thoughts

This is a very important upholding of the law, for President Obama. It verifies Obama's understanding of Constitutional Law, for one thing. It also lends credence to the fact that he listened to the American people, and while not getting exactly what most of us asked for, Universal Health Care, we got some assurances that we won't lose our houses if we get some debilitating disease or illness, nor can we be denied health care, if we have an existing disease or illness. Our seniors benefitted from the health care reform act, as well as our young adults who may not be full time college students but also don't have insurance through their companies. Frankly, I see those days coming to an end, and I think that is a good thing, in the long run. Employers may sweeten the pot when they hire, by offering better than average health insurance, but the health care burden that has been placed on them for the past 10-15 years has really drained their general funds, and so this reform looks promising for them as well.

The one piece of this legislation, in fact the ONLY piece of this legislation, that I didn't agree with was the mandated health insurance piece which says everyone MUST have insurance. Don't get me wrong, I think everyone MUST have insurance, but this mandate seemed to be driven by the health insurance companies, at least to me. But today, when reading the briefs from the SCOTUS, I learned something new. The mandate requirement says you must have insurance or you must pay 1% of your income (whether this is a "tax" or not is part of the debate) toward government insurance, probably Medicare, right? This goes into effect in 2014.

So I started thinking about that. Even though my husband's company "pays for" our insurance, it actually comes out of our premiums. So each month, we are paying $1200 health care premiums. Let's do the math. 1200 x 12 months = $14,400. Hmmm, that would mean we would have to earn $144,000 each year in income to fuss about this mandate. But we don't make that much, and so I am left to believe we would be BETTER OFF buying into the government insurance. After all, we don't have any glitzy insurance plans. Those days have been long gone. And that would mean that my husband's raises would no longer have to go toward our insurance, which means more money in our pockets.

Now I can better understand why the insurance companies were so busy fighting this. And now I feel like I actually like ALL components of the reform.

Today was a good day for Americans. Mitt Romney wants to drop the whole thing on his first day in office. He wants to drop the plan that was so similar to HIS plan in Massachusetts. Hmmm, interesting little flip flopper, isn't he?

So how do you feel about health care reform being upheld by the SCOTUS?