Health care bill will likely include coverage limits

When discussing health care reform, Barack Obama stated that he opposed, “some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime,” because “no one should go broke because they get sick.” Well, it looks like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid missed that speech.

The current health care bill will allow insurance companies to enforce annual coverage limits for expensive illnesses, so even if people have health insurance, they could still “go broke because they get sick”. Reid’s spokesman defended the decision to allow limits:

“We are concerned that banning all annual limits, regardless of whether services are voluntary, could lead to higher premiums. We continue to work with experts on how best to accomplish our goals of preventing insurance companies from imposing arbitrary coverage limits while providing the premium relief American families need and deserve.”

So, let me get this straight. If there are no coverage limits, then premiums would be very high, but if there were limits, the premiums would be lower. That seems to make sense to me, but of course, I live in the real world. Some how, Barack Obama and his group of merry liberals thought they were going to steal from the rich and give to the poor without additional expenses. Finally, it seems, some sense of reality is setting in.

There is no doubt that health care reform will pass, since Democrats want to assure they don’t end up looking like fools. Of course, between reality and negotiations with moderates, the final bill will end up looking vastly different that what they were hoping to pass. It will probably be bad for tax payers, but not as bad as it could have been.