Eight rebuttals to "10 reasons to kill the Senate bill"

Responses in italics to Jane Hamsher's  10 Reasons to Kill the Senate Bill. I concede the points about giveaways to pharma, but they're hardly dealbreakers.

1. Forces you to pay up to 8% of your income to private insurance corporations — whether you want to or not. "Up to" is marketing language. It's true that the relatively small sliver of Americans who make upwards of $80,000 and have no access to insurance outside the exchanges will be "forced" to spend 8% of their income on insurance. But right now, their option is to have no insurance -- and therefore risk bankruptcy or death if they get seriously ill -- or pay about 22% more than they will pay on the exchanges -- if they have no preexisting conditions or other budget-busting characteristics, like middle age. The mandated insurance will also have fewer coverage loopholes than individual market policies now offer.  Other "mandated" buyers will pay much less; those under 150% of the poverty line will pay less than $2000 for a family of four.
   
2. If you refuse to buy the insurance, you’ll have to pay penalties of up to 2% of your annual income to the IRS. A mandate is the necessary cost of ending discrimination on the basis of pre-existing conditions.