The question posed to our editorial staff was: Which aspect or provision of the healthcare bill will have the greatest impact on Americans?

Read their responses below.

Matthew Keim, Class of 2012

The real effect that healthcare will have on people of this generation and future generations is the way large and comprehensive legislation is passed through Congress. Instead of passing several smaller bills where the nuisances of the reforms could be debated and improved upon, an all-or-nothing strategy where a monolithic, textbook sized bill was put to a vote. If it had failed, the past years worth of healthcare reform would have failed on one day. Let us assume there is a part of the healthcare bill that both sides of the aisle agree upon. By tying all of the reforms into one bill, a failure would mean that nobody gets what they want; where as breaking the bill down would mean that while some parts might fail, some parts would pass. The shrewd political move of consolidating a bill to get it to pass is an old one, but not one that screams bipartisan. Remember: the only bipartisan part of this bill was the opposition.

While liberals and supporters of the healthcare bill may be pleased that they have had their day after a yearlong debate, the political tides in Congress and the White House will change, as they always have and will. Maybe in 10 or 20 years a Republican supermajority with a Republican president will attempt to push through a 2000+ page bill, chocked full of special favors and pork spending. Public support will decline with time and the Democrats will reject the bill based on ideological grounds. Grandstanding will carry on for a year as the political majority pulls in every favor they can while Congressional Whips will scramble for votes close to the voting day. Is this the way controversial and divisive legislation is to be passed from now on?

Healthcare reform has passed, and the debate on its Constitutionality and implementation will continue for some time. However, the effectiveness of backroom deals and special favors has once again proven to be effective but on a scale never seen before in this country. The real impact on Americans is the way this legislation was passed and what it means for bills in the future.

Benjamin Mumma, Class of 2010

With close to 2000 pages of verbose declarations, the recent health care bill is simply too long for a brief yet in-depth analysis. Indeed, based on what I have seen, the bill’s greatest impact isn’t held within those pages, but rather can be seen in the bloody aftermath of the brawl surrounding it.

Partisanship is nothing new. Democrats blame George W. Bush for the escalation of it. That’s true to a degree, but would the country have honestly been any less partisan under President Gore as he crusaded against invisible gases? It’s unlikely. The split that has come between us has been a result of both parties, and their battle for the minds, or more appropriately the hearts, of the American public.

The healthcare battle brought to the forefront every ugly feeling that our political parties have been inspiring over the past twenty-plus years. We have seen and are still seeing accusations of malicious intent and utter stupidity being flung from both sides. Partisans, quite simply, are blind with rage.

Personally, I think it is an atrocity that this bill will become law. It increases government spending at a time when we simply cannot afford it. It requires U.S. citizens to purchase a product or service. It creates needless bureaucracy. It blatantly purchased required votes by sending hundreds of  millions of dollars from some states to other states.

But just as I can point out the bills many flaws, proponents of the bill can claim many benefits: restrictions on denial of service due to “pre-existing conditions,” and expanding coverage through subsidies to low-income individuals. These differences don’t make anyone crazy. It just makes us different people with different priorities.

But this isn’t the world we live in anymore. The days of civil discourse in politics have been dying for a while now. This bill, for several reasons, has become a tipping point. It has, by my estimation, taken us almost to a point of no return – where the politics of the left and the politics of the right are forever separated. That divide, as most of us can hopefully understand, is extremely dangerous to our society and extremely difficult to break down. Ultimately, this divide will have a greater impact on Americans fifty years from now than any of the provisions in this bill. 

Michael Caffrey, Class of 2012

The most profound and furthest-reaching impact of the 2010 Healthcare Reform legislation has nothing to do with the trillion-dollar cost.  Nor does it have anything to do with requiring care, or student loans, or anything regarding the text of the legislation itself.  The most important part of the legislation was the manner in which it was approved and a dangerous precedent for the future.

The 1998 decision of Clinton v. City of New York established “the U.S. Constitution did not authorize the President to enact federal law of which both houses of Congress had not previously approved the text.”  Turning to the healthcare legislation recently enacted, neither house of congress had actually passed the same legislation.  Instead, through compromise legislation, corruption, and reconciliation, a bill was presented to President Obama that did not meet the requirements of Clinton v. New York.  While this legislation may be controversial, the door it opens is far more overbearing.  The Constitution establishes a clear structure of how our government can work, and giving more power to the legislature, which has historically had lower approval ratings than the president. 

“statutes may only be enacted ‘in accord with a single, finely wrought and exhaustively considered, procedure” – Justice Stevens 

Alyssa Gerety, Class of 2013

Healthcare will propel about 30 million people to get healthcare in the coming years, creating the most change for the currently uninsured.

Aside from the shear numbers who will have to obtain healthcare, the bill’s effects will impact people differently according to their wealth, gender, and profession.

The wealthiest Americans will see increased taxes as the part of the bill impacting them the most. The lowest income Americans will benefit from the simply ability to obtain health care. Middle-class Americans may see regulations tighten resulting in better coverage such as the ban on excluding those with pre-existing conditions.

In terms of Americans looking for care, the bill will infuse around 30 million new customers into the health care market and there could be a strain in the ability of the system to handle these new customers. For patients this means less time with doctors. For doctors this means an increased demand for care and more patients especially in areas that are currently underinsured.

For women the bill outlaws the discrimination of coverage and premiums based on gender. Insurance companies now cannot charge women more for the same coverage they give to men for a lower price, a practice known as ?gender rating?.

How you categorize yourself – as a woman, a patient, a taxpayer, a middle-class citizen – will determine the aspect of the bill that will have the greatest impact on you.