Belay that!

[july_july_july]

I lied! Quote from Digby.
Update: I'm wrong about this. If the house passes the bill, it will become the law of the land (unless the president vetoed it, which won't happen.) If reconciliation fails, as remains possible, then the House will just have been screwed and all the careful negotiations of the past few days will have been for naught.

Comments

[liviapenn]

Well, but health insurance is also unlike other types of insurance in the sense that, if I crash my car into a tree and I have no insurance and no money, no one is legally obligated to fix my car. But if I break my leg and have no health insurance and no money, I can still go to the ER and they *are* legally obligated to treat me. So one way to look at it is, if they're legally obligated to treat me, then why shouldn't I be obligated to have health insurance?

I know how frustrating and scary it can be to be like "I just can't afford this!" -- my current bank balance is double digits-- but honestly, we're all *already* paying for it. If you *have* health insurance you can go in for checkups, physicals, flu shots, mammograms, etc., instead of avoiding these things because they're too expensive, and that will mean we'll all spend much less on medical expenses in the long run, because we'll be able to catch things before they get serious, get medication when we need it instead of letting conditions run untreated, get back to work sooner, etc.

If it helps, think about it like this-- in the long term, *having* insurance is going to be cheaper than not having it, both nationally and individually.

This post helps spell out what some of the actual changes are going to be depending on your situation-- I found it very informative.