"The following is a brief outline of this bill put together by Mat 20 Staver of the Freedom Foundation and Liberty Counsel (contact info is at the end).  The comments by the brief are Mat's, except where I have noted my own by putting them in italics.
The bold is also mine.

10% of americans = 30 million americans. that is a massive number

How many of those Americans dont want to have health insurance, there are a lot of people who dont care if they are covered. Mostly younger people who choose not to pay for health insurance at this time. So who are the people that arent covered. Unemployed mainly because COBRA is a joke and health insurance costs too much to go it alone. The others who arent covered and want to be work in temp jobs or jobs where the employer doesnt offer it because of the high costs.

 Now back to the original problem, health insurance costs too much. And our genuis government isnt addressing the bottom line reasons why it costs so much in the first place. And they wont because then that will anger the insurance companies and their lobbyists.

Go back to the way it was in the 60s and 70s, simpler health insurance coverage and take a look at that and fix todays problems. This shouldnt be this ridiculous or complicated.

As far as people losing their jobs and then getting another job and having to change insurance coverage at that time, yes fine. But you have to wait at least 90 days usually before you can get covered at any new job.

They have reduced the cost by a couple of trillion dollars with new proposals added to the bill, they are going to set rules and regulations for insurance companies, not for the people being insured, that have been needed for many years that the insurance companies will NOT do unless they are forced to do. 

They are going to form an exchange pooling insurance so that small business can get and offer insurance to employees at the same highly discounted rate that large corporations have been getting for years now.

In short the new rules and regs will make it POSSIBLE for more people to TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES.

I haven't seen any legitimate complaints yet that turned out to be true and not just false and wildly exaggerated claims, other than that Montana has some good points about addressing some of the reasons for insurance costing so much like for one thing pharmeceutical companies jacking prices on medication sky high to make huge profits, but that is free market for you and we don't want to interfere to much with that, so I say now that they have cut costs go for it. We need it.

They have reduced the cost by a couple of trillion dollars with new proposals added to the bill, they are going to set rules and regulations for insurance companies, not for the people being insured, that have been needed for many years that the insurance companies will NOT do unless they are forced to do. 

Barbara, do you really think that the insurance companies and their lobbyists and the you know what politicians that they have in the hip pockets are ever going to allow this to happen, no way. These bills can look so nice until they are actually passed and become law, and then later we find out they did some funny midnight changes to the bill at the very last minute.

 And I never really said that drugs costs too much, I believe the Pharma companies are entitled to their money, they are the ones inventing, researching and testing and putting up with the FDA regs. But I think that all these ads for the drugs should be outlawed again like they were not very long ago, those ads costs a lot of money.

Read the referenced lines in the Bill (HR 3200) to validate your authenticity. Otherwise you may be referencing incorrect info.

I can't blame you for your skepticism Montana because that is so true about last minute changes it does happen so so often. 

But Obama has put himself on the line on this one and he does have a fairly decent record as far as I am concerned as explained below of following thru with most of his promises.   

 And he has said specifically that the eight consumer protections that are expressly stated in the bill will remain in the bill even though insurance companies are fighting it so hard and paying over 30,000 daily to lobby against these eight protections.  If the bill passes Congress these protections must be in there or no signing was what he said.

He has kept 34 promises so far, compromised on 11,  7 promises have been marked as broken of which one of them SB and I have argued about repeatedly because you can now veiw legislation five days and even longer before he signs, but SB considers it a broken promise because he passed the Schipp legislation without the five day viewing, but I argue that he never claimed that he would be able to set up the viewing the very first day only that it would be done, and it is now done.  So regardless of Politifact and SB I don't consider that one broken , I consider it kept because he did NOT set a timeline of the very first day..    Some other promises well they will be broken only if he doesn't get them passed before his term ends because like with the first he did NOT specify a timeline. 

There are two promises that I would definitely consider broken and one is on removing penalties on withdrawing from 401 K's for 2009 for people that were hard hit by the economic downturn.    And I consider he waffled a whole lot on his transparency promises and lobbyist policies but I do give him credit to some extent because he has done better and made some improvements more than past presidents have done, so on these I will give him credit for some effort and some accomplishment, just not so much credit for accomplishing and following thru with as much as he promised.

   I do think he was naive in thinking he could change the way Congress functions with lobbyists and all because no one person will ever be able to do that, and I doubt the people will ever be able to come together enough to do it either.  I  figure we are stuck with this process in congress as much as I hate it and as bad as I think it is for us, we are stuck with it forever I fear.

Obama cannot control this situation. Here is what happens, the health care bill is Obamas baby, congress messes with it just enough, add some more pork and lobbyist junk in favor of the insurance companies at the very last moment, you really think President Obama would veto it. I dont think he would or could veto it when congress messes with the final bill.

He CAN veto it, whether he would or not would depend on whether he considered there were enough of what he wants to accomplish to offset the drawbacks. I think that is pretty much the way it is with every bill that goes thru Congress and every President when they sign or don't sign.  They don't even expect to have everything the way they want it because they know Congress is going to play havoc with even the simplest proposals.

Montana:

10% of americans = 30 million americans. that is a massive number

How many of those Americans dont want to have health insurance, there are a lot of people who dont care if they are covered. Mostly younger people who choose not to pay for health insurance at this time. So who are the people that arent covered. Unemployed mainly because COBRA is a joke and health insurance costs too much to go it alone. The others who arent covered and want to be work in temp jobs or jobs where the employer doesnt offer it because of the high costs.

 Now back to the original problem, health insurance costs too much. And our genuis government isnt addressing the bottom line reasons why it costs so much in the first place. And they wont because then that will anger the insurance companies and their lobbyists.

Go back to the way it was in the 60s and 70s, simpler health insurance coverage and take a look at that and fix todays problems. This shouldnt be this ridiculous or complicated.

As far as people losing their jobs and then getting another job and having to change insurance coverage at that time, yes fine. But you have to wait at least 90 days usually before you can get covered at any new job.

-----------------------------

montana, while I see where you are coming from, I'd argue that young people "dont want healthcare" because they cant afford it. people my age are (from experience) terrified of getting sick, seriously sick. they all pretty much expect that if they dont have insurance and get seriously sick they are either going to have to file for bankruptcy or move back home. its not that they dont want healthcare, but that typically they cant afford it (jobs that people my age work dont typically offer good benefits), and if they can afford it, they may not see it as a good investment because what it costs and what they will pay (assuming they dont get seriously hurt or ill) doesnt come close to the amount theyd pay without it. so again, I'd argue the cost of insurance is what is keeping people from wanting insurance, if it was affordable, I think a whole lot more people would want it/get it. (keep in mind that the typical salary for someone my age is 20-30k and say 3k/year for insurance is typically over 10% of their income)

It seems to me that us making our own decisions on whether we pay for health insurance is a lot better than the govt. telling us what to pay or what plan to have.

 straight!  We live in the free good ol' America.  If you a sorry stuck up good for nothin' and see you don't need no insurance cause your Chuck Norris and can karate chop every disease...then I say don't get that insurance.  But if you go over to China and get the Bird Flu or SARS ...then bucko, don't complain!  I reckon' its your own  fault, but more power to ya if you don't get sick.  Save you a little money, maybe 

Right now its hard to tell whats the truth and what isnt concerning this bill. Of course the talk shows and the internet have their own versions of this bill. Since most of us arent lawyers its hard to totally understand what the hell we read when we try and read this bill.

Some of the things I continue to hear is that if you are over a certain age and get certain illnesses you wont be covered anymore. Dementia was one they mentioned tonight on good ol talk radio.

What about the regulation that will force ALL employers to offer health insurance to their employees. Sounds good but that is impossible for many small and start up businesses. So we are going to have a country full of contract workers, so-called full-time temp workers and sub-contract workers to get around this law. What does that do with unemployment benefits.

Interesting question: If this bill were law today and everyone had to have this same coverage, would people like Ted Kennedy be able to get all of this care and medicine.

Montana, it is expressly stated in the bill that employers with fewer than 25 employees will be EXEMPT from fines for not having insurance and will not be forced to offer insurance to employees.

There is no cut-off age for coverage it is also expressly stated in the bill that there will be no discrimination on coverage for age or for illnesses.

And the regulation will only cover the basic coverage requirements there will still be many differences in what insurance companies offer in their premiums. Some will be better than others but all of them will have to meet the basic minimum requirements.

When I have time I will post these three for you and they are clear enough that anyone can understand them on these three issues anyway.

Barbara, how will this gov health care be enacted and cost the same in each state, when each state has totally different mandates. And each state has a different number of mandates.

I like the part about being taxed if you do not have insurance.