Yesterday, John Barrasso spoke before the U.S. Senate, talking about how terrible recently passed health care reform legislation is. He said,
“A new Rasmussen poll out just this past week says that 57 percent of Americans–I am talking about likely voters; that is how they polled this, likely voters–said this recently passed health care law, in their opinion, is bad for our country. So 57 percent of Americans feel the law that was forced down the throats of the American people, with the American people screaming: Do not pass this law–even today, 57 percent of Americans, as they learn more and more about what is in the law, believe it is bad for the country. That is actually the highest level of pessimism about this law since the law was passed in March.”
Personally, I didn’t hear anyone screaming when health care reform was passed. I heard a couple of people pouting, but that’s it. The poll didn’t say whether Americans feel that the law was forced down their throat either.
But, let’s say for the sake of argument that 57 percent of Americans really do think that the health care reform legislation is bad for the nation. What exactly do they think is so bad about it?
What has happened as a result of the passage of health care reform that’s caused you trouble? What specific problems have you seen as a result of health care reform?
Where do you want to start? The forced purchase of inferior insurance instruments by all citizens, the fact that nothing has changed in the corrupt insurance industry (they find new and creative ways to deny payment and have entire departments of “claims adjusters” expressly for this service – they get BONUSSES for denying care to people in need), the pharmaceutical industry is due to make another windfall via this legislation (since it’s now ILLEGAL to purchase drugs from other countries where they may be less expensive, more readily available – ie. not “FDA approved”) and there is no plan to cap rates going up as they have (outstripping the cost of living by a serious scale factor – ie. most people can’t afford it NOW so how will they be able to pay for it next year or the year after if it keeps increasing in price as it has, with no mechanism for keeping it in check?).
I agree with you, Tom, about the idea of forced purchase of a private product. For automobile insurance, required purchase is tied to the voluntary use of a car on public roads: you don’t want to drive, you don’t have to buy insurance. For health care, the condition for having to purchase a private product is existing. That makes me uneasy. It would have been much more straightforward (and more constitutional) for the government to provide health insurance without charge and then to provide the necessary funds through taxation.