# Oops. Looks like we were lied to about Obamacare after all. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 29, 2013, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534 "2013-10-29T07:22:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/101 "2013-10-29T16:06:50Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > Do you work for an insurance company? Because that is one of the only ways this statement makes sense to me. Do you honestly believe that insurance companies are faithfully tweaking their plans every year in response to _customer demand_? > > Here is the number of health insurance companies I am able to choose from via my husband’s current employer: One. Here is the number of plans they offer us: Two. > > I am, shall we say, less than impressed with the wide variety of choices and options available to us on the glorious free market. That is not “the free market”. ---
**Author:** ![mbetter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/53a042/32.png) [@mbetter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbetter)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/102 "2013-10-29T16:07:48Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Not really. Your explanation is correct, but it’s not what ACA actually does. What ACA does is more akin to making people without houses pay to insure houses. The problem with this metaphor is that everybody actually has a house. ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/103 "2013-10-29T16:08:39Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > That type of insurance is perfect for most young and healthy people. Very few young people are going to be using more than 3k per year and it keeps premiums low enough for young people just starting out to afford it. I wish I had that plan available when I was young and making little money. No, that type of insurance is perfect for no one. Young people need disaster insurance more than they need health insurance, because they’re unlikely to get sick, but they need to be covered in case they break bones snow boarding or get in a car accident. $3K is a laughable amount of money for disaster protection. Having to pay $3K for medical care is inconvenient; having to pay $30K or $300K is a nightmare. I guess in the discussion about whether or not we are being ruthlessly shafted by a heartless administration, the question is, what constitutes a “significant” change that obviates grandfathering? How big a deductible change? Greater than inflation? ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/104 "2013-10-29T16:09:26Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > I’m sure you think you’re making some kind of point with this, but I have decided not to try to figure it out and am carrying on with the rest of the discussion. Evasion. You seem to be blaming insurance companies for this. Or the “free market” or something. But the blame is fully your employer’s. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/105 "2013-10-29T16:10:05Z")
> [@Farin](#): > > You aren’t the customer selecting the plans in that scenario. Your husband’s employer is. > > If you looked at the market options available in 2009, you would have seen upto 50 (or less/more depending on your locale) plans that you could get instead of your husband’s employer’s options. It’s the same as saying “My husband’s employer only offers a coffee cup with the employer’s brand on it. The free market has failed coffee cups!” > > Whether or not you decided to go with your husband’s employer’s provided options or not is entirely dependent on your needs, of course. Actually, I did exactly what you suggest, except I did it in 2005. My employer transitioned me from employee to freelance status when I moved out of state, meaning I lost my health insurance benefits through them, so I turned to the available free market options in order to see what kind of coverage I could get. The answer turned out to be: No plan that offered any kind of maternity care or birth control coverage, first of all. And second, the plans that were available started at $800/month. This was, shall we say, a bit outside our price range. Supposedly the free market should have provided us with a low-cost/catastrophic-only benefit plan, since that’s what we could afford and what we were interested in getting for ourselves at the time. (Pref. with a maternity rider.) But I didn’t have that choice. The point remains that most people in this country who have health insurance have it through an employer. Suggesting that these people have tons of choice in their health care insurers is a little bit silly; the way insurance currently works in this country (well, pre-Obamacare), you tend to just get what your employer provides. If you try to go outside the system you are very likely to find prohibitively high costs and very poor coverage, or at least that’s what I found. The free market isn’t working in this case because a) the market isn’t really free at all, and b) health care isn’t like a stereo system, where you can just decide not to buy it if there aren’t any good options for you. One way or another we’re all health care consumers at some point in our lives. You don’t get much of a choice about that. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/106 "2013-10-29T16:10:45Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > What makes you think the average American is knowledgeable enough to make truly intelligent decisions about health coverage? Or getting an abortion? Or buying a beer? Or reading one of _ **those** _ books? Or marrying one of _ **those** _ people? Or choosing a career? Or – well, this being the SDMB, “owning a gun” may not be worth mentioning, but you get the idea. At what point do we step back and respect the individual’s right to be left alone and choose, instead of looking down on 'em with derisive _what-makes-you-think-they-can-make-intelligent-decisions_ scorn? ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Call\_Me\_Shirley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Don\_t\_Call\_Me\_Shirley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Call_Me_Shirley)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/107 "2013-10-29T16:14:01Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > How do you know it is going to be cheaper? I don’t, as there are obviously many projections coming in on both sides. Plus, as I tried to explain, the indirect costs of our shitty healthcare system are practically impossible to calculate. For example, employee sick days cost our economy billions of dollars per year ($576 billion according to Forbes). If employees have better overall health due to preventative care, and the number of sick days drops, that will help the economy by some amount. How do you predict the amount though? How do you predict how many fewer foreclosures there will be when people don’t aren’t being financially wiped out by an illness? That’s why I said “if it works” it will be cheaper. I think that goes without saying; since the intent of the law is to lower healthcare costs, “if it works,” it will lower healthcare costs. For me, the calculations really don’t matter that much. I would be willing to pay more to have a healthcare system that actually took care of everyone in the country. But I know everyone else isn’t like me, and reasonable people can disagree. But what I don’t understand is why reasonable people can’t see both sides, and bitch constantly about the costs of Obamacare, when they weren’t constantly bitching about the cost of the healthcare system before. It’s like they think they were never paying anything for uninsured peoples’ health care, and now they are suddenly having to pick up the bill. That’s just not the case. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/108 "2013-10-29T16:25:28Z")
> [@mbetter](#): > > The problem with this metaphor is that everybody actually has a house. Not everyone owns their home. You could say that renters pay the owners’ insurance costs, but that’s not true 100% of the time. When I rented a place in Orlando in the wake of the housing crash, what I paid in rent didn’t even cover the landlord’s mortgage, much less his insurance or property taxes. The logic of ACA, though, would require me to carry my own housing insurance, and I would be charged for things like earthquake insurance, even though earthquakes in Florida are so rare as to be almost not work considering. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/109 "2013-10-29T16:27:03Z")
> [@Don\_t\_Call\_Me\_Shirley](#): > > For me, the calculations really don’t matter that much. I would be willing to pay more to have a healthcare system that actually took care of everyone in the country. But I know everyone else isn’t like me, and reasonable people can disagree. But what I don’t understand is why reasonable people can’t see both sides, and bitch constantly about the costs of Obamacare, when they weren’t constantly bitching about the cost of the healthcare system before. It’s like they think they were never paying anything for uninsured peoples’ health care, and now they are suddenly having to pick up the bill. That’s just not the case. The reason is the dishonesty, the used car sales job. An honest debate would have revolved around, “Are you willing to pay more so everyone can have health insurance” and then the public would make that decision. Instead, it was wonderful things for everyone. Free lunches all around. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/110 "2013-10-29T16:30:05Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > Actually, I did exactly what you suggest, except I did it in 2005. My employer transitioned me from employee to freelance status when I moved out of state, meaning I lost my health insurance benefits through them, so I turned to the available free market options in order to see what kind of coverage I could get. The answer turned out to be: No plan that offered any kind of maternity care or birth control coverage, first of all. And second, the plans that were available started at $800/month. This was, shall we say, a bit outside our price range. > > Supposedly the free market should have provided us with a low-cost/catastrophic-only benefit plan, since that’s what we could afford and what we were interested in getting for ourselves at the time. (Pref. with a maternity rider.) But I didn’t have that choice. > > The point remains that most people in this country who have health insurance have it through an employer. Suggesting that these people have tons of choice in their health care insurers is a little bit silly; the way insurance currently works in this country (well, pre-Obamacare), you tend to just get what your employer provides. If you try to go outside the system you are very likely to find prohibitively high costs and very poor coverage, or at least that’s what I found. The free market isn’t working in this case because a) the market isn’t really free at all, and b) health care isn’t like a stereo system, where you can just decide not to buy it if there aren’t any good options for you. One way or another we’re all health care consumers at some point in our lives. You don’t get much of a choice about that. You are making excellent points about our ef’ed up system of getting HCI through our employers. Please note, though, that this in not the free market. This is due to government regulation and the peculiarities of our tax code. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/111 "2013-10-29T16:30:12Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > That is not “the free market”. I agree. Your scare quotes are appropriate. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/112 "2013-10-29T16:30:56Z")
This whole thing is stupid to me, it’s not a national healthcare system, it’s just forcing people to buy commercial insurance or pay a penalty which gives you no coverage at all. I think the ACA is going to be very profitable for insurance companies and ultimately for the whole healthcare industry. Not so much for individuals, except those that experience major health issues that are covered by their new forced insurance. Over the last 6 months my Anthem premium went from $105 to $153 per month, a 32% increase. I’ve never made a single claim on my policy. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/113 "2013-10-29T16:36:11Z")
I agree with control-z. Where is the health care reform? For that matter, where is the health insurance reform beyond getting rid of “uninsurability” - but the insurance companies are passing that buck to their customers anyways. ACA is the perfect example of the government (both sides of the aisle) making a bad situation worse. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/114 "2013-10-29T16:40:56Z")
> [@control-z](#): > > Over the last 6 months my Anthem premium went from $105 to $153 per month, a 32% increase. I’ve never made a single claim on my policy. That’s a 48% increase. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/115 "2013-10-29T16:48:59Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > I agree. Your scare quotes are appropriate. Very funny. Try not posting erroneous information and people won’t have to correct you. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/116 "2013-10-29T16:49:33Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Not everyone owns their home. You could say that renters pay the owners’ insurance costs, but that’s not true 100% of the time. When I rented a place in Orlando in the wake of the housing crash, what I paid in rent didn’t even cover the landlord’s mortgage, much less his insurance or property taxes. > > The logic of ACA, though, would require me to carry my own housing insurance, and I would be charged for things like earthquake insurance, even though earthquakes in Florida are so rare as to be almost not work considering. A better example would be a homeowner having to pay for fire insurance at the same rate as another homeowner whose house is currently on fire. It kills the whole insurance model because underwriting rules are no longer applicable. A health 27 year old imposes a far different level of risk on an insurance company than a 27 year old who has leukemia, but the insurance company must charge them both the same amount for premiums. Now, I agree with those that say we can just let these uninsureds with pre-existing conditions die in the street or only get patched up in the emergency room. But what the ACA does, instead of paying for it through the progressive income tax structure, is put it right on the backs of those healthy 27 year olds who are absolutely essential to the system. Those same 27 year olds who didn’t buy before aren’t likely to buy if we double their premiums, especially when they figure out they can adjust their withholdings so that they never pay the mandate tax. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/117 "2013-10-29T16:51:24Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > I agree with control-z. Where is the health care reform? For that matter, where is the health insurance reform beyond getting rid of “uninsurability” - but the insurance companies are passing that buck to their customers anyways. > > ACA is the perfect example of the government (both sides of the aisle) making a bad situation worse. I don’t agree with all that. if the implementation continues to be botched, then yeah, things can get a lot worse, but assuming reasonable implementation, a lot of things do get better: 1. More people covered 2. More comprehensive coverage 3. Many will save money due to subsidies in most cases, community rating in others 4. ACA has many ideas for reducing health care costs which may or may not work My beef with the law is the dishonesty used to sell it, which would be less galling if the supporters of the law hadn’t called the critics liars and implied that nothing they say should be believed. My other beef is the unnecessary complexity that has caused insurance premiums to be higher than necessary. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/118 "2013-10-29T16:53:10Z")
> [@control-z](#): > > This whole thing is stupid to me, it’s not a national healthcare system, it’s just forcing people to buy commercial insurance or pay a penalty which gives you no coverage at all. > > I think the ACA is going to be very profitable for insurance companies and ultimately for the whole healthcare industry. Not so much for individuals, except those that experience major health issues that are covered by their new forced insurance. > > Over the last 6 months my Anthem premium went from $105 to $153 per month, a 32% increase. I’ve never made a single claim on my policy. I would KILL for premiums that are only $153/mo. Mine are 5x that. Is your plan any good? But I’ve agreed with Bill Maher all along on this thing-- it’s a great big blow job to the insurance companies. Force every single American to buy your product or pay a fine. What’s not to love about that? If you’re an insurance company, that is. ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/119 "2013-10-29T16:53:33Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > That’s a 48% increase. Those are very impressive math skills, but unless you can demonstrate that the rise was due to the ACA (or more relevantly, that the referenced plan was no longer available to be grandfathered because of the rise), then it’s utterly irrelevant to this thread. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/120 "2013-10-29T16:54:55Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Very funny. Try not posting erroneous information and people won’t have to correct you. ??? My comment was sincere. “Scare quotes” means quotes that are used to indicate that a word doesn’t hold its usual meaning; in this case, that the free market is not actually the free market. I’m going back to work now. Sheesh. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534.md?page=7)