I don't like it, but my friend who is head of the WY health care commissionof something like that, and who has been in the nitty-gritty sessions dealing with the issue, including meeting *Arnold* and hearing about his plan explained it to me like this:

Everyone has to buy insurance. Those who cannot will still be able to get coverage it will be based on their income/disability/etc. The reason they would make it mandatory is to get the largest pool possible to keep the costs down and the coverage up, i.e. cover all pre-existing.

I can see how this would make some sense as in my Rog works for a large corp. which is able to keep the ins. premiums down because they have a large pool and can negotiate lower rates. However, we choose how much coverage we want to pay for and THAT can cause undue hardship, for instance, because of the deductible and co-pay, my trip to the ER last Oct. cost us about $1600 after the ins. co paid their portion. I do not have $1600, so they will have to take small, small payments for a long, long time. Yes, having insurance helped, but we need ins. that covers virtually everything with perhaps a small copay. As it is, the monthly things which crop up and begin again each calendar year with the deductibles accruing over the year, etc. add up to way too much of our budget. One drug, with no generic available costs me a $60 copay every month. We don't get by one month without spending at least $180 for prescriptions and up to $250 with other related needs added on.

I don't like any of the proposed health reforms I've heard about. I will not be satisfied until we have coverage for every American. If it needs to be funded by a universal tax or something, fine. With the money we'd save on medical cost, now, it would not be a burden. I would love to see a Congress with the backbone to remove war funding and apply those trillions to health care for all AND with the backbone to say NO! to the insurance and drug companies.

A girl can dream, yeah?