What To Expect From Health Reform

Many provisions of the newly enacted healthcare reform will take place gradually over the next 5 years. Here is a guide to the changes we can expect to see as health reform is gradually instituted:

1. 2011 -- Republican Congressmen Joe "You Lie" Wilson and Randy "Baby Killer" Neugebauer become supporters when they learn that they can't be denied coverage due to pre-existing Tourette's Syndrome.

2. 2012 -- American insurance companies, forbidden from developing innovative new excuses to deny coverage, move to less regulated markets in India. Consumer complaints increase over denials of coverage for pre-existing Karma.

3. 2013 -- Rush Limbaugh fulfills his threat to leave the country if health reform passes. He moves to the last remaining bastion of free-market medicine, China, where he develops lead poisoning from counterfeit Oxy-Contin. He launches Chinese radio show warning that Premier Hu Jintao is turning the country into a Communist state.

4. 2014 -- Employees with good health coverage begin voluntarily dropping insurance. "Having insurance no longer feels special now that anyone can get it," complains Mary Anderson. "It's like espresso -- when you could only get it in Europe, it tasted pretty great but now that it's on every corner you realize it is just a really small, expensive cup of coffee. "

5. 2018 -- The new tax on "Cadillac" insurance plans goes into effect, forcing everyone to ask -- "What's a Cadillac?". Legislators revise wording to "Lexus insurance plans."

6. Young adults, freed from worry over uninsured medical expenses, begin to binge drink and engage in risky sex with multiple partners.