# What is your ongoing opinion of the Affordable Care Act? (Title Edited) **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [January 17, 2013, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561 "2013-01-17T23:21:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 21
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/401 "2013-08-17T00:48:17Z")
Local constituents in Florida demand that their Congressman repeal Obamacare. No, sorry, I read that wrong. [Local constituents in Florida demand that their Congressman **stop trying to** repeal Obamacare](http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/08/16/2481041/webster-obamacare-fact-check/). > [@](#): > > QUESTIONER: What happens to us when Obamacare is repealed? What happens to people with pre-existing conditions that can’t get health care? What happens to those of us who finally have access to health insurance for the first time in nine or ten years? What happens to us? And you want to make this local, I’ll make this local. I’m a constituent, right now I can’t get health care. I’m waiting for this [insurance marketplace] to open and I’d like to know why we keep repealing [Obamacare]? Not to mention the [Congressman in North Carolina](http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/08/08/2436291/constituents-confront-congressman-for-supporting-obamacare-repeal-weve-got-to-have-it/)who was similarly challenged last week. If I were **adaher** , right about now I’d be claiming these examples as definitive proof that the country wants to keep Obamacare. Instead, I’ll just leave them there for him to tell me why they don’t count. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/402 "2013-08-17T01:04:02Z")
We already know that something like 40-45% of Americans want to keep the ACA. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/403 "2013-08-17T01:08:49Z")
Perfect timing. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/404 "2013-08-17T02:17:25Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > We already know that something like 40-45% of Americans want to keep the ACA. Of the remainder, what percent want something more comprehensive like universal single payer? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/405 "2013-08-17T03:39:02Z")
Many do. That does not translate into support for ACA, because ACA is fundamentally different from single payer and despite some liberals’ contention, is not a transition to single payer. What ACA does is force people to buy health insurance from private corporations, and a lot of lefties would rather see it repealed than do that. Plus smart liberals know as well as conservatives that once this thing gets entrenched, it’s the system we’ll have forever. In order for ACA to be a transition, it has to fail. If it succeeds, people will want to keep what they have. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/406 "2013-08-17T04:19:28Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Many do. That does not translate into support for ACA, because ACA is fundamentally different from single payer and despite some liberals’ contention, is not a transition to single payer. What ACA does is force people to buy health insurance from private corporations, and a lot of lefties would rather see it repealed than do that. A few of the systems in Europe already do that, and no, it is really nonsense to assume that a lot of lefties would like to see it repealed when there are no better options in the cards **now** , the demand now is that something better will have to be plugged in in the future and it can be an option and I do think the ACA is a good way to create a structure that will include eventually plans that will be non-profit based and backed by the local or the federal government. > **[Public Option Reborn? Conservatives Raise Alarm Over Federal...](https://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/11/13/1161187/-Public-Option-Reborn-)** > > There was, of course, a tremendous amount of excitement in this community over the news -- more like a reminder -- that the federal government would be sponsoring two nationwide plans -- one a non-... > [@](#): > > Conservatives-Raise-Alarm-Over-Federal-Government-Sponsored-Plans > Yes, yes, yes, this is not a real public option as defined by the President. And, yes, it’s probably not going to get us closer to single payer anytime soon. But, the reality is that the non-profit nationwide plan would represent the potential for a game-changer insurance provider to enter the U.S. health care ‘system’. Health care systems in France, Germany and Japan that are not technically ‘single payer’ but consist of a host of highly-regulated non-profit ‘sickness funds’ do very well indeed at covering everyone. > > As Wendell Potter and others have argued, a big part of our current crisis is that non-profit insurers became big-profit insurers over the last 50 years, transforming the American health care system into the Aetna/Cigna/UnitedHealthCare hell that it is today. These nationwide plans, in particular the non-profit plan, can represent a big step away from the status quo. > > Let the right-wing thinkers explain further: > > > [@](#): > > > > ``` > > “Despite media reports to the contrary, the ‘public plan’ for government-run health care is alive and well and traveling through the legislative process under a false identity in the giant Senate Health Bill, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R. 3590). During the final stages of the Senate floor debate on this bill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., amended it with a 383-page ‘Manager’s Amendment’ that removed the earlier provisions for a ‘public plan’ and substituted new provisions that would expand the authority of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the agency that runs the federal civil service, to sponsor health plans. The Senate bill, with the Manager’s Amendment, passed the Senate on December 24, 2009. In effect, this Senate action is not the death of the public plan, but a reincarnation.” > > > > Moffit said the OPM in a year will field a special team of health insurance plans to “compete” against private health plans in government health insurance exchanges, “potentially in every state in the country.” > > > > ``` > > … > > And from the Syracuse Post-Standard: > > ``` > The insurance industry is concerned that the federally backed plans may not be required to comply with every state’s laws, mandates, fees and taxes. Conservatives worry that these plans could end up being the stalking horse for the public option and ultimately, a true single-payer system. > > ``` What you seem to always forget is that as this was originally a plan proposed by conservatives in the past, I see this as the last chance for private industry to demonstrate that they indeed are capable of offering affordable health care, what I have concluded is that the option of keeping it the same was indeed the unsustainable option, without the ACA in place I would had expected to see a future where the health care bubble was going to make the housing bubble to look like child’s play. Instead with the ACA I expect to see a future where variations on public plans and other non-profits can be added to the exchanges in case private industry is not the “beesnees” as many conservatives claim. > [@adaher](#): > > Plus smart liberals know as well as conservatives that once this thing gets entrenched, it’s the system we’ll have forever. In order for ACA to be a transition, it has to fail. If it succeeds, people will want to keep what they have. And that is nonsense as even several conservatives can tell you, the only thing needed is for a few insurers to remain as inefficient as usual to make not only the federal government but local ones to take matters into their own hands and offer more common sense plans in the exchanges. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/407 "2013-08-20T10:50:05Z")
Well, it’s nice to see **adaher** admit that people will want Obamacare once it’s implemented. This guy certainly does: [Republican activist gets cancer, gets screwed by insurance company, realizes that Obamacare actually helps him, and quits the party](http://www.ajc.com/weblogs/political-insider/2013/aug/17/two-changing-views-top-and-bottom-gop-health-care-/) Of course he’d rather that the GOP come up with a better alternative. The problem is that 1) Obamacare IS the GOP alternative, and 2) they’re too busy telling people how terrible it will be while ignoring how much worse things will be without it. > [@](#): > > Murphy would like to call himself a Republican, but has been too dismayed by his party’s cavalier attitude toward the health care debate. “We have people treating government like a Broadway play, like it’s some sort of entertainment,” he said. So call Murphy an independent. > > Obamacare isn’t perfect, the former political spear-carrier said. “But to even improve it, to make something work, you’ve got to participate in the process. [Republicans] are not even participating in the process.” ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/408 "2013-08-20T11:19:51Z")
Republicans were shut out of the process. Sure, there was the Gang of Six, but Democrats hated all of their ideas and nothing came of it. Democrats also hated the Senate bill, but they didn’t have much choice but to pass it after Scott Brown won his election. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/409 "2013-08-20T11:24:10Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Republicans were shut out of the process. And now they are petulantly staying out of the process, determined to teach us a lesson. No health care for you! ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/410 "2013-08-20T11:33:04Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Republicans were shut out of the process. Sure, there was the Gang of Six, but Democrats hated all of their ideas and nothing came of it. Which ideas were those? Do you mean the idea that Obama should go fuck himself, that one? 'Cause I don’t remember any others. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/411 "2013-08-20T11:37:08Z")
Obama wasn’t even part of the process. He was as shut out as the Republicans. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/412 "2013-08-20T11:39:38Z")
What color is the sky on your planet? ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/413 "2013-08-20T12:18:37Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Republicans were shut out of the process. Sure, there was the Gang of Six, but Democrats hated all of their ideas and nothing came of it. Well, apart from the parts they weren’t shut out of. From [here](http://www.salon.com/2010/02/23/hcr_amendments/): > [@](#): > > Newsweek gave voice to GOP grievances in a piece titled “How the GOP Sees It.” It begins with this John Boehner lament: “We’ve offered to work with the president all year. We’ve been shut out, shut out, and shut out.” Newsweek characterizes the minority party’s point of view this way: “Republicans want to help the president succeed, but he won’t let them.” > > Almost no one is noting the extraordinary influence Republicans had on the healthcare reform bill crafted by the Senate, as it made its way through the committee process last year. **The bill approved by Sen. Christopher Dodd’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee, for instance, included 161 amendments authored by Republicans. Only 49 Republican amendments were rejected out of 210 considered. Yet the bill got zero Republican votes when it passed out of the committee.** AFAICT, “being shut out” in GOP terms means “didn’t give us everything we wanted”. Which is petulant whining from grown men. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/414 "2013-08-20T12:35:26Z")
Yeah, little things like requiring the Senate to live on the Obamacare exchanges, and keeping pedophiles from getting viagra. Not actually important things, like not having zillions of new mandates that raise the cost of insurance. None of those things are necessary, they are just part of the Democratic wish list. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/415 "2013-08-20T12:58:34Z")
Does your healthcare plan cover carpal tunnel syndrome caused by excessive handwaving? Because despite your inevitable sour-graping, the quote above still refutes the point that the Republicans were “shut out”. If they were things the Democrats wanted in the first place, why were they Republican amendments? And note that the majority of them were accepted - hardly a token gesture. I also note that in your view whenever the Democrats don’t get what they want it’s because they’re incompetent and because the public don’t want it, but when the Republicans don’t get what they want it’s because they’ve been unfairly excluded from the process. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/416 "2013-08-20T13:19:08Z")
And let’s not forget the fact that the \*basic structure \*of Obamacare was a Republican proposal. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/417 "2013-08-20T14:18:18Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > AFAICT, “being shut out” in GOP terms means “didn’t give us everything we wanted”. Which is petulant whining from grown men. This is exactly how I see the Republican Party. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/418 "2013-08-21T08:26:08Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > And let’s not forget the fact that the \*basic structure \*of Obamacare was a Republican proposal. That’s like saying that the basic structure of Ryan’s reforms to Medicare are that it makes Medicare like Obamacare. And if ACA is so great, then it shouldn’t be a problem to put the whole country on it, right? ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/419 "2013-08-21T09:03:19Z")
More deflections. No one is saying ACA is the bestest thing ever. What we’re saying is that it’s far better than the pre-ACA system and far better than the (non-existent) Republican alternative. That said, maybe everyone SHOULD adopt it. According to the Rand Corporation: > [@](#): > > States that choose not to expand Medicaid under federal health care reform will leave millions of their residents without health insurance and increase spending, at least in the short term, on the cost of treating uninsured residents, according to a new RAND Corporation study. > > If 14 states decide not to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act as intended by their governors, those state governments collectively will spend $1 billion more on uncompensated care in 2016 than they would if Medicaid is expanded. > > In addition, those 14 state governments would forgo $8.4 billion annually in federal payments and an additional 3.6 million people will be left uninsured, according to findings published in the June edition of the journal Health Affairs. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/420 "2013-08-21T10:23:37Z")
That’s an admission that Medicaid is worse than having no insurance at all, which is inline with a recent study. > **[The truth about Medicaid reform: Column](https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/05/15/medicaid-obamacare-insurance-column/2156163/)** > > It only takes an honest person to admit the facts. Let’s consider the data. The top peer-reviewed medical journals are filled with proof that Medicaid patients have worse outcomes than fully comparable patients with private insurance, outcomes sometimes even worse than those with no insurance at all. Owing to Medicaid’s restrictive guidelines for diagnosis and treatment, Medicaid patients experience significantly more deaths, longer hospitalizations and more serious complications from major surgery, cancers, heart disease, interventional procedures, transplants and AIDS than equivalent patients with the same illnesses and same health status but with private insurance – objective data-based conclusions proven by medical scientists in the world’s top peer-reviewed medical journals like Annals of Surgery, Cancer, Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation and the American Journal of Cardiology. Medicaid outcomes are so shamefully poor that, when comparing patients with the same risk factors and same health status, Medicaid patients at times even fared worse than those with no insurance at all. Beyond outcomes, Medicaid insurance has been only a facade for millions of patients for years because they cannot even find doctors. More than one-third of primary care doctors and one-fourth of specialists already refused adding new Medicaid patients back in 2008 because Medicaid pays below costs. And from a 2009 survey of 15 large metropolitan areas, almost half of doctors in the five most commonly used medical fields refused Medicaid patients, about four times the percentage that refuse new private insurance patients. And now, in Oregon’s controlled, randomized study comparing thousands of previously uninsured, poor Medicaid applicants who received Medicaid to those who did not receive the insurance, we see further evidence that “comprehensive” government insurance failed to improve health beyond no insurance at all. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561.md?page=20) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561.md?page=22)