# Obamacare may have saved the nation from bankruptcy **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 7, 2010, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamacare-may-have-saved-the-nation-from-bankruptcy/549548 "2010-08-07T20:46:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DiosaBellissima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@DiosaBellissima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiosaBellissima)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamacare-may-have-saved-the-nation-from-bankruptcy/549548/21 "2010-08-08T02:55:00Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > > [@Plan\_B](#): > > > > When was a government agency ever able to do something more efficiently that private enterprise? > > I have no doubt that private enterprise could exploit the National Parks better than the National Park Service, but I doubt anyone would like to visit 392 strip mines, oil wells, toxic waste dumps and asphalt deserts. No thank you, I would rather pour your taxes into the existing socialist money pit. _You would_, fucking Commie. . . ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamacare-may-have-saved-the-nation-from-bankruptcy/549548/22 "2010-08-08T03:31:26Z")
Obamacare MAY have saved the nation from bankruptcy…70 years from now? 😛 Let me know how that works out, guys… -XT ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamacare-may-have-saved-the-nation-from-bankruptcy/549548/23 "2010-08-08T05:26:52Z")
> [@Plan\_B](#): > > Does anyone really believe that Obamcare will save us money? Seriously? When was a government agency ever able to do something more efficiently that private enterprise? Medicaire for one. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamacare-may-have-saved-the-nation-from-bankruptcy/549548/24 "2010-08-08T05:29:34Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > > [@Plan\_B](#): > > > > When was a government agency ever able to do something more efficiently that private enterprise? > > I have no doubt that private enterprise could exploit the National Parks better than the National Park Service, but I doubt anyone would like to visit 392 strip mines, oil wells, toxic waste dumps and asphalt deserts. No thank you, I would rather pour your taxes into the existing socialist money pit. God help us if private industry were allowed to run Yellowstone. Or the Smokies. Or, for fuck’s sake, the Everglades. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamacare-may-have-saved-the-nation-from-bankruptcy/549548/25 "2010-08-08T05:30:13Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Like it or not, government is perfectly capable of performing various services better than private industry; and the evidence from all over the world is that running a health care system is one of those things. Americans pay more money for worse care thanks to our free-market-at-any-cost fetish. But they don’t have the large population of conservatives to fuck everything up like we do. ---
**Author:** ![VarlosZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d78d45/32.png) [@VarlosZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VarlosZ)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamacare-may-have-saved-the-nation-from-bankruptcy/549548/26 "2010-08-08T07:15:07Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Medicare had an unfunded liability of $37 trillion or so before Obamacare, with an 80% reduction that means we may have saved $30 trillion in medicare over the next 75 years. Projecting that the United States as we know it will still exist 75 years from now is hardly a sure thing. Projecting the cost savings on a particular entitlement program which are attributable to a particular piece of legislation over that same 75 years is just, honestly, very embarrassing for you. But hey, chin up, tomorrow’s another day. ---
**Author:** ![CannyDan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cannydan/32/548_2.png) [@CannyDan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CannyDan)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamacare-may-have-saved-the-nation-from-bankruptcy/549548/27 "2010-08-08T13:13:30Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > > [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > > > I have no doubt that private enterprise could exploit the National Parks better than the National Park Service, but I doubt anyone would like to visit 392 strip mines, oil wells, toxic waste dumps and asphalt deserts. No thank you, I would rather pour your taxes into the existing socialist money pit. > > God help us if private industry were allowed to run Yellowstone. Or the Smokies. Or, for fuck’s sake, the Everglades. [hijack] Sadly, to some considerable extent private enterprise _has_ run the Everglades for most of the past hundred years. Mega-agriculture (mostly sugar but also winter vegetables and sod) plus residential development (under cover of “flood control”) have destroyed most of the original Everglades and turned the remainder into a plumbed and dysfunctional retention pond. Poor Everglades National Park, it is at the mouth of the River of Grass, and the headwaters have been destroyed. It has no control over its own ecosystems or its own destiny. I don’t know much about the others you mention, but I am intimately familiar with the Everglades. [/hijack] ---
**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 8, 2010, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamacare-may-have-saved-the-nation-from-bankruptcy/549548/28 "2010-08-08T14:34:46Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > This is pretty much a titanic load of hroseshit. I’d klike to even argue against it, but it pretty much fails to be lauighable. IN the future, perhaps you’d like to celebrate savings after they actually appear, and not in wholly fictitious projections? Or perhaops, before cursing the conservatives who argue their points, you might want to have “cites” from something more reputable than Leftist spinning the most carefully selected aspects of a report? > > For my economics, I find it extremely instructive to always go to Megan McArdle. She’s a liberal, yet very often opposed to any politicizing of economics. She further explains complex subjects well and has a good track record of predictions -principally because she makes them very carefully. She msiot certainly can’t be argued to have some knee-jerk conservative bias. > > And, unfortunately, both Krugman and Kos are full full of shit. It’d be ncie if they weren’t, but they are. > > What you are all missing, absurdly, is that the medicare trustees’ report _must_ assume, no matter what, that the claimed savings will be there, even if there is no chance in hell it will. They are required to do so, just as the CBo is very often required to make nonsensical assumptions, as happened during the ridiculous gaming of the CBO score earlier this year in support of the bill. > > [Consider the Source - The Atlantic](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/08/consider-the-source/61096/) > > [Krugman Is Wrong on Ryan and the CBO - The Atlantic](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/08/krugman-is-wrong-on-ryan-and-the-cbo/61110/) > > She points out that Krugman hgilariously made this same point… a day after he completely missed the same fact applies for the Trustee’s Report. The second link is actually about Krugman’s questioning why Paul Ryan, whom he considers an obvious “flimflammer” didn’t do things he actually did in fact do. > > McArdle, for reasons which may be obvious to some, is one of the few liberals I truly and deeply respect. Apparently there is some criticism of the projections. [http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-08-05-medicare-social-security\_N.htm](http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-08-05-medicare-social-security_N.htm) > [@](#): > > WASHINGTON — Savings projected under the landmark health care law signed by President Obama this year have improved Medicare’s financial projections, but Republican critics and even the program’s chief actuary say the new prognosis is too rosy. > > More than $500 billion in Medicare savings projected under the law — the result of cuts to some providers and the popular, all-inclusive Medicare Advantage program — should help extend the program’s solvency by 12 years, to 2029, its trustees said Thursday. > > Not so fast, Republicans responded, noting that the same savings are being used to help extend health insurance to 32 million more Americans. “If you steal over a half-trillion dollars from Medicare to fund another unsustainable entitlement, Medicare won’t be better off,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. > > Richard Foster, chief actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said Congress still must find a way to avoid a proposed 30% cut in payments to doctors over the next three years. He added that most health care providers aren’t likely to improve their productivity as much as forecast by the law. > > “The financial projections shown in this report for Medicare do not represent a reasonable expectation for actual program operations,” Foster wrote. “The recession adds a significant further element of uncertainty to the trust fund projections.” Which sucks, because health care is what is bankrupting the nation on the federal, state and private level (health care plays a big role in bankruptcy, foreclosure, offshoring, etc). So slowing the rate of cost growth is the most important thing we can do to keep the US economy solvent. US health spending was roughly the same as other OECD nations until the late 70s, when it grew faster and took off from everyone else. [![](http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/07/09/business/econgraphic3.jpg) ](http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/07/09/business/econgraphic3.jpg) Rates like that aren’t sustainable for another 70 years. ---
**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 8, 2010, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamacare-may-have-saved-the-nation-from-bankruptcy/549548/29 "2010-08-08T14:37:02Z")
> [@VarlosZ](#): > > > [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > > > Medicare had an unfunded liability of $37 trillion or so before Obamacare, with an 80% reduction that means we may have saved $30 trillion in medicare over the next 75 years. > > Projecting that the United States as we know it will still exist 75 years from now is hardly a sure thing. Projecting the cost savings on a particular entitlement program which are attributable to a particular piece of legislation over that same 75 years is just, honestly, very embarrassing for you. > > But hey, chin up, tomorrow’s another day. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d embarassed myself in public with my ardent support of an ideology, and it won’t be the last. On an unrelated note, have you heard of Scientofascism? It is scientology and fascism combined. I can start a thread if you’d like. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamacare-may-have-saved-the-nation-from-bankruptcy/549548/30 "2010-08-08T14:50:19Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Thank you for admitting you have no arguement, and therefore must mock my mediocre typing skills instead. Grammar arguments are the first refuge of the losing side. Your typing skills are apparently not your only rhetorical disability if you think **Polycarp** was criticizing your typing skills. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamacare-may-have-saved-the-nation-from-bankruptcy/549548/31 "2010-08-08T15:10:08Z")
Looking at the current USA system in world terms, it’s pretty much impossible for any changes to make it more expensive. Basically, it’s as expensive as a mass consumption product can be without it becoming an elite product. ---
**Author:** ![DirkGntly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d9b06d/32.png) [@DirkGntly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DirkGntly)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamacare-may-have-saved-the-nation-from-bankruptcy/549548/32 "2010-08-08T15:46:58Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > US health spending was roughly the same as other OECD nations until the late 70s, when it grew faster and took off from everyone else. > > [http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/07/09/business/econgraphic3.jpg](http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/07/09/business/econgraphic3.jpg) > > Rates like that aren’t sustainable for another 70 years. Which actually begs the question: What happened in 1978? Anyone know of any particular legislation that would have caused pricing, as percentage of GDP, to increase so dramatically? Maybe the Hospital Cost Containment Act of 1977? > **[Executive Order 14367—Designating Fentanyl as a Weapon of Mass Destruction |...](https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executive-order-14367-designating-fentanyl-weapon-mass-destruction)** Or maybe the establishment of HMOs, a few years earlier…? I’m open to input here, because I think examining the causes of the dramatic increase may actually lead us to logical conclusions. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamacare-may-have-saved-the-nation-from-bankruptcy/549548/33 "2010-08-08T16:45:46Z")
Never mind. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamacare-may-have-saved-the-nation-from-bankruptcy/549548/34 "2010-08-08T19:45:44Z")
> [@PrettyVacant](#): > > Looking at the current USA system in world terms, it’s pretty much impossible for any changes to make it more expensive. Basically, it’s as expensive as a mass consumption product can be **without it becoming an elite product.** That sounds like a goal. We have too many people sucking at the teat of the wealthy who fund hospitals by having multiple rounds of elective surgery and making generous cash donations to get their names on oncology wards. If you get sick, why should you be able to steal donations from the people who made them? ---
**Author:** ![VarlosZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d78d45/32.png) [@VarlosZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VarlosZ)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamacare-may-have-saved-the-nation-from-bankruptcy/549548/35 "2010-08-08T20:02:29Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > On an unrelated note, have you heard of Scientofascism? It is scientology and fascism combined. I can start a thread if you’d like. A non-sequitur? It’s either that or a whoosh – I admit I don’t get it. ETA: Self-deprecation? If so, ok, that’s pretty funny. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamacare-may-have-saved-the-nation-from-bankruptcy/549548/36 "2010-08-08T20:20:18Z")
[http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial\_opinion/oped/articles/2008/10/22/breaking\_the\_cycle\_of\_waste\_in\_healthcare/](http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/10/22/breaking_the_cycle_of_waste_in_healthcare/) The health care plan actually deals with waste. That is something new in America. Hospitals mistakes cost us a ton every year. infections that are caught in hospitals is another budget eater. Then expensive labs and imaging costs a lot too. They are all being recognized and dealt with in the health care system we have finally gotten. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamacare-may-have-saved-the-nation-from-bankruptcy/549548/37 "2010-08-08T20:39:29Z")
I deny the ability of ANY person in the history of humanity to make a prediction on the savings on a huge program 70 years in the future. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamacare-may-have-saved-the-nation-from-bankruptcy/549548/38 "2010-08-08T21:16:03Z")
I predict (confidently) that any predictions being made today (including those in this silly partisan circle jerk of a thread) will be either laughed at or there will be much rolling of eyes and shaking of heads. Happily I’ll be long gone 70 years from now, unless they get busy with the immortality treatments… -XT ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamacare-may-have-saved-the-nation-from-bankruptcy/549548/39 "2010-08-08T21:22:08Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > I’m a Canadian and so, like 98% of my countrymen, am a big supporter of government-run health insurance. > > \ Just last week I was informed by a Rabid Republican that Canada is dropping the current system because “their government simply cannot afford to maintain it.” Care to comment? Do try to keep a straight face when responding. Be aware that this plan might be a state secret since I have been unable to verify it. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamacare-may-have-saved-the-nation-from-bankruptcy/549548/40 "2010-08-08T21:37:46Z")
I actually don’t get this whole UHC thing anyway. If you are too poor to pay for your own healthcare isn’t the country better off if you just die? We’ll be left with the productive members of society and raise our standard of living. We’ll also get rid of the bad genes that poor people have. It is utter folly to change our current system. If UHC actually worked we’d see other countries that have lower costs and better outcomes. I just hate it when people argue based on philosophy rather than looking at facts. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamacare-may-have-saved-the-nation-from-bankruptcy/549548.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamacare-may-have-saved-the-nation-from-bankruptcy/549548.md?page=3)