Reply #13: Did you say 'mischaracterization' with a straight face?

[Bluenorthwest]

More of what you edited out of the CNA/NNOC statement:
"But the acclaim now flowing from some quarters would have been better deserved had these provisions been enacted on their own -- not accompanied by the many shortcomings of the legislation. To cite a few:

* Healthcare will remain unaffordable for many Americans. The bill does not do nearly enough to control skyrocketing insurance, pharmaceutical, and hospital costs. Indeed, by various estimates, with no effective limits on the insurance industry's price gouging, out-of-pocket costs for premiums, deductibles and other fees by some estimates with eat up from 15 to 19 percent of family incomes by several accounts.
* No meaningful reform of the rampant insurance denials of medical treatment the insurers don't want to pay for.
* Little assistance for individuals and families who presently have employer-sponsored health plans and face frequent erosion of their coverage and health security. No help for the healthcare cost-shifting from employers to employees.
* Minimal expansion of consumer choice. The much debated public plan option will be available only to about 2 percent of people under age 65, mostly those now not covered who buy insurance on their own (it may or may not be expanded in 2015). Further, no additional plan options for those in the many markets dominated by one or two private plans, and no additional choice of doctor or hospital within existing plans.
* The new limits on abortion extended to poor women.

Ultimately, the combination of the mandate to buy insurance, federal subsidies to low income families to purchase private plans, failure to adequately control insurance prices or crack down on the abuse of insurance denials make the House bill -- and its Senate counterpart -- look a lot like a massive bailout for the private insurance industry. "