Yes, rather like that. There is no high standard of care in NHS, and being a patient of theirs is the equivalent of not having insurance against anything that’s painful and debilitating but not life threatening.

Have you actually, you know, read the legislation? There cannot be any private insurance that is not run through this insurance exchange that controls pricing, rating, issuance, benefits, and claims. When the government controls every aspect of an insurance policy, it is not private even if private companies are doing the work.

“And what’s wrong with mandating a basic level of benefit from a for-profit insurer?”

A lot, actually. Think about it for a second… your lung cancer is in remission. Why can’t you get insured against a brain aneurysm, aortic dissection, or a good old broken arm? Because it’s illegal for an insurer to offer you coverage for those things without also covering you against lung cancer.

Obamacare takes the dumb approach, forcing insurers to cover uninsurable conditions, rather than taking the right approach and allowing people to purchase insurance to cover some but not all of their potential health problems.

I’ll put it this way. The problem with health care today is that your doctor answers to a faceless bureaucrat who answers to a faceless bureaucrat who answers to an employer. Obamacare proposes replacing this with your doctor answering to a faceless bureaucrat who answers to a faceless bureaucrat who answers to a government regulator who answers to a politician. In both models, doctors never answer to patients. Only that will really fix things.

(In regards to the high level of care offered by the UK’s National Health Service, try sustaining a major, but non-life threatening orthopedic injury while under that standard of care. You will spend months or years in pain and possibly end up crippled.)

That’s not true at all. Even in the UK where a fairly high level of care is provided at no additional out of pocket expense (once you’ve paid your taxes) there is a burgeoning market in private supplements. Things like cosmetic dentistry and orthodontia, private hospitals with better meals and better nurse to patient ratios, Viagra, etc.

In our own country there are lots of Medicare supplements available through private insurers.

And what’s wrong with mandating a basic level of benefit from a for-profit insurer? We have basic levels of benefit when we’re buying auto insurance (admittedly, this is to protect “the other guy” and his insurer more than you). Buying auto insurance is also mandatory in most states.

Don’t worry about the private insurers. They’ll be fine. At least if they provide a reasonable service for money spent. Those that don’t won’t last. It’s that failure to provide a reasonable service for money spent that has the nation chafing at the bit for some other way of accomplishing this.

Who dictates how plans are priced? Who dictates what they contain? Who dictates how they are sold?

To call these plans “private” is a rather Orwellian use of the word. Yes, it may be private companies doing the actual work, but the control resides with the government. Once this bill becomes law, truly private insurance is a thing of the past.

You’re misinterpreting the bill and it won’t make private insurance illegal, if you read the rest of the section. The bill sets new standards of accessibility and affordability for all insurance plans. BUT existing plans won’t have to meet these new standards for 5 yrs. They will be considered GRANDFATHERED plans. The part of the bill quoted, prevents new enrollment in a grandfathered plan (except dependents of the original insured person). Any NEW private enrollees must go into a plan that meets the new standards. But it will still be a private one

Now resisting it after this plan is enacted (and it will be enacted), that’s what the focus needs to be. Refuse to participate. If forced to pay higher taxes, refuse to pay them. Simply do not comply.

The final goal is something resembling Canada or Britain or even Cuba and North Korea.

That is indeed the case, per Instapundit. However, the insurance exchange that the current market would be replaced by does everything possible to make sure the deep flaws of our current system become ever more permanent.