Gee, you think! Cost of the bill has always been one of the two top concerns among the voters regarding the plan and it doesn't take a polling genius to figure that out.
Here's the thing, health care has three main components that have to be balanced, universality, affordability or comprehensiveness.
Universality means how many people are covered. Under the Obama plan, everyone would be covered and everyone would be required to have health insurance. Sounds nice, but you can bet that there will be minimums for health care and that means that someone has to pay for it. Under the most common plans I have heard discussed, for a family who earns up to 400% of federal poverty level (up to about $80,000 for a family of four), they would get federal subsidies and/or public coverage.
Affordability is not just the expense to the individual person, but the cost of the overall plan to the federal govenrment.
Comprehensiveness is how much is covered.
In general, all health insurance plans are a balancing act between these three points, but in essence you can only choose two attributes:
You can be universal and affordable, but it won't be comprehensive, i.e. the notion of rationing services.
You can have insurance that is universal and comprehensive, but it will never be affordable, to the individual or the country as a whole.
You can have insurance that is affordable and comprehensive---but it can't cover everyone. That is just a fact.
It seems shocking to me that our govenrment leaders haven't thought about cost until now. Seriously!!!?
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