Well, I'm not sure I understand exactly, but I think the opposite of what you said is happening here. Before it was up to each individual to pay for insurance if they could afford it, but if you have a good job, your employer offers an insurance plan, and they pay half of your premium, the other half comes out of your paycheck. For the poor, there are charity hospitals (usually terrible places) and if you are poor enough you qualify for medicaid, and basically your care is free.
But now the government is reforming health care to provide a public "option." It's all being phased in at the moment. Now everyone will be
required to have insurance for them and their children or face heavy fines. There will be government health insurance, but here's the problem. They have put so many new regulations on the private insurance companies that they are either going under or charging a lot more. And employers are technically required to offer insurance, but their fines if they don't cost them less than it costs to pay for insurance, so they are going to stop offering it and just take the fines. So if you combine those two factors, eventually almost no one will be able to afford private insurance. And if everyone goes on the government healthcare plan, then the government hospitals end up worse than the charity hospitals currently are -- long waiting lists for necessary treatments for serious illnesses and such. A lot of people here are very upset about all this, but we'll see how it works out.
Well, look who's talking about not talking politics.
Guess 'll get off my soapbox!
