What the hell is the health care bill good for?

[♥]

I am a conservative but I just don't see what good is going to come of this bill. Why should I have to pay for some guy who never worked a day in his life to have health care? I work hard, I work hard to be able to have health care. It's not my responsibility to pay for some one else's mistakes.
*Slightly Dark Francis.

people get treated regardless of if they have health care or not. I'm not asking doctors to not save an uninsured person . . . wrong argument.

[Ungratefulgovernor885]

Better health for more people. Unless...you'd prefer them to die?

[NYYanks1]

That's the democratic or should I say sociialistic way. Penalize the successful and give to the lazy. They belieze people who work are stupid and that the poor and lazy who do nothing are above the workers

[KellyGreen]

nothing really.... in my economics class we can't think of reason to keep it either. We're considering a revolution...want to join? haha

[The One Who Knows]

Well for one, a recent Harvard study showed that 45,000 deaths in the U.S. every year were attributable to lack of health insurance. By extending coverage and allowing people with preexisting conditions to buy insurance, 10's of thousands of lives can be saved every year.

Secondly, lots of hard working individuals have lost insurance coverage because the companies they work for can no longer afford insurance. In many cases even when these companies have been able to continue to provide coverage they have had to offer high deductible plans that are virtually worthless to their workforce and which are only good for catastrophic coverage. How is it a "mistake" of these workers for not having access to health insurance because their employers are no longer offering it? Are you really naive enough to think that your money is funding people that have never worked a day in their life?

That being said...

Paying for someone else's "mistakes" is EXACTLY HOW INSURANCE WORKS!!!! Your car insurance premiums pay for drunk drivers, you health insurance premiums pay when someone shoots them self in the foot, etc. When other people get in lots of car accidents or use lots of medical treatments then guess what happens - your insurance premiums go up. If paying for other people is such a concern of yours, then why do you have insurance to begin with? I assume you must also be opposed to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid as well, right?

I know that you are talking about the taxes associated with the bill and not premiums, I'm just punching a hole in your argument. I assume that your family must be making over $250k a year (which is the only group that is being taxed), which is what is prompting this question. If not, then you are among the ranks of other misinformed conservatives who have not taken one moment to look at what this bill does and how it accomplishes it.

It is kind of funny to me how you purport to be this really hardworking self-reliant individual, and yet you come on Y!A asking other people to waste their time explaining the health reform bill to you when there are detailed summaries of it all over the internet. I'm sure to a large extent you don't really have a question and you are just venting your frustration, but do you even realize that what you are apparently so upset about is based on a complete lack of understanding of the U.S. healthcare system, insurance markets, and particularly the actual contents of the bill outside of what you are "told" is in the bill by the GOP...who had grossly misrepresented the contents of the bill. If anything you should spend more time being pissed at the GOP for playing to your fears and manipulating you, and a little less time freaking out about how your contribution is going to save the lives of thousands.

**EDIT**

True, people get treated in the ER regardless of if they have insurance or not, but the hospital doesn't do that for free, those patients are still billed. Considering a lot of them can't afford to pay the cost, then that expense is passed onto those with insurance...so guess what, you are already paying the cost of the uninsured, the only difference is that in the past the hospital was tacking that expense onto what they charged the insurance company. So, again, your argument is based on a misunderstanding of how the healthcare industry functions, because as I just spelled out, regardless of whether health reform legislation passed or not, you were still paying for other people's healthcare, you just didn't know about it.

Also, the point of the Harvard study was that EVEN THOUGH people can still be treated at a hospital without insurance, 45,000 people still die every year because they don't have insurance. That is because people without insurance are less likely to use preventative services, are less willing to go to the doctor when they think they might be sick, etc.