On March 22, the Obama administration reached a milestone, as the health care reform bill was passed through the House without a single Republican vote of support.
For those who don?t know what the health care reform bill entailed, it essentially states that all Americans will be able to receive medical insurance by 2014, according to history teacher Matt Axelrod.
“Relatively immediately, children under 26 will be able to be covered by their parents? health care plans, as well,” Axelrod said.
Senior Robin Crigler added, “it makes it so [insurance providers] can?t deny health care to people with preexisting conditions, makes it harder to discard patients and expands coverage.”
The health care bill was considered a “moral imperative” by Obama and the Democrats of the Senate and House, but there are many who disagree.
Some, such as freshman Ben Bowie, think Americans? taxes in order to pay for other people?s hospital bills is a violation of our rights.
Bowie, a self-professed fiscal conservative and social moderate, is against the health care bill.
“I didn?t like the reconciliation process,” he said, referring to the process of ?fixing? the health care bill undertaken by the Senate so House Democrats would be willing to sign it. “If Republicans wanted to filibuster, they should have been allowed to. Then again, the Republicans should have accepted that [the bill] was going to pass.”
Others, such as Crigler, , a social moderate and fiscal liberal, support the bill, but believe that other options would have been preferable. One of these was the public option, which would have made it so the public could buy insurance straight from the government.
Congressional Democrats supported the idea, stating that it would drive down premiums and provide a choice in a situation with few options, but Congressional Republicans believed that it would cause the entire private insurance sector to collapse.
“When it became clear the public option wasn?t going to be passed, I started supporting the current bill,” Crigler said. “I still think it would have been the best option. Another thing I would adjust about this bill would be making it legal to purchase insurance across state lines.”
Axelrod agreed.
“The public option would be the most effective method of cost control,” he said. “We need that also, not just coverage.”
Axelrod, a social and fiscal liberal, believes that it was “an embarrassment that people with cancer [and other preexisting conditions] couldn?t get health care before now,” he said.
Crigler also supported this aspect of the bill, as he is personally affected by the reform.
“I have a [benign] brain tumor, so it will hopefully be easier for me to get insurance,” he said. “I feel more secure in my knowledge that my condition won?t stand in the way of medical treatment.”
However, not everyone feels that way. According to biology teacher Barbara Brown, “it?s logical to limit health care for people with expensive, fatal diseases.”
“Instead of paying ridiculous amounts of money to drag their lives on painfully,” she said, “money should be put into researching preventative medicine.”