OH, and the biggest one, no benefits until the 5th year. But the taxes kick in right away. As everyone knows, when government takes in money, they spend it. There will be no money left in 5 years, so newer taxes will have to be installed. This is just another smoke and mirrors maneuver. Tax and Control. Nothing more.

This is un Constitutional.

The states are already passing and have already passed decrees, that they will not allow this to be installed in their state.

The federal government has gone way beyond it's scope.

This system we have is a...corporatist nightmare.

• This is nothing like Universal Health Care. It is the exact same system of purchasing policies from insurance companies that we have now, except that everyone must purchase and no one can be denied coverage provided they can pay the monthly premiums. The poor and elderly in our country already have Medicaid and Medicare which is gov't paid by everyone's taxes. This HCR will reduce the number of people covered by these programs. That is the savings being claimed. However, insurance companies will have to cover the ones that can not and will logically do so by raising the premiums (or will reduce coverage, or increase the amount of your co-pay).
  
  
• Provisions in the HCR bill touch on or outright circumvent protections 8 of the 10 Amendments in the Bill of Rights. So far nothing seems to interfere with the 2nd and 3rd. There is nothing in Article 1, Section 8 (Powers of Congress) that allow for the Federal Gov't to force the People to purchase anything. It is akin to making it a federal law that if enter a McDonald's that you have to purchase a Big Mac whether you eat it or not even if you just went inside to use the restroom.
  
  
• Alternatives to HCR have been mentioned and dismissed. One of the best ones was to allow Americans the option to buy into Medicare coverage until their normal age for entrance. This idea, with a few other ideas implemented such as removing interstate restrictions for insurance companies and disallowing pre-existing conditions as a barrier to purchase private policies, would have accomplished the goal of medical coverage for more Americans and lowering the expense of Medicare to the Gov't by price for purchasing Medicare coverage. It also would have prevented larger violations of the Constitution that HCR does.
  
  
• This more of a personal observation than anything else. Obama wants to be compared to Lincoln. The HCR Bill, as it stands, when passed into Law, has the greatest chance of anything that has came down the pike of finally causing a second Civil War. Unemployment and underemployment is at all time highs. An additional expense burden on an already lowered standard of living could be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Back last August I had a thread that was a beginning of this thought. Squashing a rebellion would be as good of an excuse as any to overturn the 2nd Amendment. But much the same way that participation in the first Civil War kept the secessionists from holding office, so too would participation this time around be used to limit people's freedoms after it was over.
  
  
• Every American already has the ability to receive emergency medical attention for free. A hospital cannot refuse emergency medical treatment to anyone regardless of their ability to pay. This bill will only reduce the non-pays. And Ohio, as I would imagine other states have done because Ohio is not particularly creative, has instituted a 2% franchise tax on all Ohio hospitals on income received from treatment administered. That tax is passed on to the insurance companies which will pass it right back to the policy holders in higher premiums.
  
  
• Nothing in this bill sets prices, insurance companies now have the ability to charge anything. The majority of insured Americans have insurance through their employers as a benefit as either partial or full payment of monthly premiums. Employes enjoy the reduced cost of a group rate. Nothing in this bill compels employers to keep doing this. In fact, employers could drop this benefit to bolster their bottom line under "to reduce layoffs in these hard economic times". Thus everyone will have to purchase on their own. Wait until people see that sticker shock of no longer having a group rate and having to pay the full premium.