For a long time the ACA was sitting on some awfully rocky ground, having been handicapped by rampant GOP obstruction and repeal efforts, the uncertainty of the Supreme Court ruling, and finally the November election. Even today, the long-term security of the law isn’t fully ensured - it might be in front of the USSC again before the end of the year, and it could face significant changes if a GOP candidate ends up succeeding Obama - but still, at the end of the day, the ACA is far more likely now to be fully implemented and enshrined within contemporary American society than it ever was when it was first passed in 2010.
So with all of that in mind, what is your opinion of the law? I’m obviously a big proponent of it, but I will concede that there are some aspects of the ACA that I’m not too thrilled with. Personally, I don’t think that it goes far enough; I’m not happy that the public option got lost in the legislative process, and on the whole I think that it’s probably a bit too friendly to the insurance industry. A single-payer platform would’ve been the ideal choice, but that’s obviously politically untenable at this point in our history.
Still, the ACA is a huge step forward in fixing the US’s dumbshitfuck health care system.
I hope it moves the overton window to the left on the role of the state in managing and providing health coverage. Aside from that I get the impression the bill won’t work on the biggest problem of our health care system, the fact that our health care is incredibly inefficient and overpriced.
In order to get the bill passed forms of competition that would’ve helped drive down prices like Rx importation and negotiation, or insurance negotiation with a public option were eliminated.
So it was a good first start, and hopefully in 10-15 years we will see a true comparative effectiveness system implemented to reduce the cost of our health system. I don’t think Romneycare lowered health costs by much in MA.
I wonder if other methods will effectively drive down health costs. I know VT will enact a single payer system that will supposedly make health costs 25% lower than comparative states w/o their system.
Or maybe the private sector will come up with solutions. Some system similar to the pareto principle where 80% of the effectiveness of health care is provided for 20% of health funding. Or a new way to manage chronic care, since chronic care is where most money is spent.
Either way, the true problem with our system wasn’t addressed by it. But it was a good first start.
When I think of the left I think of the government mandating the purchase of insurance from for profit private sector companies.
You’re right though, since the Republicans have and will continue to vociferously characterize it as a socialist agenda, and things will marginally improve, and everyone will shrug their shoulders and move on. And then in another 40-50 years we’ll do what most other advanced countries did 40-50 years ago.
I think it was a wonderful gift to the insurance companies more than anything else. I doubt it will reduce costs for consumers, but the insurance companies now get a captive audience who has no choice but pay for their product or be fined, and since there’s not univeral coverage the people who are fined still won’t be insured and still running up costs at their local e.r.
I think it has moved the needle in the right direction, but we are not yet at what I would consider a “solution” that both provides universal coverage and controls costs. A nationalized health care system would go a long way to achieving those goals. I am hopeful the ACA is a first step in that direction, and that the door is now open to refining ACA and taking further steps.
For consumers, we are going to have to get accustomed to being told “no”. Part of the problem today is that we expect only 100% access to the top-of-the-line miracle, life-saving technology and drugs to be available to us at no cost, and letting someone else pay for it. In the future we all will need to accept what makes most sense medically and be more accepting of generic drugs, while accepting the state paying for it through our taxes. It is going to involve some compromise on the consumers part. We have a long way to go here, too.
Affordable to whom, I do not know, maybe those with exiting conditions that will finally get health care. I refuse to get health care insurance because it isn’t affordable, and will debate whether or not I pay the penalty since it may not be enforceable. And I’m thinking about retiring to other countries where it is actually affordable. I’ve always paid cash for my health care the last 12 years, and taken care of myself the best way I know how. Paying $430 a month and having a $10,000 annual deductible is not affordable, and that is the lowest quote I got about a half a year back and that was just for me and no other family members.
If I end up getting a serious enough condition, I’d prefer outsourcing to another country, or if it’s real bad, just dying and not getting caught up in this mess. I’d rather leave my estate to my loved ones.
Becoming the full-time health care provider 5 days and nights a week last year for about half of the year for both of my parents, I’ve really gotten a belly full of how incompetent and inefficient most of these clowns are, and no wonder so many are adamantly opposed to being forced to get it.
Far from perfect, but the best that was possible given the political realities of the time, and better than doing nothing (which was basically the only alternative).
My opinion is that it’s a piece of crap that will hurt most the very people it’s supposed to help. Most of the people currently without insurance won’t be able to take advantage of Obamacare because they still won’t have the money for deductibles and co-pays, and they’ll end up either being forced to pay for insurance they can’t afford to use or paying a fine with money they can’t afford to lose. As St. Ronnie once said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’” :rolleyes:
I don’t know if that is really our problem. They have advanced health care in other countries too, it is just cheaper there because they manage health care with the goal of providing the highest quality care to the most people at the lowest cost, in the US our system isn’t run that way. An MRI costs $1100 in the US, $300 in France and $100 in Japan.
We pay far more for the same care which is in a lot of ways lower quality since our system is so disjointed and has so many barriers to entry.
It all depends on the governor one has, if it is a Republican, chances are that they will opposes the medicare increases to cover the poor, IOW the ones that usually do not have insurance.
Meaning that many people that are poor will see quickly that they made a terrible mistake on voting for those troglodytes, I think we can expect those states to look at the voting bottom line and realize how dumb that opposition to the law is and they will find ways to comply with the law.
Good luck with that. You realize that countries with affordable healthcare premiums (like Canada) do not just let you immigrate when you’re retired and past your productive earning years, right? Unless you have children in the country you want to go to, or an investment of about a million $, or you work in the country for a significant number of years, you’ll be shit out of luck.
I see the ACA as the first step towards the death of for-profit health insurance as the primary US solution, probably sooner than later. I hope this guy is right.
I think this because the ACA seems to do little to bend the cost curve and I expect to see both medical costs and insurance costs continue to rise. Hopefully this will force us to look at better solutions - which are already working in the rest of the industrialized world.
That said, I am in favor of the ACA. Finally, everyone who wants to purchase insurance can do so - and not risk losing it because your insurer decides to drop you. Hopefully this will greatly reduce medical bankruptcies.
Yep that is huge for my family and will save us a lot of money.
Healthcare in America is a hugely expensive mess that needs to be fixed before it sucks the last dollar from the last patient and then collapses on itself. Any step is better than nothing. Medicare spending is out of control and that is a government program so I can’t really understand why people complain about the government getting involved in healthcare. They (or we) write plenty of checks to the healthcare industry.
The act is only round one from little I know but the only complaints I hear are from the people currently sucking at the government teat the hardest so I’m guessing a little change won’t kill us.
I don’t really believe the part about medical loss ratios. In minnesota I believe the state law on medical loss ratios is 90%, and there are still for profit companies operating there. In Europe there are some medical companies that get by with a 95% medical loss ratio.
The true death of the for profit insurance industry will come if there is ever a public option tied to medicare. Back when health insurance was being debated studies on a medicare tied public option showed the premiums were 20% lower. As an example, premiums for a family plan were $12000 back then, but under a public option they’d be $9500. For an individual plan the premiums were 4k and 3k respectively. The same study also found that by 2020 about half of people would be on the public plan because it was cheaper.
But they have to pass a true public option for that to happen. Who knows if that will ever happen.