Important quotes from Firedoglake worth mentioning:

[mmonk]

-snip-

- Health insurance companies are corporations with a fiduciary responsibility to earn a profit for its shareholders.

- They do not have a legal responsibility to provide medical care.

- Yet, health insurance companies are the primary means of access to medical care for Americans.

- All of the above points to a system that is badly broken.

While requiring them to insure people with pre-existing conditions is progress, it’s kind of like bailing out the Titanic with a teacup. There are now 50 MILLION people without health insurance and therefore without proper access to medical care. It is a national crisis and it’s time that Washington acted with a sense of urgency in addressing it.

-snip-

http://firedoglake.com/2009/09/09/health-care-reform-democrats-can-honor-their-legacy-americas-will-and-also-win-elections/

[earthboundmisfit]

1. So if they require insurance companies to sell policies to those with pre-existing conditions

But are they required to actually COVER and PAY FOR anything? Or can they just refuse to pay for a service, procedure, prescription, etc. for the myriad of other excuses they always come up with?

Hell, yes, so they're forced to sell those with pre-existing conditions, but big fuckin' deal if they're not going to pay for anything! For that matter, if we're all forced to buy policies, there's nothing that says they have to pay for a goddamn thing - the only thing they're required to do is take our money.

Or am I not getting this right?

[intheflow]

2. Sounds about right to me. n/t

[whathehell]

4. I think you are not getting it right. He didn't only make denial of coverage

illegal on ghe basis of "pre-existing conditions", he said that "recission" (refusing to pay for services)would be illegal.

[earthboundmisfit]

5. That's a relief.

Should make it illegal for them to refuse to pay for a LOT that they now refuse to pay for, too.

[whathehell]

6. Yup, it is.

As for making it illegal to pay for a lot...Yes, things are still being worked out.

[Missy Vixen]

3. There was nothing in there about age

This is what Mr. Missy Vixen and I face right now. We're both over 40. We have pre-existing conditions.

If they can't decline us due to those pre-existing conditions, they'll jack our premiums up so high we'll never be able to afford them.

Did anyone else but me catch this?

[walldude]

7. Me too, I'm in the same boat as you..

Too many pre-existing conditions in my family to get coverage. They may be able to force companies to provide "insurance" but they can't force them to make it affordable.

[mmonk]

9. If you are between 40 and 65, this bill won't help all that much

in terms of costs to you except maybe in no caps should you become chronically ill. But monthly costs, we'll still get kicked in the teeth.

[JerseygirlCT]

8. Lots more regulation is needed if these insurance companies are

going to continue to exist.

I think they ought to be allowed to function more as public utilities - but I can hear the GOP screams now at that idea.

The thing is, had they not gotten greedy, had they believed half of what's in their own commercials, this wouldn't be happening now.

[OneBlueSky]

10. and therein lies the fatal flaw in the Obama plan . . .

any plan that allows the insurance companies to run the healthcare system is a broken plan right from the start . . .

corporations are in business to make money . . . period . . . they are not in business to provide quality healthcare, to provide universal healthcare, to provide affordable healthcare . . . in fact, their fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders requires them, by law, to maximize shareholder value . . . this can only be accomplished by a) increasing income, and b) reducing expenditures . . .

in healthcare, increasing income means signing more people up AND increasing premiums as much as possible . . . reducing expenses means reducing benefits paid . . . what insurance companies will continue to do is bleed policyholders by continually increasing premiums while doing everything in their power to pay out as little as possible in benefits to those same policyholders . . .

Obama's goal of not allowing insurance companies to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions is admirable, but without price controls it's also meaningless . . . have a pre-existing condition? . . . fine, we'll offer you coverage -- at $5,000 a month . . .

mandating that everyone buy insurance from these same companies is equally flawed without price controls . . . they can charge whatever they want, and under the law you'd have to buy it . . . or, they can do what they've been doing for years now -- offer coverage at a seemingly reasonable rate, sign up the policyholder, and then start increasing the premiums every year until they're simply unaffordable for most people . . .

as long as the insurance companies (and their partners the pharmaceutical companies) essentially control the healthcare system, coverage will never be universal and affordable, because that would lessen their profits . . . and, again, by law they are mandated to maximize sharehold value . . .

the ONLY really workable system is a single payer system administered by the government . . . or simply opening Medicare up to everyone . . . Obama said last night that he has "no interest in putting insurance companies out of business" . . . that's the Catch-22 of this whole fiasco . . . corporations that treat their customers the way insurance companies do deserve to be put out of business -- or at least re-organize so that their profits no longer depend on gouging consumers on premiums and restricting benefits as much as possible . . . that's the broken system we have now, and it's the broken system that we'll still have if Obama's version of healthcare reform is adopted . . .

[Captain Hilts]

11. I'm not convinced of "their important role" in this process. They suck off of doctors and patients.