Health Care Reform

Yeah... I wasn't going to go all mainstream, but this is a hot topic like no other. After months and years of arguing both sides, the deal is done, and health care reform is now the law. I'm not sure anyone knows what it means - there are as many opinions on the matter as there are members of Congress, it seems.

I won't say where I stand on the matter, because like so many other Americans, I really don't know how it will affect me yet. There is hope it will make things easier in my life, because coverage will get less expensive in the long run, but right now, I know my out-of-pocket expenses are pretty sucky if I have to see someone besides my primary physician.

The one problem I do have is how one-sided the measure is. Depending on who you talk to, what polls are referenced, there is a fair amount of underwhelming support. Not a single Republican has voted for the initial bill-now-law, nor for the "fix-it" measure that was bounced back and forth between the two legislative branches. The GOP claim a less than 40-percent public approval of this "bold new plan" for health care. Meanwhile the appearance is the Democrats pushed the bill through for their own agenda and disregarded all of their talk of bipartisanship and compromise.

So now the question is where does this leave us? This hot topic isn't going to just go away now that the President has signed it into law. Right or wrong, the Republicans will take this to the voting booth when the mid-term elections happen in November, and make it a key issue in their platform.  And Democrats will continue to thumb their noses at the GOP in hopes they can retain their power.

In the end, We the People will suffer the outcome... no matter who wins.