Five Things We Learned About Obamacare After It Passed

"[W]e have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., famously said that about President Obama's health care reform package. She was right. We are just finding out what was contained within that Obamacare law that Obama signed weeks ago.

Here are five things we've learned so far:

One: No sooner had Obamacare passed than the White House discovered that someone goofed. Despite all of Obama's promises and talking points, Obamacare as passed by Congress does not require insurers to cover children with expensive pre-existing medical conditions.

Immediately, the White House got an assurance from the insurers. After demonizing them for months as callous profiteers on others' misery (in fact, the entire industry is barely profitable), Obama now tells Americans that they can trust health insurance companies to do the right thing out of the goodness of their hearts.

Two: State governments discovered that they are no longer just required to guarantee payment for indigent patients' care under Medicaid. Obamacare changes Medicaid law so that now states must also guarantee treatment to the poor.

This is a thorny issue: Many doctors refuse to see Medicaid patients because the program doesn't pay enough for them to break even. (In some states, payments to doctors have been delayed for months or years.)

Some cash-strapped states expect this new definition to spawn court challenges, which will ultimately force them to pay exorbitantly high prices to doctors and hospitals for their existing patients.

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