I need an aspirin!

Healthcare reform is an issue in the forefront these days. President Obama has proposed a 1,017 page bill to congress and is now waiting to see the outcome. There is much anticipation about private healthcare going public.

There are some personal issues I have with government run healthcare. I have listed 4 to get things started:

1.) On page 29 of the reform bill it states that healthcare will be rationed. It is my understanding that this means if the government decides there should only be 10 heart transplants a year and your son or daughter, or anybody, is the 11th, they will have to wait until the following year to have their heart transplant. The reason for this is the government will only allow so much money to go toward medical services and once that amount of money has been capped, there won't be any more until the next year.

2.) On page 30 it is stated a government committee will decide treatments and benefits. There will be no appeals. I don't think there is anybody who would not agree with me that this is a bad idea. No appeals? Really? How many times have people been misdiagnosed, or an alternative treatment has been found, or one treatment didn't work so another one was tried, then another, then another, until finally something did work. How many people have been on one medication without the desired results so the medication or dosage was changed? Yes, in my opinion this whole approach is just a bad idea.

3.) One thing I had always believed was that there would be government provided healthcare and private healthcare and people could decide which they wanted to participate in. On page 84 it is stated that there will be government control over private healthcare and the private healthcare companies MUST participate in the Healthcare Exchange. What is the point in having the private insurance if it must behave just like the government provided one?

4.) On page 145 it is stated that an employer MUST auto-enroll employees into the government run public plan. There are no alternatives. What would this mean in the scenario that one person has private healthcare and their spouse gets a new job. If that person is automatically enrolled in the public plan is that the plan they must use or can they continue to use the private policy their spouse has?

Obviously there are many more issues pertaining to healthcare reform. These four are just a few, and just from 145 pages of the over 1,000 page document.

Over 30 years ago I had a family memeber who went on welfare for a period of a few years. She would have been free from the welfare system sooner if it were possible to purchase the insurance that welfare recipients receive at no cost. The working American public is already paying for that plan, why can it not be available for purchase? I have heard of a lot of people that have quit their jobs and gone on welfare to get the insurance. How is this beneficial to anybody? These have usually been cases of terminally ill people or people with life long medical conditions, but the family members could not afford the treatments and medications paying the deductibles of private insurance. If they could have purchased Medicaid they would still be working and providing money to the government in the form of income tax rather than taking from it.

Yes, healthcare is a problem in this country with so many people not covered. Any comments, views, or ideas on the matter would be appreciated.