You forgot the criminal penalties for trying to get care by other means when the government clerk tells you to wait.

You're sick? The clerk is not sick. Fill out this form. No, you're not being denied care. It's just not available. Fill out this form, and go home and wait.

In 2012 "...Democrats are going to have to face an angry sea of voters who are paying hundreds of dollars more a month for insurance, if they still have it, while receiving less benefits and services because of rationing."

So? It won't have made any difference in 2010. Why should it make any difference in 2012?

"many sensational stories about people in America being denied
treatment or access to doctors because of Obamacare's effects"

This is as opposed to the pre-change sensational stories about
people in America being denied treatment or access to doctors
because of insurance companies balking or rescinding health
coverage when it's needed most?

"This is as opposed to the pre-change sensational stories about
people in America being denied treatment or access to doctors
because of insurance companies balking or rescinding health
coverage when it's needed most?"

Because having it happen to EVERYONE, as opposed to some, is soooo much more "fair", right?

The canned response by supporters of Obama and his lackeys to criticism about their handling of the economy and healthcare in Congress is that "it would have been much worse" if they hadn't done what they did. Expect to hear that meme repeated over and over by their supporters in the media too until they hope that people begin to believe that it is a fact.

You will get the message when your employer's open enrollment period begins. The dems better hope that is after this election. The huge increase we are facing in property taxes is already going to cost some local politicians their jobs.

This gives a new and unintended meaning to the phrase "October surprise." These guys may be able to get jobs modelling tar and feathers. Otherwise, their futures look bleak.

I'm not sure who you think Rumpelstiltskin is, but perhaps you've confused him with Rip Van Winkle? Rumpelstiltskin is a wicked little dwarf who, in exchange for spinning a roomful of straw into gold, demands the Queen's firstborn. He agrees to forgo payment should the Queen correctly reveal his name. She accomplishes this with the aid of a spy.

Rip Van Winkle is the legendary figure who slept for 20 years.

I am completely furious that the Democrats rammed this ill-conceived piece of legislation down our throats. Evidently the best tactic for passing anything you want in congress is to give it a pretty name, make it sound like the best thing in the world, then make it too long for anyone to bother to read. How about a constitutional mandate that all laws be read comprehensively before getting passed? Sure it might slow the process down, but since we're heading for a cliff anyways, that's a good thing.

Bush aimed us at the cliff, Obama hit the accelerator.

What amazes me is that we're the only nation in the world that doesn't have health care. And when we try to get it, the population can be convinced that this is a bad thing.

This is not to say that I think universal health care would be a good thing for this country, but my disagreement with it is for different reasons.

After working for some years in the health care industry, with wild-eyed idealism about being of aid to suffering people, I became disenchanted because of what so many people seem to think health care is for.

Out clinic was beset by pharmaceutical addicts who want their pill fix. Or by lowlife losers who seem to think that our objective is to justify their collecting permanent disability.

And these people weren't impoverished unskilled types. Many of them had decent jobs and could collect competitive wages. But they just wanted to sit back for the rest of their lives and draw a check and not work. And they were so direct about it! They would just matter-of-factly ask our doctors to make sure they would find something that would give them permanent disability.

Patrick, we have always had health care. It just wasn't run by the government. In fact, the problems with our pre-Obamacare health care system were caused by the government. So, no, nobody thinks more of a bad thing can be good.

Yeah! The insurance companies should be completely untrammeled by regulations forbidding them from doing normal things like dumping people when they get sick, raising premiums without justification, paying their executives obscene salaries even as they deny basic procedures to those who need them, imposing "lifetime limits" that can leave you dangling without healthcare even after you've paid their premiums for 30 years, and so on. The poor insurance companies, haven't they suffered enough?

I won't have to wait any longer than January 1 to see how Obamacare has affected my family. I have a daughter with mitochondrial disease. We spend, out of our pocket, just over $10,000/year in copays, medical equipment, therapy, supplements (the standard treatment for mito, which is rarely covered by insurance), etc. This doesn't include our insurance, which is inexpensive and gives us good coverage. Starting January 1, rather than the $5000 we are allowed in our flexible savings accounts to help us pay for these costs tax-free (and also it helps us "smooth" our costs out over the year), we will be allowed only $1000.

Add to that that we will now be taxed on her medical equipment. She uses a wheelchair, a walker, hearing aids, glasses, an insulin pump with supplies, and a food/supplment pump for her GI button.

I did the responsible thing and got a better paying job to pay for her health costs, plus a handicapped-accessible car, and extras like tutoring and non-medical therapies like equine therapy, and to reward me for that, my tax rates are about to go up.

Here's the only two things that needed to be done to fix healthcare: divorce it from employment (everyone buys their own) and allow cross-state competition. Problem solved.

Thanks Obama.

Radwaste, I certainly hope you aren't suggesting that those criminal penalties for seeking medical care are somehow unjust or immoral. They're the LAW, don't you get it? You had your chance to be heard before the Affordable Health Care Act was passed. Now you've just got to accept that it's wrong and evil to seek medical care through non-governmentally approved channels, and that anyone who does that needs to be hunted down by armed men and sent to jail for a very long time.

Here's the only two things that needed to be done to fix healthcare: divorce it from employment (everyone buys their own) and allow cross-state competition. Problem solved.

Exactly. The increased competition would take care of the complaints Steve H voices above.

By the way, the reason healthcare is tied into employment and cross-state competition didn't happen? Government.

Pop, pop, snivel it is
Oh what a streak of piss we is
We are against Obamacare
We dress in ladies underwear
Our language is often fart-y
And we are The Tea Party!

BTW, looking online at the Defense Department authorization and appropriations bills, combined, I see they come in at more than 1500 pages.

Hands up from all who read them.

The page-count line is weaker than Amy Alkon's resolve in the face of baby poop.

I still think we need a law saying that all new laws and bills must be 20 pages or less.

"Yeah! The insurance companies should be completely untrammeled by regulations forbidding them from doing normal things like dumping people when they get sick, raising premiums without justification, paying their executives obscene salaries even as they deny basic procedures to those who need them, imposing "lifetime limits" that can leave you dangling without healthcare even after you've paid their premiums for 30 years, and so on."

And so, FORCING people to buy from them will change any single bit of this how? Oh, that's right, no limits on what they can charge you, as long as they cover you. Brilliant.

Steve H.,

You are being naive -- government regulation has driven the insurance companies out of many states. That is because they can't afford to cover the legally required breast reconstruction costs on the $3.55 that they are allowed to charge per customer/employer without going into bankruptcy.