(My thoughts on the healthcare bill.)

I’ve looked at the bill. I’ve tried to read the bill. I can’t get a decent grasp on what it is exactly saying.

I have found a number of articles about the bill which point out mostly bad things about it. ( http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2300451/posts ) I’ve looked up some of the page numbers listed and I still can’t understand it. My problem with this type of ‘translation’ is it doesn’t provide enough information to explain things.

So I went looking for a different approach, one that wasn’t fully against the bill. I came across this ‘translation’ of the bill ( http://eshoo.house.gov/images//hr3200sectionbysection.pdf ). I felt this one also didn’t provide enough information to explain what was really going on and still was hard for me to understand.

I have two main issues with this bill. First is that it’s both an important (ie powerful/overarching) bill and yet hard to read. For something that will affect so many Americans, I don’t care if it’s good or bad, the people who will be affected need to understand the bill. The people PASSING the bill need to understand the bill. Usually, I’m suspicious about things I don’t understand.

There’s a lot of confusion about this bill. The fact that the whitehouse has a website devoted to “debunking myths” about it is proof of the misunderstandings that have come from this bill. There is a reason there are “myths” about the bill. IT’S NOT CLEAR. If they would have made the bill clear and readable, they wouldn’t have to be doing this “myth debunking.”

More importantly (in my mind) my problem is with the governmental control. I don’t think our government has handled our military conflicts very well. I don’t think they are handling social security well. They don’t handle national security well. I have a hard time believing they will handle health care well. I’m not saying the system is good right now, I’m just saying I don’t think handing the system to the government is the best way to go.

I hear many people saying that this isn’t about a ‘government takeover’ but rather to ‘provide an option’ for people. Some almost seem to go as far as to say that this won’t affect private health care in the least. I don’t see how making a change a big as this can NOT affect other aspects of health care.

Governments are notoriously slow moving bodies. (There is much to be said for going about things slowly.) I can’t help but think about all the copyright, patent and technology (net neutrality) issues that people are clamoring need to be fixed. At one point in time, these things were solutions to problems (protecting intellectual property) or they weren’t problems (net neutrality). But now we think they are problems and need to be changed.

Sure, some aspects of this plan might look good right now, but honestly, I want to know what they plan to do in 10 years when this bill is no longer relevant and needs to be updated?

People are also notorious for not seeing the big picture. Far too often I think our governing bodies (and corporate bodies) aim to fix symptoms of a problem rather than the problem itself. From my knowledge of the bill, I don’t believe it’s going to solve any problems.

I’m a firm believer in alternatives. The bill is being passed as a false dichotomy: pass this and fix everything or don’t pass it and we are ruined. I think there’s more options than that and I wish people would be more open to discussion and less flippant with their name calling on this issue.

Other thoughts on http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/

In video “Reform will stop “rationing” – not increase it” Kavit reads a question “How are you going to ensure that rationing of services do not occur.” Her answer to the question is “Rationing of services occurs right now.” She doesn’t go on to explain how it will stop, she simply says it’s happening now, this is how it happens and we want reform so everyone has help.