Some Good Sites About Health Care Reform

These sites are available to anyone and the first is from the Kaiser Family Foundation, which is Non-Partisan and has no agenda in this reform battle. It is a calculator to enable you to estimate what your insurance will cost after the reform bill is signed into law.

This is something everyone needs to look at and use.. If you have no insurance at this time, and have an income, it will tell you how you will benefit from the reforms we are about to have at your fingertips. You can choose either bill, the House version or the Senate version and compare the two.

You can access this calculator by clicking here.

As an example a family of 4, with an income of $80,000 a year, will pay about $9,241 a year. They will also receive a subsidy of $1,401. So the actual amount they will pay is $7,840. That is for the Senate version of the bill.

The House version for the same family, same income will still pay about $9,241 a year, but the subsidy they will receive will only be $236, so the actual amount they will pay is $9,005.

Now, which one do you think we should support? Remember the Senate bill is cheaper, yet has more subsidies in it for the lower incomes and helps more of the uninsured faster than the House bill does.

For the differences and the similarities in the bills.. There is a link on the same web site for that and you can access it here. It will open another page and allow you to print out a .pdf file so you can look at them side by side.

If you would rather just take a look at them on the web, without the pdf files, you can go to AARP and see the comparison on their web site. That site is always available but you realize they have supported the Health Care and if you quote them, some may say it is biased. But the charts are here.

Both of these are very good sites.. Even if there are changes in the final bill, and there most assuredly will be, this should show everyone how close the two bills are, and how much the final reform will help or will cost each of us who need insurance.

I am one of the lucky ones in this country.. I am covered. But there are millions who are not covered and need this. I have family who isn't. This is something they need desperately. We as a country need this also. It will help us all in the long run. As the President and others have pointed out more than once, it will bring down costs, bring down the deficit and help small and large businesses.

But the most important thing it will do is insure the uninsured. This is what matters more than anything. The people who are protesting the Senate bill, who are calling for it to be killed, who are asking that Sen. Sanders, Feingold, Franken and others stand up and vote against the final bill with the Republicans is just wrong. Not just wrong but in my opinion is immoral.

How can we sacrifice the needs of all these people who so desperately need this, just because they don't think it goes quite far enough.. Well sorry, I know some of you think compromises should never be made.. but it doesn't work that way. They are made every day, every time bills are written and laws are passed.

Do you really think when Social Security was written it was the exact way it is now? No it wasn't. FDR had to settle for a compromise and take what he could get, even with a greater majority than what Pres. Obama has now. Even with Republicans that voted FOR the bill, and a much more Liberal bunch than what Pres. Obama has to deal with.

Do you really think when the Civil Rights bill was written and passed it was the exact way it is now? Do you really think when the Medicare Bill was written and passed it was the exact way it is now. No, it wasn't. LBJ settled for a compromise. Even with Republican votes FOR the bill, and a much more Liberal bunch and a greater majority than Pres. Obama has to deal with, he still settled for much less than he wanted.

But those bills and those laws were good enough to build on. That's what we have NOW. Something to build on. Let's support this, pass this and then we can work on making it better.

We have to make sure we work hard to re-elect Democrats, strong Liberal, Progressive Democrats who will vote and write legislation that we want.. Get rid of the Traitor Joes, the Ben Nelson's, the Blanche Lincoln's and all the other DINO's that are in the Senate.. Then we can truly have the Senate to carry out what we want and not compromise... MAYBE.