As a Socialist, I find it to be total bull. There's nothing in there about forcing a non-profit status on the insurance industry (which has historically worked wonders for several countries, notably Finland).
I'm worked up about the way coverage is *required*. If you're below a certain line, it's handed to you by Uncle Sam, courtesy of the taxes levied upon our over-wealthy corporate overlords. But, this country won't make that line reflect people's actual wages and ability to afford insurance.
This means that a significant group of people will be stuck in the middle, unable to get coverage for the poor, yet unable to afford it themselves; and these are the folks who are going to get
fined for not having coverage.
Worse yet, it's far from "universal healthcare", in that full coverage is considered a taxable luxury!
There is no provision which would control the rising cost of prescriptions (something that other countries have the authority to negotiate, whereas we
dont!)
And then there's this little ditty:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_health_care_overhaul
If you read through it, there's a cap on how much a company can spend on costs not related to the coverage itself. Yes, good that it'll keep costs down, but even non-profits have overhead such as paying their workers, and this is the wrong sort of regulation. I wouldn't be surprised if the industry leader wrote that into the deal, seeking a government sanctioned monopoly, the same way Marlboro wrote the bill to ban clove cigarettes in the name of "preventing childhood smoking".