Health Care "reform"

Last night I had a fitful sleep.  I woke up at 3 am thinking about the botched health care reform process in the Senate now.  As a left liberal, I had hoped for universal health care, certainly not universal health insurance.  No such luck.  Barring universal health care, I was backing the public option.  That too went down in flames.  Then came the Medicare buy-in at 55.  Hmm.  I could see the logic in that.  But, of course, that got stripped out as well.  So what's left?

Not much, in my opinion.  We will be forced to buy health insurance, or pay a fine to the government.  If you are really poor, the government will pitch in a few bucks toward premiums.  Insurance companies will gain 30 milion new customers.  Insurance companies will be able to charge any amount that they wish for insurance.  There are no effective cost controls.  And nothing to stimulate competition.  If you have a pre-existing condition, you can get insurance but the insurance industry will raise your premiums to the sky-think five times other people's premiums.   As it stands now, middle class people will be expected to shell out 10 to 17% of their income for health insurance- and that is just for the premiums.  The co-pays and deductables will be paid on top of that.  And, in addition, you know that subsidy for premiums that poor people will get.  That comes from our tax money.  Don't get me wrong.  I want poor people to have health care.  It's just that health insurance companies are grossly inefficient at providing health care.  Massive amounts of that money will go straight to Insurance company fat cats.  And one more thing.  We are banned from buying medications from any other country. (like Canada) That means we will be forced to pay 50% more for our medications than necessary.  In summary, we're screwed!  We are really screwed.  When health industry insiders said "We won!  They weren't kidding.  They won and America lost.