The Associated Content community is one of the largest and most diverse groups of content creators on the web. When landmark health care reform legislation was signed into law next week, we knew that our Contributors would know better than anyone else how this bill might impact ordinary Americans. We asked you to research the legislation and tell us about how it may affect you and your families, and the response was incredible. In fact, the content we received was so amazing that we've created a special section of Associated Content in which to showcase our most compelling pieces!
In the new health care hub you'll find a wide range of opinions on H.R. 4872, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. One woman fears that her coverage choices under the new legislation are, "get rich or get on welfare." But a young and growing family in Colorado expects to save a few thousand dollars every year thanks to health care reform.
Where do you stand? Take a moment to view our featured pieces--each one is personal, unique and captivating--and then take the poll found on the right side of the hub page. At the time of this posting, most Associated Content Contributors and viewers have voted in favor of health care reform.
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9 comments:
Well the research done on the topic is visible just by looking at the matter. Great work done.
I love seeing all these cool perspectives on the reform bill. Thanks for sharing everyone!
Health Care Reform is needed in America, but the recently passed bill is an albatross that will haunt Americans for a very long time.
First of all, imagine walking into a board room and pitching a new business model to the board of directors that takes ten years of revenue to fund six years of benefits. After being kicked out of the meeting and going back to your desk, perhaps you might find that 2700 pages of a bad plan may be replaced with just a few pages for a good plan. Perhaps after eliminating the political payoffs and removing accounting gimmicks, a much more efficient plan for all could be more easily crafted.
There should be no question by anyone that adding benefits and beneficiaries can never be accomplished without higher costs. Anyone who runs a business would understand this. Politicians, most who have never run a business have contrived this poorly though out bill for political reasons justifying it largely by using sad anecdotes and poor people as props.
Most people don’t like the preexisting conditions clause in most policies but they also don’t understand this is necessary for setting rates. Actuaries mull over statistics every day to determine how much of the pooled money will be paid out to cover costs of their clients who use the services. That enables them to set rates accordingly. This is no different than any hardware store owner who must determine what level of inventory and how many employees he needs and other costs he must incur and what revenue will come in to cover those costs while also making at least a small profit.
If one could buy insurance during a bout of sickness and then drop the policy when he recovered, the insurance company would be out of business soon. The biggest problem the insurance and the health care industry has is the multitude of government regulations that inhibit the competition needed to set real rates in a real marketplace. This is a legacy of federal law of the 1940’s. The deregulation of the industry would enable the thousands of insurance companies to come up with a plan that would be suitable for almost everyone. The government could create a pool for the very poor that would enable those who have nothing to participate and have health care.
Other programs the government currently runs are nearly or already bankrupt. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other entitlements are bankrupting the nation. This enormous, convoluted, already headed for bankruptcy program is the last thing we need right now.
stevefon2004
Stevefon:
The problem with your post is that wellness and health are not products. It's one thing to say that we must deregulate an industry that sells a commodity such as shoes in order to make the market more competitive. But freeing insurance companies to take customers' access to doctors away on a whim is cruelty on an unimaginable scale.
We need universal, single-payer health care, like nearly every industrialized nation provides for its citizens. This is a good start, though it is not enough. A free market solution to health care can only be implemented if the government, too, is allowed to compete by offering single-payer care to all citizens. Private industry could remain competitive by paying doctors better and offering luxury insurance plans and elective procedures not available through the government-funded system.
People come first. Money comes second. In this country, people current have such limited access to health care that every US citizen should be ashamed. In the wealthiest country in the world, the health of people is treated as something to be bought and sold by others, who will never meet the people they are sentencing to death by denying them coverage.
First of all the single payer system is a monopoly. What monopoly is ever efficient and the notion that govt. must be able to compete in the free market system is ridiculous. Can insurance companies raise taxes to cover their inefficiencies? All you have to do is look at Medicare and Medicaid and the rest of the bankrupt government run systems that many doctors or pharmacies won't even participate in. If you deregulated the entire system then the thousands of insurance companies would come up with plans that suit most everyone. Everyone in America has health care now. Any statement to the contrary is just not true. We had better health care when doctors and patients could do business on their own and insurance was used for major medical. If health and wellness is a right shouldn't food and shelter be rights? Let the govt provide those. That would work out well....Just like Social Security
Other countries do not have our Constitution. Health Care Reform should have been a states' rights issue. Massachusetts did their own and while not perfect, they had every right to do it if the voters there didn't mind. Of course, if you don't like it, you can move to another state.
When you set yourself up like everyone else, you end up with the same problems everyone else has... rationing of care, stifling of innovation, etc. I would much rather have seen some kind of tort reform come into the fray (Obama said he'd look into that...) but that was not to be. Ask a doctor in a high malpractice insurance rate state what he or she pays and your eyes will bulge. Many other socialist countries w/socialized medicine have stricter laws for lawsuits.
Excellent round up of perspectives on this landmark legislation. Great job, AC contributors.
Regards, M.G.
This is rally fantastic and remarkable.
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