Vicki, I sympathize with you, and I've had to deal with pre-existing condition clauses myself for a birth defect(though it was never life threatening). Do you really think this huge draconian bill was necessary in order for insurance companies to treat us like human beings, though? Don't be offended, but the pre-existing condition part of that bill is a built in hot button. Just like a politician will use gay marriage or abortion or appeal to a wide audience very easily, that's in there, so people like us with a pre-existing condition won't tend to look further into the consequences of passing that bill.
I'm sure Iwien's stats are curate. However, I have a hard time believing the issue is the healthcare system itself. The two leading causes of death in the country are heart disease and cancer. Heart disease was virtually unknown and cancer was extremely rare before 100 years ago. They came on the scene with the industrial revolution and new chemically processed foods.
These foods were things like crisco. Trans fats. This is just one example, but these processed foods aren't good for you, and we've been tricked into eating them. See, the only real competition for these foods are their real counterparts. Saturated fats(beef fat, lard, palm oil). Saturated fats get vilified, these companies sell more trans fats and they're happy. They started this off. Doctors and pharma make money of all the people made sick by their food, so they're not going to rock the boat. There are some doctors that talk about this stuff, though. I suggest you guys look into it if you're interested in why we have the some of the best healthcare, but are the some of the most unhealthy people in the world.
That's why this healthcare bill is bullshit. It does nothing to address what is making us sick. Not even anything to help people make choices to improve their health. Why don't we label GMOs? Why are we one of the only countries that get's more than half it's sugar from HFCS? Seriously...look into what we eat. That's what's killing us.