Reactions to passage of health care bill are passionate

[jillio]

(CNN) -- The health care bill's passage has struck such an emotional chord that more than 10,000 people have posted comments and sometimes deeply personal stories about it on CNN.com.

Under the bill, which President Obama is expected to sign Tuesday at the earliest, most Americans will now be required to have health insurance or pay a fine. Larger employers will be required to provide coverage or risk financial penalties. Total individual out-of-pocket expenses will be capped, and insurers will be barred from denying coverage based on gender or pre-existing conditions.

Democrat Alison Victoria, who was a financial manager at a hospital for 15 years, supported the bill. As it's written, the bill "isn't perfect, and it's not everything I wanted, but it will save lives," Victoria said in an iReport video.

"Doctors, nurses and financial officers see a part of our health care system that many Americans don't, if they're lucky," she said.



"We have seen benefits denied based on false allegations that the treatment is not medically necessary. We have seen families and whole small businesses dropped from insurance coverage because one person on the plan got sick. We have seen people unable to find insurance because of a pre-existing condition," she said, likening the bill to a form of "justice" promised in the Constitution.

See complete coverage of the health care bill

Another reader used sarcasm to suggest that people will find a way around paying premiums. "This is cool. I'm just going to drop my insurance now, pay the $700 yearly fine, and then pickup insurance when I get sick since insurance companies can't deny me," he wrote on the Sound Off section of a CNN.com news story published after the bill passed. "I'll save a bundle of money every year."

"I suspect this is what most 'smart' Americans will do," he continued. "And then guess what? Insurance companies will collapse because they'll have no pool of money to pay for the claims that start coming in, and we'll be in a world of hurt again."

Many people who responded to CNN's coverage said they were happy the bill passed simply because the current system was not working. Government-backed health care is "the best compromise possible," Egberto Willies said. He's relieved that his wife, who has lupus, and his daughter, a pre-med student, won't have to worry about health care as much under the new bill, he said. "America has joined the civilized world," he said in his iReport video.

iReporter Cameron Harrelson, however, said he is afraid that his generation will end up paying for the bill. "We're going to have to endure it the longest," the 15-year-old from Georgia said.

Cliff Olney's daughter was born premature, and he's had to spend more than two decades caring for her with Medicaid, the U.S. health program funded by state and federal governments available to low-income people or people with disabilities.

"After 22 years of fighting health insurance companies, me and my daughter have vindication," he told iReport. But he also thinks the fight is far from over. "You know what's going to happen now ... the insurance companies will begin to cut people who are sick as quickly as they can before the window of opportunity is over ... they'll also increase premiums as the banks did after legislation was passed for credit card reform."

Michael Ingram, of Milford, Pennsylvania, says he's in good health and feels like he doesn't need health insurance. As a Navy veteran, he goes to a Veterans Affairs hospital when he's ill, he said.

"Forcing me to take a health care package that I may not need is dictatorial and not in keeping with the spirit or a free nation," Ingram wrote in his iReport. He said he's written to his representatives about the bill and said both parties are a "sham." He plans to refuse to buy a health care plan.

"I hope that everyone can give this [health care bill] a chance," wrote one CNN.com reader who identified herself as a 27-year-old recent college graduate who is working full time for a law firm and has health insurance through her job. Two years ago, she was diagnosed with two debilitating diseases that require chemotherapy twice a week and 19 prescription drugs at a cost of $660 a month after insurance, she said. She and her husband, who doesn't have health insurance because it would cost $1,000 extra to add him to her plan, feel like they can barely keep their heads above water.

"The hardest thing for me, is that I know he has medical issues that go unattended because we simply can't afford it," she wrote. "We truly are a family that is one major illness away from financial disaster. So I hope this bill will help our situation, and the situations of people much less fortunate than ourselves."

Reactions to passage of health care bill are passionate - CNN.com

 

[jillio]

Donna Brazile, a CNN contributor, Democratic strategist, vice chair for voter registration and participation at the Democratic National Committee, nationally syndicated columnist and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University:

Sunday night, the House passed a historic bill to reform our nation's health care system. This is a bill with ideas from both major political parties that will provide access to quality, affordable health care and reduce the federal budget deficit.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has projected that the bill will reduce the deficit by $138 billion in the first decade and will reduce the deficit by as much as $1.3 trillion in the second decade. In addition, the CBO confirms the bill both reins in wasteful spending to extend the solvency of Medicare for almost 10 years and closes the prescription drug "doughnut" hole for seniors.
If my mother were here today, Mom Jean would be proud. She died at 52. She worked every day but couldn't afford health insurance. Her employer did not offer it. When she became ill, she waited until she couldn't wait any longer, then went to the emergency room. Three days later, she was dead.

Growing up, my mom would tell her nine kids that we could not afford to get sick. She was right. We didn't have money for medicine or doctors' visits, so the only choice was to stay well. It's the same "choice" millions of families face: Stay well or else.

But not anymore. It's a day Mom Jean would love to have seen.

Thanks to Nancy Pelosi and a majority of Congress, millions of moms and dads will have access to quality, affordable health care for themselves and their children. An estimated 32 million people will be able to rest comfortably knowing that they are no longer a flu away from foreclosure because they lack health insurance. All of us can sleep a little better knowing that pre-existing conditions no longer preclude affordable health insurance. These are major victories.

This was a tough vote and an emotional debate. We can't let our exhaustion limit our celebration. We haven't had a major health care reform in nearly 50 years. What Congress accomplished this week is worth celebrating.


Jennifer Klein, a professor at Yale University who specializes in American history and author of "For All These Rights: Business, Labor, and the Shaping of America's Public-Private Welfare State":

Since the end of the Civil War, the great strides in deepening and expanding American citizenship have come from federal government action. Like the 14th Amendment establishing a principle of equal protection of the law, the 15th and 19th amendments extending the right to vote, the Social Security Act and federal minimum wage, the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act, the newly enacted Health Reform Act adds to the rights of American citizenship.

The new bill will not displace private health insurers, hospitals, doctors or other institutions; it will not overhaul a market-based mode of providing actual medical services. Its passage, however, is a pivotal political moment like those landmarks that came before, because the federal government has now taken on the responsibility of establishing a national standard for economic security -- regardless of where you work or what state you live in. Insurers will have to play by national rules.
We can also place this particular reform moment in the tradition of American populism -- that is, the populism that built the People's Party in the 1890s. Mainstream media and pundits have been relentlessly characterizing opposition to health care reform as populism, springing from some deep well of American authenticity. But if we actually take seriously both the discontents and demands of the Populist Party, here's what we'd find: a populism of economic grievances that offered a direct critique of concentrated economic power.

They condemned the monopoly control by railroad companies and oil companies that restricted workers' and farmers' access to and action within the marketplace and corrupted politics. And so they turned to the federal government to counter that power.

Populists and the farmer-labor alliance of the 1890s aimed to create a regulatory state to realize economic security. In the party's Omaha platform of 1892, they put it clearly, "We believe that the power of government -- in other words, of the people -- should be expanded ... as rapidly and as far as the good sense of an intelligent people and the teachings of experience shall justify, to the end that oppression, injustice, and poverty shall eventually cease in the land."

The health care bill is a regulatory bill in this vein; it is not a social insurance bill like Social Security pensions or Medicare. It restrains the previously unchecked prerogative of the insurance corporations (like the railroad companies a century ago) to rig the market in their favor.
Both employers and insurance companies fought the passage of Social Security, lobbied for special exemptions and floated doomsday scenarios. Yet once it passed, business corporations quickly adapted. Indeed, the insurance companies decided Social Security was a tremendous boon to the sale of private insurance.

All of the pivotal liberal reforms have had their imperfections, concessions and constraints. It often took years of struggle to realize their full promise on the ground in daily life. So here we go.


Manoj Jain, a Memphis, Tennessee-based infectious disease physician, adjunct assistant professor at Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University and medical director at Tennessee's Quality Improvement Organizations:

Last week, I saw a 55-year-old truck driver who pleaded with me to discharge him from the hospital even though his face and scalp still bore clear signs of an active staph infection. For a decade he has had recurrent staph infections exacerbated by diabetes -- yet could not afford insulin or a doctor because he lacked medical insurance. Now he begs me to let him leave, so that he will not go bankrupt from his medical bills.

I turn to his wife who says, "I am lucky. I have metastatic breast cancer, and I am covered by Medicare."

One of every 10 patients I see do not have health insurance.

I see the uninsured patients, but then make up for my losses by increasing my charges to all my patients. The cycle continues: Insurers increase premiums, choking small businesses that then drop health coverage for their employees, leading more uninsured to come to my practice.

Not providing insurance is not free; the annual health care expenditure for an uninsured adult is $1,800, according to a Kaiser Foundation study in 2004.

And there is a downside to having nearly 50 million uninsured people in America. I look them in the eye, and I know this for a fact. They will die sooner. In my opinion, lack of health insurance is a chronic illness.

The burden of this disease is most apparent among people between the ages of 54 to 65. A 2004 Health Affairs study found that lack of insurance accounts for 13,000 lives lost per year, making lack of insurance the third leading cause of death for this group, after heart disease and cancer. If we do nothing to address this problem, by 2015 lack of insurance will account for 30,000 deaths annually in just this age group.

In all fairness the present health system provides some care for the uninsured. President Bush was technically accurate when he said in July 2007, "People have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room."

But the distinction between an acute illness -- the kind that sends you to the emergency room -- and chronic disease is artificial. For example, each year, diabetes, a chronic disease, causes 20,000 Americans to go blind, 45,000 Americans to have kidney failure and 45,000 Americans to lose a limb. Lack of health insurance is the same -- a chronic illness causing recurrent acute illnesses.

I want to lean over and shake my uninsured patients and scream, "Be a Rosa Parks. Demand health care as a right -- just as others before you have marched for civil rights and human rights."

The uninsured have become second-class citizens. Nearly 30 million of them, who are the working poor, are unable to afford health insurance, and there is no one to unite them and voice their concerns.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was not silent about people's right to health care. "Of all the forms of inequality," he said, "injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane." He was speaking, I believe, of both acute care and chronic care.
Health bill a milestone -- or a mistake? - CNN.com

 

[yizuman]

The $700 yearly fine will go up each year until it gets to the point that having to pay for insurance will be cheaper than paying a fine.

Since he opened his big mouth about the fine, the Government is gonna go, "Oh yeah? We'll see about that." and start upping the fines thereafter.

Yiz

 

[jillio]

The $700 yearly fine will go up each year until it gets to the point that having to pay for insurance will be cheaper than paying a fine.

Since he opened his big mouth about the fine, the Government is gonna go, "Oh yeah? We'll see about that." and start upping the fines thereafter.

Yiz

Yep. You make a choice to pay the fine rather than purchase health insurance, you then suffer the consequences of your choice.

 

[Babyblue]

An yet some still will not be able to afford health insurance.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this.

 

[quirkylibra]

An yet some still will not be able to afford health insurance.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this.

That's part of the problem. It's so expensive! They just raised my price for next year.:roll:

 

[Lighthouse77]

They claim that as more people are on insurance, the price will lower.

 

[TXgolfer]

That's part of the problem. It's so expensive! They just raised my price for next year.:roll:

And watch what happens to taxes in the next 2 years. It has to be paid for somehow...I guess they can print more money again. If they do that it will be interesting to see what China says seeing how they hold a great deal of our debt. If I were China I would be very mad about the spending we are doing.

Ever loaned a friend money only to have them go on a shopping spree rather than pay you back? Well that is what we are doing to China.

 

[Tousi]

And watch what happens to taxes in the next 2 years. It has to be paid for somehow...I guess they can print more money again. If they do that it will be interesting to see what China says seeing how they hold a great deal of our debt. If I were China I would be very mad about the spending we are doing.

Ever loaned a friend money only to have them go on a shopping spree rather than pay you back? Well that is what we are doing to China.

And if TX splits from us, China might opt to take the whole "country".

 

[TXgolfer]

They claim that as more people are on insurance, the price will lower.

But does that really make sense? They claim that the uninsured are a major drag on our economy. And they claim that many of them can't get insurance due to pre existing conditions or exceeding their lifetime cap.

Does it make any sense that adding the burdens of these people to the same pool you buy from will LOWER your premiums? No....that's impossible...unless it is subsidized by the government, meaning the government pays some of the cost. But, where does the government get it's money? Oh yeah, taxes. So either taxes rise to pay subsidies to keep premiums at their current level...or ...Premiums rise to cover the added risk.

Now the administration will tell you the burden on the uninsured will cover the cost. But if that is the case why not leave it the way it is and try other options because this just moves money from one place to another like a shell game.

Add to the the independent CBO warned that this plan calls for spending the same dollar twice. Which means it gambles that health care costs (not ins) will fall. If it doesn't the current cost will actually be double what is stated. And it is always possible that could rise if more is added during reconciliation.

 

[TXgolfer]

And if TX splits from us, China might opt to take the whole "country".

If that happens, I hope and believe many will join us.

You know we have Nasa here too....

 

[DGirl101]

I can name one group of people that is diverse, of every race, both gender, gay, lesbian, straight, healthy, sick, old, young and etc. that is uninsured.


The homeless.

 

[TXgolfer]

I can name one group of people that is diverse, of every race, both gender, gay, lesbian, straight, healthy, sick, old, young and etc. that is uninsured.


The homeless.

They will be covered. What about the single guy that makes $57,000 and pays child support on 2 kids? He is doomed

 

[Babyblue]

But does that really make sense? They claim that the uninsured are a major drag on our economy. And they claim that many of them can't get insurance due to pre existing conditions or exceeding their lifetime cap.

Does it make any sense that adding the burdens of these people to the same pool you buy from will LOWER your premiums? No....that's impossible...unless it is subsidized by the government, meaning the government pays some of the cost. But, where does the government get it's money? Oh yeah, taxes.

So either taxes rise to pay subsidies to keep premiums at their current level

...or ...Premiums rise to cover the added risk.

Now the administration will tell you the burden on the uninsured will cover the cost. But if that is the case why not leave it the way it is and try other options because this just moves money from one place to another like a shell game.

Add to the the independent CBO warned that this plan calls for spending the same dollar twice. Which means it gambles that health care costs (not ins) will fall. If it doesn't the current cost will actually be double what is stated. And it is always possible that could rise if more is added during reconciliation.

Poor or rich. I'm sure it will be subsidized by healthy people that are required to have health insurance. Paying for it.

Just like social security. Everyone has to pay social security taxes. Now they will make everyone pay for health care.

 

[TXgolfer]

Poor or rich. I'm sure it will be subsidized by healthy people that are required to have health insurance. Paying for it.

Just like social security. Everyone has to pay social security taxes. Now they will make everyone pay for health care.

Social Security is going broke.....is that really a model we want to follow

 

[jillio]

An yet some still will not be able to afford health insurance.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this.

That is why they are changing the citeria for Medicaid coverage. For those that cannot afford coverage.

 

[jillio]

That's part of the problem. It's so expensive! They just raised my price for next year.:roll:

Health reform will stop those increases in premiums.

 

[jillio]

But does that really make sense? They claim that the uninsured are a major drag on our economy. And they claim that many of them can't get insurance due to pre existing conditions or exceeding their lifetime cap.

Does it make any sense that adding the burdens of these people to the same pool you buy from will LOWER your premiums? No....that's impossible...unless it is subsidized by the government, meaning the government pays some of the cost. But, where does the government get it's money? Oh yeah, taxes. So either taxes rise to pay subsidies to keep premiums at their current level...or ...Premiums rise to cover the added risk.

Now the administration will tell you the burden on the uninsured will cover the cost. But if that is the case why not leave it the way it is and try other options because this just moves money from one place to another like a shell game.

Add to the the independent CBO warned that this plan calls for spending the same dollar twice. Which means it gambles that health care costs (not ins) will fall. If it doesn't the current cost will actually be double what is stated. And it is always possible that could rise if more is added during reconciliation.

Yes, it does make sense. A) More people paying premiums = more premiums collected by the insurance companies = more funds to pay out on claims.
B) Insurance companies will be regulated to prevent them dropping you from the insurance policy at their whim.

Leaving it the way it is = the status quo = rising costs and millions of ininsured

 

[DGirl101]

They will be covered. What about the single guy that makes $57,000 and pays child support on 2 kids? He is doomed

I know that as well....

Which is why I don't agree and do agree.....the bill needs more work.

My boyfriends mother makes more than the guy does and now has to take care of two very young children, who also has a husband who has a Heart troubles, and she herself has several medical issues also.

She has a mortage, a car, and whatever bills she has left. So yes,

she is doomed too.

 

[jillio]

I can name one group of people that is diverse, of every race, both gender, gay, lesbian, straight, healthy, sick, old, young and etc. that is uninsured.


The homeless.

There you go.