Thanks for providing those two links to the proposed House and Senate healthcare bills, Steve. I scanned the Senate bill, but haven't gotten to the House version yet. So far I'm left with a couple impressions (from the Senate version)...

• They seem to have closed a lot of loopholes that permitted insurance companies from enjoyng lots of profit while denying coverage to lots of people.
• If enacted as is, there could actually be a signifciant reduction in healthcare costs for those covered by policies which will be subject to the provsions of the bill. I reach that conclusion only with the "gut feel" that government involvement really has resulted in reduced costs, in the VA prescription drug program as an example, by limiting private companies from enjoying egregious profits under the umbrella of "friendly" legislation. Maybe that can be extended to doctors and hospitals, maybe not.
• Whether any cost reductions would pay for covering the millions of people who currently don't have health insurance is problematic. I'd have to see a couple of comparitive financial analyses by independent sources.
• The biggest weakness in the bills is the effect it might have on insurance companies being willing to stay in the health insurance business. Could the entire country suffer in the same way that homeowners are here in Florida as the result of government prescribing how the insurance business will be run? For those of you who don't know, a whole bunch of big homeowner's insurance compnaies simply withdrew from the Florida market. The result is that the State has become the insurer of last resort for losts of Floridians. Could that happen with health insurance companies? What would happen if a bunch of the big hospitalization insurance companies--say United Healthcare--concluded that staying in this business under these kinds of government restrictions and oversight simply wasn't worth it?

So the "ying" I've come down with so far is that the healthcare situation could actually get better. But the "yang" is that over-involvement by the government could actually result in a bunch of insurance companies throwing in the towel on this business. Then the government would become the principal provider of health insurance--truly the nationalized system that no one who's posted here desires.

This is not a risk-free proposition.