hmm... on this topic im all over the place with my opinions..
my context:
my dad passed away last year at the age of 66(god rest his soul)..
he was denied health insurance coverage on himself since his heart attack at age 19, until my mothers insurance company accidentally allowed him some level of at around age 60..
yes it wthout a doubt in their view that it was not supposed to be, to which they tried very hard to remove him, often denying benefits when they could find the means to relate it to his heart..
IMO, he was the epitome of human determination and the perfect example the finacially burdened, unspoken majority. the true working class man that never took a handout.. we were freaking dirt poor by any standard.
who wants to hire a person with all those risks after all.. so any job was good enough for him to keep food on the table.
trudging on as life dealt him 3 congestive heart failures, 2 strokes and eventually 2 brain hemorrhages, the second of which blinded him, took his speech.
this and the insurance company's death panel, lead to a decision by my siblings and my mother to allow him to pass on..
to make matters worse, when we requested that we be able to take him fom the hospital 3hrs away and bring him home to die, the insurance company quickly responded with a "so your releasing us of all obligations if you want to take him out of the hospitals care?".. well yea.. couldnt afford to rent rooms and he should be able to spend his last days at home..
from that point on, it was approx.$200 per day to have a morphine available and the goodness of nursing friends to help when needed.
the strongest man i ever knew was brought down by a faulty heart valve that could have been replaced while in his prime and lived a long, deserving life.
we found out later that his employer(the very township we lived in), up to the day they forced him to retire, was allowed and did buy life insurance policies with the dept. manager as the beneficiary.. essentially betting his life against him. what kind of BS is that..
so... if this HC bill has a means to put an end to such injustice then good.. though i realize there is always a dark and self-serving agenda when politicians are involved..
as to the alleged costs of this HC bill, reduce funding from the taxpayer paid research grants..
http://www.citizen.org/documents/ACFDC.PDF
i firmly believe these funds are mostly squandered and what developments do come out of it are kept and marketed for profit by these corporations to "recoup" their alleged develoment expenses.