care provider too. Talk about a power play! Mr & Ms America are in a loose-loose situation.

And what about the government's centralized database of everyone's medical records. Its one step away from euthanasia. We already kill the unborn/nearly-born why not do away with those we feel no longer contribute to our value system. All we have to do is deny care to them, problem solved. If you think will could never happen, look at the arrogance this administration has shown to basic decency and human values. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

I'll say this again, socialism does not work, unless of course your enamored with the Soviet system. Centralized absolute authority does not work either, unless your the ruling class ala mid evil Europe fiefdoms.

<I>But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic.</I>
James 3:14-15

Sounds like a personal problem to me. The government should not steal my money to pay for your health care.

The End Result we will be like our Canadian Neighbors. Very poor care ,long waits etc.
This will actually help Romney get elected. Discussing all the Pros and Cons is well and fine but it does not correct the problem. The problem can only be partially corrected in November Those in Favor of Obama Care as well as Obama's handling of the Economy are free to Re-Elect the Man,Those against his methods and Actions are free to vote for Romney. These are the only choices we have. Unless we decide to move out of the Country,Better yet become a politician and become set for Life !!

I'm amazed by your compassion.

I wonder if you would feel differently if you found out that you or one of your loved ones had a catastrophic illness and it would take every dime you have to pay for the treatment.

Can we just fast forward this discussion to its intended end-universal health care coverage for furbabies.

Is "POWERLESSNESS" really a word?

The free market is not perfect, but it works much better than a government-controlled system. One of the root causes of the health care "problem" in the US is government intervention itself...modifications to the tax code that put health insurance mainly under employers. It took the free market out of day-to-day decisions and understanding of health care costs on the part of you and me. I believe that the right "solution" to the situation, if there is one, should be centered around policies that let the free market work as it should...not take a gigantic portion of the US economy farther away from the free market.

It's interesting that you bring up the military. I think this was pretty clearly addressed in the Constitution...ie "provide for the common defense." The Constitution clearly recognizes that there are some activities that must be handled by the government, and defense is one of them. But the framers of the Constitution clearly understood that most activities should NOT be under the control of the government, and therefore government should be limited. This Obamacare is a monumental increase in the size, scope, and influence of the government and I don't believe the framers of the Constitution would be happy.

If you want evidence that the government will make things worse, look no further than the health care system for military. And of course the military in general is a perfect example of cost over-runs, boondoggles, graft, and inefficiency. It boggles my mind that anyone would want to add more of our economy under that umbrella.

Right now, as I see it, the US has the best health care "system" (though it is not really a "system," but rather a "market,") in the world. It seems to me that most of the situations that people bring up revolve around cost rather than level of care. We have an incredible array of options available in this country...from MRI's, elective dental and cosmetic procedures, medical evac helicopters, drugs that help people to maintain healthy cholesterol levels, etc. etc. etc. Most of these things were developed by people driven by the desire for profit (though, certainly there is some drive and desire to increase care on the weight of its simple virtues). By its very nature, the advanced state of medicine in this country is expensive. There is no way around that. What is needed is a reform of the way that medical costs are covered by insurance. As I stated above the free market is not perfect, but I do believe that it works better than a government controlled system with its built in waste and graft. Anyone who thinks that costs will come down as a result of government intervention is living in a dream world.