Dayfile

[kinzel]

What does this mean for you?


http://bulletin.aarp.org/yourhealth/policy/articles/health_overhaul_immediate_change_long_term_steps.html

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Daily-Reports/2010/March/22/Consumer-Impact-of-Bill.aspx

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2010/March/22/consumers-guide-health-reform.aspx

http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/139579.html

http://www.pressherald.com/news/mainers-wait-and-wonder-how-will-reform-affect-us__2010-03-22.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8579322.stm

http://www.slate.com/id/2248560

Comments

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

But what does it all *mean*?

God alone knows, and She ain't telling. I don't think we'll know where this leads for at least five years, maybe ten.

[oberon.livejournal.com]

Well, for starters, I'm not an american. Never worked there or lived there. I'm Canadian... we have national health care. It's not perfect. It's not even wonderful, and it's a constant source of debate as to whether or not it's being run efficiently and providing good service. But the flip side of that coin is that we can have arguments like that because we've never experienced the reality of uninsured US life of having to pay anything out of pocket for a hospital or doctor's visit.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Thing is, what we got in this legislation has no kinship to the Canadian system. It's an assemblage of spare parts, with even the authors unsure of what's in it and what it will do. Hence the current hassling back and forth between House and Senate.

And one thing lost in the rhetoric of both sides, health *insurance* costs so damn much because health *care* in the US costs so damn much. The insurance companies take only a small slice of the pie.

Hmm

[oberon.livejournal.com]

Well, having browsed through most of the articles linked in this post, several things seem clear.

1. A lot of people are making this out to be an earth-shattering country-killing thing. (one article says you'll all be living in mud huts in 80 years because of this). This seems far-fetched.

2. I think it's fair to characterize this as an assemblage of spare parts. In a lot of ways, that really describes the US economic and governmental structure more than I think many people inside the US realize, in that everything seems to us to be based on a system of compromises and trade-offs, much more so than in our country up here.

In part I feel that's because the voting power of an individual US citizen is stronger than that of the individual Canadian citizen in terms of its effect on policy. To a large extent, the american people are proud of this, but it leads to what I see as a 'government by committee' where the only possible solutions to many problems faced by all ARE hodge-podges of 'spare parts' that really satisfy no-one completely.

3. I think it will be interesting to see whether these reforms lead to other reforms in spending and administrative policies and taxation methods... you can almost see the shape of tax reforms to come in many of the concepts introduced in this bill, and that shape is a lot closer to our canadian shape than it was.... from outside, we're all curious.