I'm still trying to figure out what exactly this bill is supposed to do. The things that I know it will do are:
1. Cut reimbursement to the physicians taking care of medicare patients.
2. Raise premium costs on private insurance due to the elimination of risk stratfication on pts....i.e....companies cannot charge pt's at higher risk of developing health problems (smokers, alcoholics, pre-existing conditions...etc) more than they charge healthy folks.
3. Take he decision making out of the hands of the patient and the physician by creating more federal regulations and installing some sort of oversight committee to set standards of care.
Obama is to the point that he just wants something passed for the sake of saying he was able to get health care reform passed. Even some of his fellow left wing loons are against this bill.
What this will effectively do is decrease the # of physicians that will take medicare. The fact is, physicians have to hre extra office staff just to handle all the damn regulations and paperwork that has to be dealt with as a result of medicare. If they cut reimbursement, physicians will just stop taking it because it isn't worth it to make less money while adding to your overhead due to the extra staff needed. I'm just a resident right now, so I have no choice, but if I were in private practice, I would probably not take medicare if this passed.
The things that are needed such as tort reform and insurance porability aren't in this bill as far a I know.