AKA "My Soon to Be Neighbors. "

I know why a lot of folks on the left HERE think our recent healthcare "reform" is good, but why do so many in Europe? The bill doesn't PROVIDE universal healthcare, it REQUIRES it. If that distinction seems meaningless, let me clarify:

The healthcare law does NOT guarantee every American health coverage. It simply requires them to have it, and forbids any private insurer (which is all of them; there's still no public insurance apart from Medicare unless you're a veteran or impoverished child) denying anyone insurance. Insurance for which they can charge whatever they please. With the combination of inability to deny insurance and the promise of $900 billion in taxpayer funds to make up the difference for people who can't afford it, you can bet they'll charge a lot. Probably far more than the $900 billion allocated to help pay the bill, particularly since most of those who couldn't get insurance before but now MUST are a health insurers nightmare. There's a reason these folks don't have health insurance, and it isn't that insurance companies don't want what few nickels they have left over after paying for rent and food: The combination of malnourishment, poor education and long working hours translate into a lot of illness, much of it serious and chronic.

And yet I hear nothing but praise for the bill from some of the most liberal places on Earth. What gives? The only decent argument I've heard is "well, at least it's a start" but it's a start in the wrong direction. Far more importantly, the public perception, outside of those already seeking to have it declared illegal, is that after half a century of bickering that became bitterly divisive after '93 the issue has finally been "dealt with" and we don't have to confront it anymore. This wasn't the start of an ongoing process of promoting and improving public healthcare (there's very little actual public healthcare in it) it's putting something to bed because we're sick of it. I doubt we'll revisit it again for ten years, and the only reason we'll do so then is the same reason we did it now: Not out of civic duty or moral imperative, but because the cost of healthcare continues to shoot up to a point that it endangers the whole economy (the flip side of saying, "we can't entrust 1/6 of the economy to the government" is "healthcare makes up 1/6 of our economy and nearly that same percentage of the populace still has none. " )

I'm really not trying to reopen an old debate among Americans (in fact, I'll do something unprecedented for me, right now: Any American RAFOlk who want to debate the pros and cons of the healthcare bill in this thread may certainly do so, but I won't respond. ) I'm genuinely perplexed why liberals with no vested interest in the success or failure of ANY American political party think this is a good thing. As I said elsewhere a little earlier, to me it seems we got a public mandate INSTEAD of public healthcare, which is like throwing a drowning man an anchor.