I am amazed at how little discussion there is in the public discourse about the gist of the Health Care Reform act. I have a sad feeling that if the republicans had passed the bill everyone would know exactly what the bill was about but now very few people actually do. When there is any talk at all it all revolves around how unpopular it is, how it was passed, how many people and for how long did they kick and scream before it passed and if we are lucky we are treated to a list of obvious common sense reforms it includes, like outlawing life time caps or denial of coverage for children based on pre-existing conditions.
Even the base or the whole of the Democratic party seems to have lost sight of what was one of the most critical items in its platform for a long time which was
to provide health care coverage to those who have no insurance.
That's right. Quite simply this bill
Would expand coverage to 32 million Americans who are currently uninsured
http://www.cbsnews.com/...
That's not a small accomplishment. We are talking about 32 million people who did not have health insurance who would have health insurance because of this bill.
In fact by the time the cost of the recession is better known I am sure more people will lose their health insurance previously provided through employment than when these numbers were estimated.
But we rarely hear this point, so let me repeat again: The point of the health insurance reform was to provide health insurance to those without health insurance.
It insures 32 million more people. That simple, it takes less than 30 seconds needed for an elevator pitch. But is rarely repeated.
Everything else we hear is tangential. The reforms are great, the fact that it gets to this accomplishment using Republican favord path, i.e. through mixture of private and public means (big part is accomplished through expansion of Medicaid) is interesting and maybe a compromise. That it starts in 2014 instead of now is sad and deeply unfortunate, but even these negatives are balanced by plusses in terms of how it helps reduce the defict long term and how thoughtfully it was done to be as little disrubptive to existing working plans as possible. So please don't undersell or under appreciate the size of the accomplishment.
Just think 32 million more people with health insurance coverage.....
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