Lots of important details behind the headline too.
Seems like magic or a fake, doesn’t it? There’s a reason: what we have/had is so God-awful fucked up and relentlessly inefficient that even the wretched set of jury-rigged compromises that is ObamaCare works better. When something is that screwed up, any improvement, however clumsy, however compromised, is a bloody miracle by comparison.
Every step forward we make towards single-payer will be met with the same wailing and gnashing of teeth. Actually, maybe no, maybe just a bit less. And then, a bit less the next time. Rinse and progress…
Single payer. LOL. “Hey, remember that plan we passed in 2009? Yeah, we want to get rid of it now. But you’ll really love our replacement!”
“and if you like your Obamacare, you can k-. Aw, forget it, you know you can’t keep it.”
Actually, it would be pretty simple – everything stays the same, but now anyone can sign up for Medicare. It would be like a one paragraph law.
It’s not that simple. Medicare for the aged is subsidized. Would everyone be subsidized, or have to pay the full cost of Medicare coverage?
Because if you try to subsidize everyone, there’s not enough money. Medicare for all only works if the full cost is borne by the majority of participants.
Health care costs for the younger would be far, far cheaper than for older Americans. That being said, it’s possible additional revenue would need to be raised, such as that proposed by medicareforall.com.
But anyway, my point was just to refute your ridiculous “joke” in post 2082. Medicare-for-all is just one proposal of many, it should be noted.
Here’s the thing with ACA though. If it works, people will like it and want to keep it. If it doesn’t, then no one will trust the Democrats to overhaul the health care system again.
There’s no single payer fairy. And the Medicare-for-all site’s proposal is a fantasy. Medicare is a super expensive program as far as single payer systems go. There are only two paths to making it a reality: vastly higher taxes on working people, or cutting its services down to Medicaid level.
In the politics of the real world, outcomes are very rarely this cut and dry. Even if people like the ACA, if it (single-payer) is sold as an improvement and not a replacement, then it might be popular.
Not surprisingly, I’m less than convinced by your citeless claims. It’s very likely it would save a considerable amount of health care expenses, overall.
But to deflect an unproductive discussion, I’m content to wait and see if the ACA continues to be successful and meet its goals.
It’s not an improvement though, it’s a replacement, unless you’re just talking about adding a public option to ACA as originally planned.
Single payer systems save money by paying providers less. But it’s clear we’re not even talking about single payer here, since your hypothetical system would be in direct competition with private insurance. That’s multi-payer.
Not going to continue this unproductive (and citeless on your end) discussion. The ACA is doing well and its popularity is improving. Maybe it will be the final answer for health care in the US, but I doubt it.
Our friend is overlooking the *reduced *amounts that would be paid to the (bloated, ineffective) private insurance industry, for a net savings.
Right, it’s amazing how so many people think single-payer isn’t even possible for us when we already have it.
More simply making up “facts” to fit a partisan creed. No. Single payer systems, like the entire rest of the civilized world has, are far more efficient financially, due to the low amount of parasitism on them. But you’ve had those facts patiently explained to you enough times already that there’s no point in repetition.
“If”? When did that doubtful word creep in? Thought it was all over, tighty righties frolicking in the smoking ruins, high-fives and backslaps all around. Counting up all the votes they were gonna get running against the total, absolute failure. Having a crisis in faith, are you, lad? Maybe not quite so sure as you were?
Guys, we shouldn’t let the fact that the law is working distract us from the fact that it’s a failure. It will be a failure no matter how much it succeeds. I know this sounds weird, but it’s an existential thing. It’s a failure by definition and that can never change, so the facts are irrelevant. If it’s working, it’s really only failing to fail.
Even the facts *themselves *fail to be properly factual!
Oh well, by 2016, or soon after, the Pubs will be claiming it’s all their idea anyway, with the Heritage Foundation and Mitt Romney its true parents (that much will even be reasonably factual, too), and will be calling it RepubliCare or something like that, instead of the name they’ve chosen that has backfired on them so badly.
Then soon after comes the Medicare expansion bill, aka single payer …
They can have all the credit, don’t give a fuck, long as they vote right. Want every child in America toddling off to a good school with a full tummy and full vaccinations. Want every pregnant woman to have every advantage of pre-natal care, and every woman to choose her time for motherhood, at her discretion and none other. Want every old fart to be freed from needless worry about their children, their grandchildren, so on and so forth, praise the Goddess! (Didn’t used to worry so much about old farts, but I’ve grown in wisdom…)
Gimmee that, you can paint my butt blue and call me Rosie, for all I give a shit who takes the credit.
I don’t give a shit about that either, but *they *do. All the evidence you need is in the belligerently-stated desire to repeal what they call “Obamacare”, only to *reinstate *virtually all of it intact. The real GOP goal is simply to leave a popular program in place, but repeal Obama’s *credit *for it, nothing more.
Ain’t that right, adaher?
Don’t fall into that trap of putting more emphasis on the facts than is justified…
“Facts are the enemy of Truth!”
- Don Quixote
Good one - back at you with my new sig which works well in this thread…
The law is working in the sense that it’s transforming the insurance market. Unfortunately for Democrats, that’s not what the public signed up for.
But again, we’ll hash this out over the next few elections. I promise not to be a sore whiny loser if you will.