If I am reading this correctly, the pending health care legislation requires me to buy insurance but the insurance companies can continue to use preexisting conditions to set the rates that they will sell that insurance to me.  As my wife (in her fifties) and I (sixty-three) do indeed have preexisting conditions, as do most people our age, we have been unable to get any affordable insurance through the current system.  As I am self employed I cannot buy into a group plan.  The most recent quote we received was for $3000 a month for coverage, which we cannot afford.  So the government now might force me to buy that coverage?  This health plan only makes everything very much worse for my demographic, which is the first wave of post World War II baby boomers.

Unless I am missing something significant, it is not clear to me whom this plan benefits unless it is the insurance industry, which will be able to sell plans to lots of young and healthy individuals.