Immediate Benefits of Health Care Reform

Yeah, sure, IF the insurance companies voluntarily obey new rules they can violate without consequence, IF your employer doesn't respond to the middle-class excise tax by slashing your benefits to nothing, IF your state's governor doesn't channel John Calhoun and reject federal legislation ... THEN you might see some slight improvement in the health insurance environment this year.

And even that's assuming Traitor Joe doesn't find a way to sabotage the bill at the last second.

Nevertheless, President Obama is optimistic.

In short, once I sign health insurance reform into law, doctors and patients will have more control over their health care decisions, and insurance company bureaucrats will have less. All told, these changes represent the most sweeping reforms and toughest restrictions on insurance companies that this country has ever known. That’s how we’ll make 2010 a healthier and more secure year for every American – for those who have health insurance, and those who don’t.

We enter a new decade, now, with new perils – but we’re going to meet them. It’s also a time of tremendous promise – and we’re going to seize it. We will rebuild the American Dream for our middle class and put the American economy on a stronger footing for the future. And this year, I am as hopeful and as confident as ever that we’re going to rise to this moment the same way that generations of Americans always have: as one nation, and one people.

Full transcript here.