It was never a real opportunity. Lieberman’s sponsors in the Hartford insurance companies wouldn’t let him support it.
Plenty of people have lost their doctor and have seen their insurance premiums rise significantly as a result of the ACA. I don’t see proponents of the ACA offering them answers. Not that your question is really fair to begin with. Not only is it ad hom, there is no perfect answer.
Nobody doubts your intelligence, John, Heaven knows you’re reminded us often enough. But what about those who aren’t so smart? Is it the responsibility of the smart man to protect the less gifted? Or are the dummies our natural prey? Its wrong to take someones money by fear or violence, but outsmarting them is totally OK?
Obamacare’s “position” is that these plans are wrong, they are theft, they present the illusion of security but without substance. Are they right, then? Those ads on TV that promise insurance security to the old and infirm, and save them oodles of money, are they telling the strict truth? Have they discovered some actuarial miracle that renders the arithmetic null and void?
If I am taller than my brother, it is good that I can help him reach something he cannot otherwise rieach. If I am stronger, it is so I can help him lift something he cannot. If I am smarter, it is so I can help him understand something he cannot otherwise grasp. And to protect him, as best I can, from the greedy and smart man who would screw him because he can.
Any part of that you disagree with?
You assume to much, including my stupidity.
I know exactly what i had, i know exactly what it covered, i did not want anything else, i have no use for anything else.
Stop assuming things, it was made perfectly plain and clear in my 1st post
With all due awe, an anecdote is still just that. As evidence, it relies entirely on the veracity and intelligence of the teller. You are offering assumptions by the very act.
The fact that you are, by choice, here on the Dope, amongst the smartest, hippest, etc. speaks well of you, sure. But then, so are…some others. 'Nuff sed.
I can picture you saying this to your fourth grade English teacher.
I lost a doctor, saw my premiums rise significantly and my coverage change in the two years before Obama took office, that’s why I was a proponent. Anyone who switched jobs in the previous decade could have faced the same thing.
Somewhere around the same time, I was helping neighbors figure out the intricacies of Medicare Part D, the newfangled coverage enacted by a Republican president against his own party.
Anyone voting in 2008 was faced with some kind of working-stage public plan for expanding access to health insurance to individuals.
Thus it’s easy to ignore people who complain today about Obamacare raising premiums or chasing away a doctor, because in past years their answer to other people’s health care problems was not giving a shit.
We really ought to observe that the discussion is now not whether Americans should have guaranteed access to affordable health care, but how to do it. The traditional Republican position, “Fuck 'em, socialized medicine is BAD!”, has now been dragged from orthodoxy into something even they largely realize is political suicide for them.
There is no assumption about your stupidity.
The senate vote clearly says otherwise.
Agreed. The Republicans are NOT ready to admit that yet.
It was an opportunity in the sense that it was proposed, and in some theoretical better world it could have passed. It’s exactly what was needed to give the private insurance oligopoly real competition, and that’s exactly why the industry so vehemently opposed it. Whether one believes it had any chance depends on how completely one believes the industry and AHIP has Congress firmly in their control.
I’m sure that some people are in that category. There are also a great many others who now have insurance who could not otherwise have it, either because of pre-existing conditions and/or because they couldn’t afford it. The ACA is estimated to have enrolled over 20 million people, and that’s not an insignificant number by any stretch.
As for those who have allegedly been disadvantaged, I suspect many are just complaining that they can no longer have the useless junk plans that were unethically being pawned off on them before, but no doubt there are also some legitimate complaints. The ACA is far from perfect, and sometimes there are no good answers to offer except that it was probably the best that could be done under the circumstances. What I really have a problem with is the attempt to imply that everything was rosy before and the problems with the ACA are the result of “government meddling” or some such similar nonsense. Clearly not, since my own (single-payer) plan is 100% government run and I get coverage for everything with no direct costs to me at all and the free choice of any doctor or hospital or service provider. The problems with the ACA result from an attempt to shoehorn a reasonable set of regulations into a fundamentally broken and overpriced private insurance system. All the cost increases and restrictions on coverages and providers are coming from the private insurers, not from the government.
Your stupidity doesn’t need to be assumed, it’s on full display. Apparently all you want is an insurance plan that will pay for stitches, because you’re too cheap to pay for actual health insurance.
It’s easy to be brave and macho on an Internet board and claim you “don’t need or want health care”. The real question is what happens when you’re suddenly seriously ill and need lengthy and expensive medical treatment, maybe cancer treatment, maybe heart surgery. What would happen then? Maybe you’d do what all the other idiots do in the same situation: go running to the ER, claim poverty, and demand the best possible treatment at the expense of the hospital and the taxpayer. You wouldn’t get it, but you’d waste a lot of taxpayer dollars and medical resources in the process of getting something half-assed before they threw your sorry ass out the door. Not only does that fail to help you in any meaningful way, it’s also the kind of idiocy that makes the health care system more costly for everyone. Picking the lose-lose option is a pretty good definition of “stupidity”.
Well, then, that’s how it should’ve been pitched to the American public: ‘If you like your plan, you can keep your plan, unless it’s unacceptable, because, well, some plans don’t really deserve to count.’ Why the heck wasn’t that the catchy slogan?
You mean, why is my wisdom and guidance not sought and relied upon by the Dem leadership? Damned if I know.
Well, more why isn’t the Dem leadership as wise and straightforward as you, but, yeah.
I’m honestly not sure what you mean, or what $500 screws even means.
I’ve been in pharma R&D and manufacturing for over 20 years. I can tell you exactly where the money goes. And yes, new drugs are insanely profitable (when they sell; I have in fact been involved with drugs that had great margins but were market failures).
It is extremely complicated, but FDA regulation and QA/QC is not really the problem. I know that the industry likes to say they are, but here where my employer doesn’t know my name I’ll call bullshit.And, right now, my job title (sanitized a bit) is “Product Director” for a clinical-phase pharmaceutical. I have responsibility for everything from tox studies to manufacturing (manager responsibilities, not actual-perform-them responsibilities).
FDA requirements are crucial. Without them we have shown that we will take shortcuts. We will skip studies that would reveal safety concerns. Not because we’re mustache-twirling evil, but becaue we will deem them unnecessary. We will ignore minor manufacturing concerns that turn out to be not so minor. Not because we want to hurt someone, but because we’re under deadline and that thing really isn’t so bad. Or, we will bring drugs to market that aren’t actually effective. Not because we’re crooks, but because after 8 years and millions (even e billion) dollars, we’re sure this thing works. We’ve put a third of our career into this project and we just don’t have the impartiality to see it doesn’t work. Anyone who wants to roll back FDA requirements hasn’t seen how they they matter.
But the margins on something like lipitor, Viagra, or Cardiolite ARE off the charts once we’re making them and selling them at commercial scale. I’ve worked with products that cost 3 cents a pill or 35 cents a vial to make (and in the case of the vial, these are sterile injectibles) and we sell for $100 a pill or $85 per vial (real numbers, by the way). But we only get a few years to sell them (patents are 20 years, but some of that is eaten up before it gets to market). Still great money to be had, no question. But it doesn’t last forever.
Some key areas where we are seeing pharma screw the population over (in the US, presumably different elsewhere):
-We convince docs that the latest (patent-protected) drugs are always the best for all patients. Sometimes a patient is just as well served by a last-generation generic. There have been studies that have shown this in particular with blood pressure medication.
-There are special patent rules and market protections for orphan drugs. These are drugs for small patient populations who would not otherwise be attractive to pharma companies for R&D. Things like Gaucher’s Disease, where there might be only a few thousand sufferers. So under orphan designation, you get extended patent protection AND competition will be banned from the market, unless that competition can show substantially better patient outcomes. So you focus the R&D there, get an orphan indication, and charge governments/insurers $250,000 per year per patient, knowing that a- no competition and b- pay up or the patient will die. The whole system covers those costs.
And Docs too. For a long time (less common now), doctors would own (or part-own) an imaging center. You’d show up complaining about something and the doc would look at you and know it wasn’t a big concern. But he would tell you “Well, let’s get you a stress test, just to be sure. See Carol at the front desk and she’ll get you scheduled for one.” Carol would then book you an appointment at the imaging center down the road that the Doc just happened to be an owner of. Ka-ching. That’s called self referral and it’s been cracked down on by insurers, but they just develop new ways to slop at the trough. AND, the worst thing about cardiac stress test self-referrals is that the unnecessary procedures involve a radioactive drug, which means you’re giving the patient unnecessary exposure.
As someone in the belly of the beast, and who could never say this publicly as a representative of his employer, DO NOT rail against the FDA. We’re screwing you in very behind the scenes ways and then BLAMING the FDA.
The increasing number of them admitting they need to have something credible before they repeal says so.
My understanding was the penalty/tax was to help offset the costs of the subsidies and to try and strong arm citizens into buying health insurance. I never heard the part about the Republicans saying there had to be a penalty or tax.
The problem is that health insurance prior to Obamacare/ACA was not affordable for many people. Now with ACA it has become unaffordable for some that used to be able to afford it because somehow, someway it has to be paid for everyone. The other problem is to say the Obamacare is affordable is not true. Sure, you can get your blood pressure checked and have routine health visits, but if something is found to be wrong, good luck affording your prescriptions, copay, surgeries, etc. That’s if you can afford the premiums so you don’t lose the insurance in the first place.
When my husband and I were looking on the exchange for insurance, we were told 10 plans would cover us. Seven of them wouldn’t pay a dime for anything until we reached $10,000 out of pocket, on top of paying hundreds in premiums every month. Two of them were priced so high in premium it was almost like paying another mortgage. We were left with one plan or we could pay a penalty.
Now, before everyone thinks I’m bashing the ACA, a friend of mine has a husband and a teenager. The same thing happened to them, their premiums under the ACA skyrocketed. They ended up keeping one family member on the exchange and the other two were put on a private plan because it was most cost effective for them. I’m sure in some cases, for some people it can work.
Right now though, as before Obamacare, quality healthcare is unaffordable for many Americans. Now however, those who were able to afford quality plans have lost them or find they can no longer afford them. Those who couldn’t afford it before may have coverage, but may also want to read their policies because many dollars may be shelled out before the insurance kicks in, and the process gets repeated every year.
What makes you think Bush went against his party in signing Medicare Part D? Republicans held majorities in both the House and Senate at the time. Among Republicans in the House the vote was 207-19 in favor; in the Senate it was 42-9 in favor. The majority of Democrats voted against.
Republicans may want to wash their hands of this, and of the huge deficits it has run up, by putting all the responsibility on Bush; but the record says otherwise.