I like Annie A am originally from the US but am living out of country and have been for quite a few years now. I live in Sweden. Here we have universal health care and I have to say I love it. If my children get sick I take them to the doctor, I dont worry about whether or not my insurance will pay for it. I have a friend who is also originally from the US and is also living here now, he now gets the full understanding of how great it is to have universal health care after his child fell and had something wrong with his neck. He sat in the room with his son and took care of him and just stayed with him. His thoughts didnt run off to insurance companies, what tests will be covered, if he is with the right doctor or not, he was just there with his son. They ran several tests and did a couple of procedures and didnt pay a dime out of pocket. His son is fine now, but it was scary for awhile.
I know it is costly to have universal health care, but it is an investment in the people who help make the country and economy work. Everyone of us is important no matter what their yearly salaries are. We are the ones that make the country work, and if we are running around sick without the ability to get health care it makes that much more difficult.
I look at Sweden as an example because it's all I really know. I know that I do not pay out of pocket for my children to go to the doctor until they are 20 after that it is something like 20-30 dollars. I didnt pay anything out of pocket to have my children including my prenatal and my stay at the hospital. This is available to all people and the care is consistant with all people. This has led to (among other factors of course) that Sweden has one of the lowest infant mortality rates worldwide (about 2.75 of 1000, which is 3rd where as the US lies # 46 with an infant mortality rate of 6.26 of 1000)
Now I could go on and on about similar things that include, average life expectancy between the countries and Quality of Life indicators, but I will not as this is not really the question and I apologize for going off on a tangent.
I for one have not read the whole of the bill (only sections of it as it is VERY long and hard to follow) but I do know that something has to change. I hope to move home closer to my family one day and I have to say the whole insurance thing scare the ever living stuff out of me when I listen to peoples troubles with getting the care they need and how much out of pocket they have to pay. Health costs have flown away way out of control and it has become unreasonable to pay. Health is not only for the wealthy, it shouldn't be a privileged it should be a right (in my opinion of course). This bill may or not not be the answer to these questions but I see it as a start. I would not expect anyone to have all the answers and will probably take a long time to get it set up so that it is truly functional. If it is ruled against then I am glad that at least someone has tried and brought up the issue, if it's ruled in favor of I will look to see what about it needs to change to make it work better.
These of course are my opinions and do not expect anyone to agree with me, I do not like getting political really, but really wanted to share my point of view as it comes from a slightly different place.