The Washington Post has put up another of those calculators to tell you how health care reform will affect you.
For most of you, it will say what it said for me, that “there will be no change to your insurance coverage” and “you will not pay any additional taxes”.
This kind of thing gets some of my friends angry. Evidently they think that even though they will pay no new taxes, they should be getting something. Others are (lucky enough to make enough to be) paying new taxes and upset they are getting nothing.
Well, the calculator isn’t telling the whole truth. In exchange for those taxes, you’re getting insurance on your insurance. If you’re unlucky enough to get laid off, you will be assured that you will be able to find a comparable policy at a comparable price. If you develop a chronic illness, no one will be able to deny you coverage or raise your rates. And your children (and their children) will be protected in the same way.
No one is getting nothing.
UPDATE: As some of you have reminded me, everyone also gets efforts to slow the rising costs of health care, insurance rate reviews, the Medicare Commission, comparative effectiveness research, pilots of bundled payments, no lifetime limits on coverage, and greater protection against fraud.
