Congratulations, Americans, on your new health-care coverage

 Posted by on 21 March 2010  Modern Life
Mar 212010
 

The U.S. House of Representatives has voted to pass universal health care legislation, by a count of 219-212.

As a Canadian, I find it reassuring that you guys are finally coming around. Universal health care, Canadian-style, isn’t perfect. Neither is the British version, the French version, or the version tried by every other industrialized country.

But, frankly, it’s pretty good. I suspect that you’ll look back on this in a decade or so with as much bewilderment as you do on anti-miscegenation laws.

Next up, gay marriage? And, if you can do something about decriminalizing marijuana, you realize that you could leap-frog us, right?

Grant Hamilton

  • Reader

    Um, it’s not universal health care. It’s universal insurance mandate. It’s a law forcing you to buy insurance if you aren’t already getting it from somewhere else – a law which takes effect years in the future, supported by subsidies which also don’t appear until years in the future. The only real immediate beneficiaries are people who have pre-existing conditions, who some help right away, and people who are at risk of losing coverage due to insurance company evil.

    There’s some good in the bill, but I’m continually amazed at how many Canadians read “Obama proposes health reform” and suddenly assume that American health care will suddenly look like France or Britain tomorrow morning. If anything, the remarkable part about this whole thing isn’t how much it changes, but how little it will actually change.

  • http://www.absurdintellectual.com/ Grant Hamilton

    True, true, true and guilty as charged w/r/t Canadian glibness.

    Despite all that’s not perfect in the bill though (and, to be honest, I’m relying on opinion columnists for most of my education of its ins and outs), I think it’s a step forward. And, with luck, it’ll be only the first step.

    re: “universal health care” vs “universal insurance mandate”, it looks to me like we’re both right — it’s universal health care funded by a universal insurance mandate.

    I’ll admit, it seems a queer and roundabout way of doing it, but it got the bill passed.

    My continual amazement came from the lack of a public option — Republicans, who live and die on the “government is inefficient, step aside and let the free market in” mantra, tied themselves in knots proclaiming that a government-run insurance plan would be better, more efficient and more affordable than the all-wonderful private sector. And this was a BAD thing?

  • Colin

    The fact that the bill, as watered down and essentially status-quo as it is, got signedat all is a miracle. There was some incredible displays of ugliness on the part of those arrayed against it…racial and homophobic slurs screamed out, vandalism, threats. You name it.

    It was reminiscent of the turmoil created by those who were determined to destroy civil rights legislation. It’s a step in the right direction, but I really worry about a country with so many deeply destructive urges in it.