Health Care

You will never guess what I did. I crashed my computer again. How, you ask? It is simple really. I tried to download the governments bill on health reform. At least I had back up disks so I could be up and running again in a relativity short time (12 hours). I should have know better then to “spy” on what our elected officials.

So I can’t get my hands on that bill that the Senate voted on. But I was able to get some information. I kind of wished I hadn’t. It scares me half to death to think about what they are going to do. I don’t mind that one of things tacked on to that bill will be tougher restriction on abortion. Don’t know how they will make it tougher, but they will. Which is okay with me. I mean, they pass out condoms to just about everyone now-a-days. And anyone can get an abortion. No reason is needed really. So fine, make it a little tougher. But I think that the government will make it harder for doctors and clinics’ to get any money.

That is good. Because this health reform is going to cost us, you and me the tax payer, over 1.2 trillion dollars. For them, the government, to come up with that kind of money a lot of other things will have to be cut out of the budgets. One thing that I was able to get from one government web site before my crash, was that there will be big cuts in Medicare. The number that I saw was $400 billion. I don’t know about anyone else, but that is scary. Our seniors have worked all there lives and paid into this for what? And what help will I be able to get when my time comes?

I also heard on the radio that there would be cuts to the V.A. How dare they cut any of those benefits! Those veterans were willing to put their lives on the line for this country, whether they enlisted or were drafted. They all did a very valuable service for this country, and now there benefits will be cut? That is so wrong.

Let me tell you what else I did find. All persons will have to have medical insurance. And large companies will have to offer it to their employee. If not you will be slapped with “penalties”. Now to me, a penalty is a fine that must be paid or else you go to jail. Of Corse, the government will subsidize the payments for those unable to come up with the money for their premiums. That sounds like half of the population right now. Do our elected officials really believe that people don’t have medical insurance by choice? If I could afford it, I’d have it.

The bill also states that it will be illegal for insurance companies to deny coverage because you have hit you limit. Which is good. But then it also makes it illegal to charge a higher premium for a pre-existing condition. And that is also good I believe. I know when I did have medical insurance the premiums were so high that I couldn’t afford to go to the doctor. So meeting my deductible was impossible.

An article I read somewhere on line while trying to find that health reform bill said that the “public option” would be more expensive than getting insurance through a regular company. That also has a good side and a bad side. The good first, your premiums will never raise. They, the government, can however call it a cost of living increase to get you to pay more. And the bad? The government writes the policy. Just one policy for everyone. The government will decide what benefits we should have. No custom policies or benefits for anyone, unless you go with a private company.

To my untrained ear, this sounds worse than social medicine policies that some other countries have.