Why I feel good.

Today, I watched Obama give his opening remarks prior to signing the health bill. I watched this video presentation on my iPhone on a porch, looking out on the golf course in Rancho Mirage, California. I did not watch it on TV. I did not read it in the news. I watched it only minutes after it occurred. That in and of itself is news.

But the real news is that I felt good about the President’s remarks. He made me feel that we as a nation had actually done something positive in passing the health bill. His actual phrase was, as I recall it, “We are a nation that shapes its own destiny. That’s what we do. That’s what makes us the United States of America.” For some reason, his remarks resonated deep within my body, and I felt good.

I asked myself; however, what about the health bill made me feel good? Obama said that the health bill would now provide insurance for most Americans. As I understand it, the health bill compels people to buy insurance. It doesn’t provide them insurance automatically. It punishes them with a fine if they don’t buy insurance. Of course, if they can not afford to purchase health insurance, it is unlikely they can pay the fine.

Now the health bill does some very positive things in extending the age of a child that can be covered by their parents’ benefits to 26. It also provides Medicaid for single people that make under $14,000 a year, and I believe married couples who make under $22,000. That cost will be funded out of tax increases on people that make over $250,000 a year. I suspect that those are all good things.

Despite the fact that I felt good about Obama’s remarks, I firmly believe that my insurance costs will continue to rise at a rate that is significantly higher than the inflation rate. My wife’s insurance alone has gone up more than 50% in the last three years. My son, who is 22 and in good health, has seen his insurance premiums increase from approximately $70 a month to $136 month in three years. I suspect both of their insurance premiums will continue to escalate. So the bill as I see it doesn’t help me much personally. The other point is that many of the other parts of the bill gradually come into effect over the next few years, and some do not even become effective until the year 2014. In my view, by that time, things will have changed again, and we’ll be looking closely at modifications to the original health bill.

However, putting all my cynicism aside, as well as my general distrust of government running anything, I have to admit the whole legislative process makes me feel good. I’m not sure why. But I believe that the whole concept that the government was able to finish anything, to complete any bill, to pass any legislation, particularly legislation that was complicated and divisive is a plus. It means that perhaps our Congress, Senate, and Administration can agree on something and get something done. Finishing something almost trumps the issue of whether or not that something is good or bad. For after all, it’s going to be years before we know the true impact of the health bill.

But we do know now that we started something that people thought would never be completed, and it’s finished. It’s past. The health debate will continue, but the bill is completed.

As a sidebar, we can’t forget that insurance companies for the most part did not lobby against this bill as they did against Clinton’s health bill in the ‘90s. Insurance companies in fact supported this bill. The insurance companies were actively involved in “defraying the cost of passing the bill.” I’m not sure what that means, but I saw that in a release from the Obama Administration about the insurance companies’ participation in the bill. It may mean they paid or helped pay some of the legal firms’ costs in drafting this legislation.

I, for the most part, would like to know which law firms, which Congressional staff, wrote the actual legislation, which insurance firms or lobbyists participated in the drafting, and how much money was actually spent in the overall process. It would not surprise me at all, if Washington, DC law firms received $50 to $80 million in legal fees for drafting this level of legislation. I would like somebody to show me factually that I’m wrong.

But I doubt they will be able to. Don’t you?