My staunch Republican neighbor tells me that one of the reasons he further dislikes health reform is

that his company has announced that his employer based health insurance will be "grandfathered" and because of this only some of the benefits provided by
reform will apply to his insurance. For example, the prohibition on denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions and allowing children to remain
on a parent's insurance until age 26 will apply, but other parts of the reform law won't apply, like 100% coverage of preventive care or no out-of-network charges for
emergency care. He said that this was only more proof why there was no reason for him to support health reform as it did nothing for him.

I replied, "But I thought that Republicans said that they wanted to be able to keep the insurance that they already had?"

All I got was a blank stare.

Or will be soon as they are phased in.

Your neighbor is simply lying, as all Republicans do.

I have to disagree. Group plans that existed on the day the law was signed can choose to be grandfathered, and that means certain parts of the law do not
apply to them. Just go into Google and check the term "grandfathered health plans".

http://www.healthreform.gov/newsroom/keeping_the_health_plan_you_have.html

The rule announced today preserves the ability of the American people to keep their current plan if they like it, while providing new benefits, by minimizing market disruption and putting us on a glide path toward the competitive, patient-centered market of the future. While it requires all health plans to provide important new benefits to consumers, it allows plans that existed on March 23, 2010 to innovate and contain costs by allowing insurers and employers to make routine changes without losing grandfather status. Plans will lose their “grandfather” status if they choose to significantly cut benefits or increase out-of-pocket spending for consumers – and consumers in plans that make such changes will gain new consumer protections.

So, your neighbor has the option of keeping his plan, moving to a better plan, or helping improve his grandfathered plan by adding the new benefits of the HCR law.

Technically we're both right, and your neighbor is still lying. He only knows 1/3 of the story.

my neighbor's plan is employer based, so he has to take the plan that his company offers as part of its benefits package. All employees are required to take
the health insurance at his company, they can't opt-out. If his employer has chosen to grandfather their health insurance plan, then he doesn't have much of
a choice because there is no non-grandfathered plan for him to choose from.

Republicans are either stupid or corrupt.

confirmed that aspect to me yesterday. I was asking about new coverage. Not being grandfathered was one of the perks of getting a new policy.

Complex, for profit, and arbitrary.
That's the Republican way of health care-- right into Kafkaland.

stuff that "other parts of the reform law won't apply" to.

Free-market will determine the rates for the stuff that is covered separately from that which is not. He can still have both, but he wants it all in the same pot, thus driving up the rates for the basics with, theoretically at least, the rates for private hospital rooms, viagra, or cosmetic surgery.

As usual for Republicans, he wants what he wants (no self-critique on his own desires) and he wants it supported/subsidized by the system, no matter what that does to anyone else in the same system.

Imagine if supermarkets were the only places where affordable food could be purchased. Next, suppose that the supermarkets announced that they could charge lower prices for 85% of their
customers but only if the other 15% are told that they're not allowed to purchase from supermarkets at all. The public would be told that whether or not they were a member of the 15% who would
be excluded from supermarkets would be mostly a random decision, and they would have little control over it. Plus, once they became a member of the 15% who were excluded from using supermarkets
it would be nearly impossible to get out of that status.

Do you think the public would want to adopt that type of system - lower costs but the gamble that you might be told you can't shop there at all? I doubt it.

Well, just replace "supermarkets" with the term "private insurance companies" and "food" with "medical care", and it describes the system that Republicans want to go back to.

than it would be if purchased directly from the caviar producers, because it is being purchased in bulk and everything about that caviar, the means of production, advertising, shipping, packaging, all of it is being paid for by its association with the other products in the supermarket, basic necessities such as bread and milk.

going up and that price rise gets distributed to the bread and milk, and other stuff, because they are in the same store.

You never know. You should ask him.

Makes sense to me. That's what I plan on doing myself. Whether the company does it or not.

He's ask why he should shop for a better plan when he's already paying for the one that his employer offers. He's not allowed to opt-out of his employer's plan, so he'd have to pay for two plans.