Health Care (H.R. 4872 ) Finally Passed

So Health Care passed (technically there could still exist one more painstaking battle in the Senate, but Democrats only need 51 votes to pass it). It's a historic moment that will largely be overshadowed by liberals who are disappointed that there's no public option (think of it is a Medicare that anyone can opt into so long as they pay premiums which would be much more affordable than private insurance companies), and conservatives who will wrangle on about inflated costs (as though what we have now wasn't scheduled to inflate far worse) and falsely claim that their ideas would have actually done anything to cut costs and increase coverage, and an endless debate on the obscure abortion funding.

Nevertheless, this bill is a big deal and had it not passed now, we'd of probably been looking at another 10-15 years before there was a large enough Democratic majority in Congress to get this done.

The essentials of this bill are:

1- A National Exchange where people can comparison shop for coverage (think Orbitz/Travelocity)

2- Tougher regulations/rules on insurers (no more denying coverage because you forgot to mention you had asthma as a kid and this counts as a pre-existing condition which you failed to account for in your coverage).

3- Required coverage for everyone. This makes many people gasp, but the truth is, #2 couldn't work without this one, since insurance companies would be overrun by people buying coverage when they get sick or injured, getting treatment, then canceling afterwards.

4- Subsidies for people with incomes low enough to make private coverage unaffordable but too high to qualify for Medicaid (makes #3 more palatable).

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out in the November primaries this year.