Health care reform is making me sick (NC Senator Kay Hagan doing her part)

I had high hopes for health care reform. It was a major consideration in my voting decisions last year. I've followed the discussions and expressed my opinions to my elected representatives. Despite the explanation that what we are likely now to get is better than nothing, I think not. A cost/benefit evaluation leads me to think it's better that nothing get passed rather than this crippled-by-compromise junk accurately described by Lex Alexander as reform that:

• Mandates that every American buy expensive insurance from private companies without the choice of a public option and lets the IRS fine you if you don’t
• Severely taxes middle-class health care plans, rather than wealthy individuals
• Increases insurance premiums about $1,000 a year
• Increases health care costs
• Continues to exempt health-insurance companies from antitrust laws, inhibiting competition
• Provides a sweet deal for pharmaceutical manufacturers while denying the government the ability to negotiate for lower drug prices for Medicare, something Democrats actually promised three years ago.
• Apparently won’t let the government import drugs from cheaper foreign sources. I’m told my own junior senator, Kay Hagan, was arguing tonight that this was a “safety” issue, which must come as a surprise to the dozens of other countries that do this every day.
• Grants monopolies on new biologic drugs so they will never become generics
• Offers NO public option
• Offers NO Medicare expansion, even in return for payment, for 55- to 64-year-olds.
• Limits insurance-company payouts, contrary to President Obama’s promise in September
• Raises taxes in January while not beginning benefits until 2014.