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Michael Hiltzik: How to make the new healthcare reform bill work

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The line about the devil being in the details has rarely applied to a government program as well as it does to the healthcare reform bill enacted in Washington two weeks ago.

As my Sunday column observes, the success of the measure hangs on the regulations to be drafted in Washington, and perhaps even more on their enforcement by the states. That said, there’s much that’s good in the bill -- very, very good: the assurance of access to insurance, oversight over premiums, minimum standards for coverage.

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It will be instructive to hear how Republicans running on a platform based on repealing or challenging the measure -- such as the two privileged characters running for important GOP nominations in California, Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina -- justify such a policy. As multimillionaires, Whitman and Fiorina will never have to worry about accessing healthcare, as they can pay for any treatment they need out of pocket change. That’s especially fortunate for the latter, who as a cancer survivor would be absolutely uninsurable in the individual market as it exists today.

Yet they’re campaigning to deprive the rest of us of the same benefits. It just goes to show that even multimillionaires can be, politically and morally speaking, bankrupt.

The arguments against the reform measure have become more hysterical and bizarre since its passage, as Timothy Noah outlines recently on Slate.com. As always, the best remedy for such flapdoodle is to examine the bill. The main healthcare reform bill can be found here, and the major reconciliation amendments here.

The column begins below.

And now for the closing of the loopholes.Last month’s enactment of healthcare reform, following after more than a year of political cabaret, has led quite rightly to copious commentary proclaiming that this is not the end of the reform process, but the beginning. Most commentators seem to think the rest of the process involves convincing the American public that Congress’ medicine is good for them. I personally doubt that’s the case; I’m confident that most people recognize instinctively that a law that places real limits on the health insurance industry’s ability to play them for suckers is worth having.

Read the whole column.

-- Michael Hiltzik

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