It’s stuck enough that the White House has been using the term for different advertising projects and President Obama’s response was ‘I have no problem with people saying Obama cares. I do care’
Personally I think we should go with Tim Pawlenty’s ‘Obamney Care’ Even Bobby Jindal has started using it!
From what I’ve read so far, the tax per year will actually be less than one month’s premium on my existing, shitty, individual health plan (a health plan that is basically a “break glass in case of serious emergency” plan, but doesn’t allow me to get basic care except on my own dime – so I cross my fingers and hope it’s not a UTI, or wait 9 months hoping a recurring skin reaction will heal on its own, because it’s remarkably hard to find low-cost care – I don’t qualify because I’m insured!). If things get much worse for me financially, as much as I’ll be really unhappy about flying without a net, so to speak – it would cost me substantially less to be uninsured. And I might need that money for food.
That’s my biggest problem – the individual mandate. It doesn’t address the problem at all – that the reason people are uninsured is because they don’t have the money to pay for insurance. It’s not because they’re just… I dunno, lazy or something? It’s not something any rational adult would willingly go without. In order for this coverage exchange to work, you’d need to be offering useable coverage for less than the tax. I’d honestly be surprised to see that happen, given the cost of my barely-there medical coverage.
I get that this is the best we could do for now, and I place the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Right. I’m glad we got those other few reforms, but they largely don’t help me – I don’t have kids, and while it’ll be nice to know I can’t be denied coverage for my plethora of pre-existing conditions (I’ve been denied before), there’s nothing saying they can’t and won’t jack up my premiums because of them, which for a lot of people is effectively the same thing.
My other big issue is that it’s way past time to treat mental health as the somatic health condition it is, rather than a character flaw. If someone suggested that covering 12 insulin shots per year, at half the rate other costs are covered, was adequate coverage for diabetes, people would be up in arms.
I am not opposed to UHC in the states, but I wish that it were the states that would individually implement it, like Massachusetts did, and Vermont and Washington are doing, etc.
I don’t think it’s a good idea in general for the federal government to concern itself with it, but they can and should offer incentives/rewards for states to implement it.
I don’t think the ACA is a good law at all, and I think that the fact that most insurance companies support it is evidence that it was pretty much written by them and their cronies.
It will do some good though, and I don’t hate Obama over it at all. It won’t affect me personally because I’m lucky enough to have the kind of job security that ensures I always have employer health care coverage, and I am very sympathetic to those who don’t have it.
I would have vastly preferred socialized medicine (open up a bunch of state run hospitals where all the nurses and doctors are government employees, like at veteran’s hospitals if I’m not mistaken), or even just a government-run health insurance company for people to choose from, or a medicare-for-all expansion, etc.
I’m willing to be patient and see how it all plays out, but I am very nervous over it all and am not optimistic that it will really improve our country. I also am afraid for small businesses.
But if your income is low enough you’d qualify for subsidies. Either a person qualifies for subsidies that make the cost reasonable according to their income, or their income is high enough that it shouldn’t be a problem.
A lot of people don’t act rationally in a lot of situations. If they did, countless laws wouldn’t have been necessary.
But there should be a decrease in uninsured people using the ER for things that they otherwise wouldn’t have to, or letting smaller health problems go until they become more serious and costly, so it could work out. I don’t know, I wouldn’t be surprised if it went either way. I don’t think it’s that good of a solution, but I think it’s probably quite a bit better than nothing.
Lots of young people go without insurance even if they can afford it. I had a friend who worked as a waitress going through college in the mid 1990s. She could enroll in her school sponsored plan for something like $800 per year. She didn’t think she needed it, and wouldn’t sign up. She could definitely afford it, but would rather spend her money on other things. It’s not like she was living large, far from it, but not so much on the edge that she couldn’t come up with the $800. She wanted/needed a car, so I said I would giver her a car, and pay the insurance on it, if she would sign up for the health insurance. Which I did for four years. Otherwise a really smart and responsible person, but couldn’t see why this was important.
I think this is a huge social experiment, and really don’t have any confidence that it’s going to be an improvement for the overall system. It doesn’t change the biggest flaw with our system which is that most people get their health insurance as a perk from their employer. I expect it’s going to have to get more complex and more regulatory over time as the government needs to deal with unintended consequences. And I don’t trust the insurance companies, which the government just made stronger, to keep costs down. They now have a truly captive audience, and I haven’t seen a slow-down in the annual increases I get from my provider.
I don’t like it but the status quo was worse. This has made a step towards UHC and I hope we’re a nation that can get there.
Having been to this kind of rodeo before, I have very little confidence that the government will be very accurate in determining what I can and can’t afford. Hell, private charities set up for this sort of thing are bad at it. Several years ago I applied for charity care for some of my cancer care bills. I got a determination that I could afford to pay them $50 a month, when I had no job. I sent them a letter back saying, in essence, “Very funny. You’ve seen all my financial records. I can give you $5.”
Maybe true in a general sense, and maybe there are even a few who honestly have no idea how valuable medical coverage is. I don’t think this is the case for the vast majority of the un- and under-insured, however. Especially these days, when a lot of them used to have it before they lost their jobs.
Better than nothing, yes, but I don’t see that it will ultimately be very helpful to the people who need it most – people who can’t afford to buy health insurance. Hell, I have insurance, and my health care these days amounts to “I hope it heals on its own.” Last time I needed it, I spent hours of googling over the course of a week trying to find a low-cost clinic that didn’t ask me upfront if I had insurance and then disqualify me from their sliding scale because I did (and yes, I told them that the entire cost would come out-of-pocket even with insurance). My regular doc was no help at all (the receptionist told me I could pay full price at the time of the visit, and when I asked if there was anyway else they could help me out, there was a loooong pause before she said no). I only got care because I finally lucked into a place that didn’t ask about my insurance status.
Which kind of highlights the issue – WTF is the point of insurance that actually prevents me from getting basic care? How does it save money to force me to put off preventative care, such that it’s only useful if the shit is hitting the fan and the costs involved are in the thousands or tens of thousands of dollars? This is the system that we’re still stuck with.
The system still sucks and will continue to to some degree as long as we have to deal with the insurance leeches, but one of the provisions of the ACA is that insurance companies can’t even charge copays for most preventative care. I think that’s already taken effect for new plans and will for existing plans at some point in the future. I imagine that means they have to cover those services too, because otherwise that wouldn’t be at all helpful to the people who need it most.
And in your situation, I probably would have just said I didn’t have insurance at all. Those policies are ridiculous.
Yeah, by the time we got to “Oh no, you don’t qualify” they’d already asked for my name and insurance status. Silly me thinking that telling them that I can’t afford care without the sliding scale would make a difference. I probably would have called back and “neglected” to mention my insurance, but they already had my name. Had I but known.
I actually don’t have co-pays for most things. What I have is a $5K deductible, so eliminating the $20 co-pay doesn’t do a thing for me. I’d rather pay the $20. Full price is $150 for an office visit.
I have no idea if ACA does anything about these ridiculous high-deductible plans. The only reason I have it is because it’s the only plan that has premiums I have any chance of affording. It was handy when my medical bills were $50K a month. Not so much now.
It is a Frankenstein monster no doubt, but so are all compromise measures like this one. Obamacare isn’t great, but it’s the best thing that could possibly pass Congress. Sad but true. Don’t blame Obama so much, true he was a HUGE supporter of UHC, but this is the only thing that could pass.
What would you propose to take it’s place? And would you be able to get a majority in both halves of Congress and a Presidential signature?
That won’t happen for another 10-20 years, at least, at which point Romney will be in the same historical dustbin as Michael Dukakis, Bob Dole, and John Kerry. So, nobody will hear Romney change his story.
I do not see the logic in “A stupid system is better than doing nothing.” Americans should have been left to fester with the status quo until there was impetus for a real solution.