A private company the government forces me to patronize.
Which is still private.
Oh but yes, they will. Just as they do now seeing that Medicaid and Medicare deny more claims than private companies.
If you can't tell the difference between government regulating a business and a government body selling you that business' product, then I don't know what to tell you. Your insurance company will be a private company.
Not at all. Not even close. If I have insurance and the company does something I don't like, I can drop them. Or, I can forgo having insurance at all and pay for everything out of pocket (my current choice). Nothing at all is rationed. But, when this bill goes into effect, I no longer have that choice. I'll be forced to purchse a product I don't want and don't need. For prices higher than they are now. And then be forced to pay out of pocket on top of that when they ration out what they will or will not pay for. I'll be forced to buy into one of the two worst aspects of our healthcare system: insurance or govt. I'll be losing more money and gaining nothing out of it.
You will still have the option to drop them. There is more than one insurance company out there, you know. You will also have the ability to go without insurance, it will cost you $695 per year. Why pay that? Because if you happen to get cancer after dropping your insurance, the rest of us get stuck paying the bill when you declare bankruptcy. Yes, that happens now. Insurance companies get overbilled to help cover the cost of uninsured patients, because we need hospitals to stay afloat. Will premiums go up, on average? Maybe. I'm not convinced that they well, because a lot of young, healthy people will be joining the ranks of the insured to offset the more expensive patients. Also, I think the exchanges will promote better competition. Right now, there are a lot of areas with only one or two providers. As far as "buying into" the government, the government wont be selling any products. You literally cannot get health insurance from the government unless you qualify for Medicare or Medicaid.
Seriously, this "rationing" freakout we see in this country is unwarranted. You claimed that "nothing at all is rationed" because you can pay out of pocket. That doesn't change with this bill. And again, the government will not be providing insurance to you. They will not be deciding what your insurance company does or does not pay for. Your insurance company does that now and they will continue to do so. Private companies are doing the rationing right now and will continue to do so. If you think otherwise, if you think a government panel will review case #2358u1, Rivrrat's Chest X-Ray, and approve or disapprove, you're wrong. There is no provision in the bill that allows for such a situation.
Don't get the impression that I think the bill will fix everything. On the contrary, I think the bill fails to address the fundamentally flawed system we're working with. We've tried to run health care like any other private industry, except the usual market forces don't apply to health care the same way they apply to televisions.
edit: Are people under the impression that we're going to "run out" of health care? That we'll have to start drawing lots for who gets their broken ankle wrapped up?