I figure this site's been around long enough for us older folk who still troll these forums and have developed at least a superficial understanding of federal issues to opine on the healthcare overhaul - not to say you youngins can't speak your piece. Healthcare is intimately relevant to the skiing we like. Mandate, abortion, costs, prescience, etc: what is your take? Is the mandate within the scope of the commerce clause? Massachusetts emergency care spending went from $600 billion before reform to $400 million after, but aren't there still excesses that need to be trimmed? For those who prefer not to talk about this stuff, consider this: would you rather take a whole new set of everything, from skis to underarmor at MSRP, every year (I believe the estimate was $7k/yr), or know no matter what you'll be able to ski with that peace of mind which comes with access to high quality healthcare?
I'm for it and I'd include abortion (population and familial concerns aside, if a baby isn't wanted, stem cell research could use that fetus to, say, develop spinal cord reproduction for Marc-Andre Belliveau). However, a lot of money is spent excessively. ¶ We keep the elderly alive in cases where tens of thousands per patient may be spent for mere extra days of life when the patient is one step out the door and the medical team knows it. ¶ A doctor could be working through a mass casualty triage at 4 New Year's morning, make the slightest mental lapse and get sued by bivvies of lawyers, raising that doctor's or hospital's insurance costs and thus raising the price for the care they provide. ¶ To become a doctor one must first get a Bachelor's. Medical school, notwithstanding its prerequisite courses, often has no relevance to one's Bachelor's focus. That Bachelor's is in most cases 4 years and tens of thousands of dollars, which is a barrier to entry into the medical profession (it's no secret the AMA likes it this way, it restricts supply of doctors and keeps their salaries high, even if they're internists and horribly deficient), thus increasing the costs of seeing doctors and decreasing the supply of the highest trained medical professionals.
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