I don't really see an upside to it. It has some good stuff in it but the funding won't be there for it so I don't think we'll ever see it. It's throwing a ton of the cost back on the states and the states are mostly running out of money as it is. They also excluded Medicare costs from the bill so it would get a better result from the CBO analysis. So it basically passed by use of smoke and mirrors.
They also left out a ton of real reform measures and didn't really do anything to reduce insurance premiums. The only real winners will be the insurance companies now that they'll have 30 million-ish people forced on to their service with a mandate.
As someone who has struggled mightily with his health insurance company in both cost and coverage, I would have loved to have seen real reform but I can't look at this bill and see any benefit from it.
Just looking at what's exactly is in the bill from this
Reuters article it shows that in 2018 the tax on "cadillac" plans starts. The first $10,200 of premium costs won't be taxed. Well let's see, I'm on an individual plan now that's carried over from my old plan from when I had it from an employer. My premiums just went up and I'm now paying $9600 a year for it. Now call me crazy but I think they'll go up again in the next 8 years and I'll be over that threshold*.
Stuff like that just tells me that not a whole lot of thought went into this bill.
* However this means I'd still be sick and without a job that provides insurance in which case you can just shoot me so it won't matter. Still, the point is that they obviously did the old government trick of miscalculating everything to make it all look better on paper.
