but this bill allows me to keep my current insurance with no changes at all
Generally in theory, and at least for the short term maybe in your specific case in reality. But for more and more people that won't be the case.
Besides that's not much of an argument that it isn't nationalizing the industry, its just letting you be grandfathered in, in your current situation.
The better argument against it being nationalization, is the direct one. Neither the Senate nor the House bill calls for direct federal ownership over the majority of health care insurance (but the exchanges are creatures of the state). But what it does is basically destroy real insurance. Underwriting and selling actual insurance for health is outlawed (no denial for preexisting conditions), and the terms of the insurance offered will largely be set in DC. Lane's called that making the insurance companies (or perhaps "claims processing companies" might be a better term for her viewpoint), in to federal contractors. I see some similarities between the two, but the companies for the most part won't actually be working on federal contracts, so perhaps a better way of looking at them would be as heavily regulated utilities, and utilities that are prohibited from really performing what was a core element of their business.
The regulations could make providing insurance unprofitable, and thus drive the whole thing towards a real direct nationalized health insurance system. I think some people support it for that reason (but then others support it thinking it will do such thing, we are talking about a real world political coalition not some monolithic block of identically thinking people).
That's true, but I'm sure you know that our government also mandates that everyone have, at the minimum, liability insurance if you own a car and plan to drive it.
The federal government doesn't, that change alone is a change of paradigm, and enough to make the mandate constitutionally dubious. Also there is no universal requirement for liability insurance in any state. You may have to buy insurance before you can register a vehicle, but you can get a driver's liscence, or (in many states) own a vehicle that's only used on private land and can't legally go on public roads, without having liability insurance. Or you can just not have a vehicle at all. A requirement to have insurance in order to register a vehicle is very different than a simple requirement to have insurance full stop. |
