# Is Obamacare a Success? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 26, 2014, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-obamacare-a-success/696587 "2014-08-26T20:51:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2014, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-obamacare-a-success/696587/61 "2014-08-27T22:04:19Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Depends on the customer. If you’re a 55-year old with cancer, now you’re paying for maternity coverage and your co-pays might have risen as well. YOu may also have lost your doctor, since one way insurance companies have kept costs lower than they otherwise would have been is to narrow the networks. There’s just less choice all around, so those consumers who valued choice above all are understandably disgruntled. > > Other losers are those in co-op plans. Some professionals in NY state had great insurance that met ACA standards in every way, but still had to go away because it wasn’t a diverse pool. Those people had to be thrown into the larger pool to bring other people’s costs down. > > [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/14/nyregion/with-affordable-care-act-canceled-policies-for-new-york-professionals.html?pagewanted=all&\_r=0](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/14/nyregion/with-affordable-care-act-canceled-policies-for-new-york-professionals.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0) > > This is why I get annoyed that defenders of ACA continue to lie to defend the President’s original lie. They claim, “Oh, those people had crappy insurance anyway”. Or, their insurance just didn’t fulfill the social goals of ACA, so they also lost their insurance. Not only that, but for these professionals, ACA plans have less coverage than what they had before. So to claim that everyone’s getting better coverage is not exactly accurate. Plus there’s the cadillac tax, which is specifically designed to worsen the insurance plans of some unions in the name of equality. I don’t get the whole ‘I’m paying for something I don’t use’, that is what insurance is. You may pay for someone’s cancer treatment despite you never getting cancer. The woman who pays for maternity coverage may pay for your heart disease. I’m never going to use birth control but I still pay for it. I’m never having kids either but my taxes support schools. The argument could’ve been made pre-Obamacare when insurance still had to cover diseases of lifestyle where people who had better lifestyles didn’t get the diseases. As I said earlier, how much is actual compliant due to the law and how much is people getting upset over stuff that happen(ed) anyway and blaming it on Obamacare? The article about professionals being kicked out of their co-ops was interesting, I hadn’t heard of that problem. The purpose of the cadillac tax was to help slow the rate of medical inflation, it has nothing to do with equality. > **[Obamacare's 'Cadillac Tax' Could Help Reduce The Cost Of Health Care](https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/02/26/obamacares-cadillac-tax-could-help-reduce-the-cost-of-health-care/)** > > By Fmr. Sen. WILLIAM H. FRIST, M.D. Like much of the Affordable Care Act, the Cadillac tax—Obamacare’s solution to a tax subsidy created during World War II—offers a solution to an important problem, but is fraught with unintended consequences.... ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2014, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-obamacare-a-success/696587/62 "2014-08-27T22:49:37Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > I don’t get the whole ‘I’m paying for something I don’t use’, that is what insurance is. You may pay for someone’s cancer treatment despite you never getting cancer. The woman who pays for maternity coverage may pay for your heart disease. I’m never going to use birth control but I still pay for it. I’m never having kids either but my taxes support schools. The argument could’ve been made pre-Obamacare when insurance still had to cover diseases of lifestyle where people who had better lifestyles didn’t get the diseases. As I said earlier, how much is actual compliant due to the law and how much is people getting upset over stuff that happen(ed) anyway and blaming it on Obamacare? The perceived benefit of insurance is, roughly speaking, the amount of a payout times the probability of that payout. If this is higher than the premium, people think they are getting a good deal. It is clearly not whether you get a payout, since most of us don’t feel ripped off if we finish the year alive and have not used our term life insurance. So cancer, which we all can get, is different from pregnancy, which not all of us can catch. Perceived benefits from others having others having healthy children is another matter. ---
**Author:** ![Killing\_Time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/76d3ee/32.png) [@Killing\_Time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Killing_Time)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2014, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-obamacare-a-success/696587/63 "2014-08-27T23:11:07Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > I’m gonna say fail, simply because it is so divisive. Some people are happy to have insurance for the first time, others have lost coverage they liked, but half the country is pissed and ain’t no one gettin’ along. > > The saying goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Clearly “it” was broke, but now it’s just broke different, and half the country is pissed. > > Fail. The Civil Rights Act was divisive. Do you think that was a failure too? ---
**Author:** ![Killing\_Time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/76d3ee/32.png) [@Killing\_Time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Killing_Time)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2014, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-obamacare-a-success/696587/64 "2014-08-27T23:28:46Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > And the issue isn’t whether pregnant women get care, you can easily do that without making single men and older women pay for it. It would just cost a little more. Not even a lot more. Well, no. Part of the reform was that women aren’t charged more for insurance than men. We can’t make women pay a higher rate simply because of their gender, so that’s off the table. What about allowing women who aren’t pregnant to opt out of that part of the coverage? I can’t believe you don’t see the obvious problem with that. Because those with pre-existing conditions must be covered, all insurance is now “guaranteed issue”. No insurance company can deny you a policy if you wish to purchase it. Are you seeing the problem yet? Let’s say any person can opt out of any coverage they want - “I’m not pregnant right now, so I don’t want pregnancy coverage”, or “I don’t have cancer right now, so I don’t want cancer coverage”. What happens when you DO get cancer? You immediately buy a policy with cancer coverage, right? And they HAVE to give it to you, because it’s guaranteed issue. That just wouldn’t work. Who would pay for all the folks who get coverage AFTER they develop the condition? As has been pointed out, the very definition of what insurance is requires that you are sometimes paying your premiums to cover OTHER people’s conditions. ---
**Author:** ![TimeWinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2014, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-obamacare-a-success/696587/65 "2014-08-28T01:19:39Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > To look on the bright side, the experiment created by the red state governors makes it impossible for ACA opponents to claim that the reduction in the number of uninsured would have happened anyway or was caused by the phases of the moon or something. As the last six years or so have amply demonstrated, _facts_ have absolutely no impact on whether something will be claimed, repeated, or widely believed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-obamacare-a-success/696587.md?page=3)