Food labels are simple things that give us information about something pretty darn simple. So it was only a matter of time until someone thought it may be a good idea to put a label on something that's actually really confusing.
Health insurance labels—which the PPACA requires that health insurance providers make available so consumers can clearly understand what they're getting with their health plan—are an easy concept. They allow consumers to take a more active role in their health care by comparing prices and educating themselves. This isn't anything remotely controversial (right?), so it's understandable (but, at the same time, a little hard to believe) that labels are the most popular provision of the health reform law.
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Of course the whole linchpin of the law, the individual mandate, wouldn't win any popularity contest—no matter how jaded the high school.
So it's fairly amusing, a Kaiser Family Foundation polls finds, that this really simple, under-the-radar provision is the runaway favorite. The provision makes no change to how health care is distributed and does nothing to change the entire system, except for only giving health insurers a little more paperwork—and after all the grief consumers go through, I have a feeling that they see that as an added benefit.
No matter what the Supreme Court decides this coming week—my bet is on keeping it all—it's just an interesting lesson.
If the law is upheld, I'm guessing a lot of people will be upset. But then again, most of them won't even fully understand what they're upset about.
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