Agree, this is not over. Obama will just add up to bugdet deficit. Although this works only for a very short time, and may bust in 2012, reelection time.
The middle class will suffer the most as always. We will have less than ever to spend as we see fit instead of how the government sees fit.
Exactly. The immediate impact is virtually zero, and the annual cost difference insignificant. Eventually, if nothing is done, the US will go broke -- meaning there is no more credit available -- over out of control medical costs and out of control defense spending, but that's a long ways off. And of course, once a crisis reaches a critical point, something of substance will be done. Will it be enough? No one knows.
Not really. Compared to the status quo there is no real economic effect. Medical costs will continue to escalate nearly as if no bill had been passed. You may pay for these costs differently, that's all. Had the one true free-market measure been included, i.e., the public option, then their would have been some significant element of market place competition introduced, and one might have expected an eventual positive market response. The Republican's, who are becoming more and more radicalized in their opposition to free market-competition and more and more the champions of cartels and monopolies, were successful in killing the most effective cost control measures and continued their anti-capitalist, right-wing, fascist, radical behavior. They killed the one measure that could have had real impact on costs. They did it in the name of opposing government involvement; yet they have no problem in extolling the virtues of the socialist department of defense which is 100% government controlled, because, in truth, they are the paid hands of the defense industry. And they have no problem in using government funds to subsidize so-called private businesses. The present day Republican party is now just a shadow of the Republican party of yesterday that championed free-enterprise, individual freedom, personal initiative and fiscal responsibility.
Indeed, the middle class will suffer the most. And if things continue much further down this path there will be only a tiny middle class left among the wealthy and hoards of poor. Those of means will live in guarded enclaves behind walls, as in much of Latin America.