ACA does achieve that limited objective sufficiently. Everyone is insured, so no one goes bankrupt due to medical bills. Assuming everyone gets insured, but if people choose not to, it’s on them.
I don’t like the health care law for many reasons, but it does, or at least should, achieve the basic objectives of any UHC system.
Next time, perhaps you should read more of the thread before commenting.
Shit, even getting this lame-ass version was tough enough, what with Republicans screaming, tearing their hair and setting the curtains on fire!
And since when are you in favor of single payer systems? Rather dishonest of you to try and play both ends against the middle, don’t you think? Or don’t you?
Oh, come on. Obama made this part of every speech he gave that touched on the ACA. he out and out lied.
He said it often, therefore he must have meant it to address the grandfathering of policies into the minimum standards rather than to the broader arguments about government takeover of healthcare? That doesn’t make any sense.
Also, in your interpretation, what do you think “you can keep your doctor” was talking about?
Of course, I’m concerned about them. Most people live on a budget, and they allocated $X to health insurance, which is not a negligible number to begin with. But then you hear about the stories of these people losing their insurance and having to buy a shittier plan for considerably more money, that sucks. I can now get a a plan for way less than I could before. But the plan absolutely sucks. If I look for a plan similar to the one I had, the costs is well over twice the amount. Why should I be forced to pay so much more—assuming I can even?
Obama’s intention was to get the poor covered and have it paid for by everyone else. In a vacuum, that’s laudable enough. People thought, “Wait, that means my insurance rates will be going up.” So, Obama addressed that valid concern with blanket assurances that we could all keep the plan we already had if we wanted. He then repeated that lie endless times, to the point that those who might doubt it, were ridiculed by him and others. It’s yet one more way Obama seeks to redistribute the wealth. The sad part is, he’s succeeding. The really sad part is that not only those who believed his bullshit now have to suffer.
Is this an endorsement or something?
OK, good, now you have stated your position very clearly. All that remains now is the hard part, where you prove it.
Here’s a good article from the Washington Post’s wonkblog.
As noted, this is a feature, not a bug, of Obamacare. And it absolutely makes sense that there have to be some minimum standards if the government is going to require everyone to have insurance. I guess it all comes down to who you want to be setting those requirements.
Still, it seems like Obama could have been a bit more on the up and up and say that most people will be able to keep their insurance, if they like it. Some will need to upgrade to meet the new standards.
This is incorrect - I did not at any time question this assumption.
What you wrote - whether out of carelessness or ignorance - was that the policies being discussed had been reduced in value to make them non-compliant. That was incorrect - they had always been non-compliant, but had had a grandfathering loophole - reducing the value of that plan made it lose that loophole. (Point being that we were not discussing plans that were compliant with the ACA at the time Obama was promising that people would not lose their plans under the ACA.)
That’s a false dichotomy.
The insurance companies have more influence than me or you but they don’t have control of the government. Obama and Democrats generally have been demonizing the Big Insurance Companies (along with Big Oil, and various other Big Companies) for years, and having won the presidency and big majorities in both houses of the legislature, the insurance companies had little leverage.
ACA is now law. It affects all Americans.
There. Glad I could help.
It makes sense to me insurance companies will have to raise rates in the immediate future, they’re no longer allowed to select their risk pool based on race, sex and health history.
But with a level playing field and the ability for consumers to have more choices how can inefficient management to outright gouging continue when faced with government competition managed even remotely honest?
What government competition?
It is an endorsement of the basic outline, which after all, is a Republican idea. The model has been used successfully in Switzerland. There’s nothing wrong with the model.
The problems lie in the details. But even with the bad decisions made when drafting the law, it does achieve its basic objectives.
Did anyone actually believe that (1)the pool of insured people would increase, (2)that all those folks with pre-existing conditions that were too expensive to insure would now be able to be covered, (3)that those who couldn’t afford it would be given subsidies, and (4)the required amount of services provided would increase, and on top of all that, costs would decrease? That’s absurd.
Of course this will cost more overall - it’s just a question of who will be paying for it and how.
It is absurd. Yet they tried to sell us the absurd. And defamed those who pointed out the absurdity.
No, I think that comment was apropos for the post that I was replying to.
The White House party line about “minimum standards” and “low-quality insurance” is absurd. As a male who doesn’t need maternity care, a plan that doesn’t offer it to me is not “low-quality.” Same way with 6 and 60 year old women or those women who are otherwise infertile, or choose not to have children.
The "You can keep your current health plan (but it just so happens that our regulations will force the insurance company to cancel/change your current plan so it’s not our fault but their’s. Neener neener) was an absolute lie.
Regardless of whether you believe it is good or not, can anyone claim that the public was meaningfully informed that men and infertile women would have to buy maternity care at the same price as fertile women? Or was that sort of swept under the rug? Be honest.
It has been admitted by supporters in this thread that Obama’s statement was a lie, but a good one, according to them, because it served a higher purpose.
Cite?
It’s not as absurd as you put it. The pool was supposed to increase because of the penalties. The subsidies would lower the cost. The cost would be paid for by other taxes in the ACA, e.g. the tax on medical devices et al.
May work and may not, but it’s not as simple as you put it.