It isn't perfect, and I'm no expert. On one hand I'm a economic conservative/social libertarian who supports rugged individualism and a hands off government, but I'm also a human being who doesn't want to see children, the poor, and the sick, suffer. Charity cannot handle the load alone, so something else is necessary.
Medicare is a system thats already in place, and it being a voluntary option appeals to me. Obamacare doesn't.
Medicare is not voluntary...I pay taxes towards it. Some aspects of particpation are volutnary, not the funding of it.
Besides, when it was suggested that we could solve the health care situation by just extending Medicare, the screams of government take over of health care was just as loud.
The real deal is that this very imperfect bill, essentially maintains what little free market exists in health care -- and the lie of the right wing in this debate is that health care is/was a free market. It wasn't and isn't for some time now -- note that they didn't oppose the bill and propose more free market by doing away with Medicare, Medicade, SCHIP, Veternans hospitals, etc. They knew that people don't find much of that particularly intrusive of dibiliating to their freedoms and, indeed, those government take over of parts of the health care marketplace have overwhelming public support (recall the stupid signs: Government hands of my Medicare?).
So, it seems to me, that if we are talking about a highly regulated part of the economy to begin with (HHS, FDA, Social Secuirty, Veterans health, and on and on), than what this bill really does is not bring down the crushing force of government take over, it basically is fiddling around the edges (real government takeover is a single-payer, government run and opperated health care system). Instead, we've still got insurance companies in the driver seat, doctors claiming that THE GOVERNEMNT doesn't pay them enough and opting out of programs (Stupid socialists who forgot to enforce that Doctors must work for the government in the bill) and all of the for profit centers that currently exist in our system essentially in place.
