I haven't followed this much, can someone explain Obamacare to me simply?
As it reads:
If your under a certain income level you get free healthcare
If your over a certain level you have to take your own insurance
For both groups, the insurance companies have to accept existing healthcare items instead of denying patients?
Basically, it is the beginning of a framework to improve the system from the current Predatory one. The current system virtually WANTS people to be sicker and to use more services. More services=more income for almost everyone in the chain and all the big corporations. There is very little impetus for the players (for fee services, drugs, etc.) to steer patients to NOT use their expensive stuff.
A sane system, like this ACA act, provides many ways to improve upon this. As an example, there is a lot of money for community health centers to that people can get lower cost preventative care - instead of ending up with a worse disease in the Emergency Room. There is a provision that health insurance companies must actually spend your premiums on....wait - get this! - health care! Yes, they are no longer allowed to, for instance, prey upon people and only pay 50% of their premiums out in health care - now it's 85%.
They cannot deny people for pre-existing conditions. They cannot throw you off the rolls once you use some services. They have to also allow your kids under your policy (not free - but allowed) until they are 26.
Basically, most everything in the bill makes perfect sense to those who actually study and care about public health. But there is a subset of people in the USA who don't listen to reason and rather turn on talk radio or Murdochs media....and then repeat over and over again "this is bad, the sky is falling".
The only reason there is pushback on this is because the Republicans hate the President. In fact, Mitt Romney - the GOP candidate, instituted this same program in MA., the state where I live, with great success.