Obama care collapsing.....

[FAITH-IN-HIM]

Yes, the line has been repeated - and yet -

not one Republican endorsed it or voted for it.

The ones who wrote the final plan - endorsed it and voted it in right down party lines - are the ones who own it.

Here is a hint - if it had been a Republican majority congress - the plan would have never made it to the floor. If it was working well - the folks on the left would never mention anyone but themselves.

People often forget history: any GOP member supporting the ACA risked being ousted by a Tea Party candidate in the primary and losing the election. Eric Cantor, the GOP's second-in-command, lost his primary simply for expressing support for President Obama and the Gang of Six’s immigration plan.

Stating that "no republican endorsed or voted for it" as evidence of the program lacking conservative ideas may overlook aspects of the Tea Party era and changes in American politics since 2006.

 

[A2SG]

The top five beneficiaries of money from the health care insurance industry are/have been Democrats - Did you know Chuck Schumer received 600,000 from them?

I don't know how much any individual politician specifically received (I'd love to know your source for that info, by the way, it'd be nice to know), but I do know that, industry wide, the money goes all around. A little more than half allocated to GOP candidates, but the for-profit health insurance industry is profitable enough to spread the wealth in a wide net.

Which is why I've always thought that using for-profit health insurance companies to fund health care (instrumental to the Heritage Foundation plan the ACA was based on) was a fundamentally bad idea. On that, we agree.

-- A2SG, just imagine if that money went to pay for the actual health needs of people who need it, huh?

 

[A2SG]

you keep repeating it - like suddenly it will make a difference from the facts.

What I keep repeating are facts.

The original 1989 Heritage Foundation plan

Health Equity and Access Reform Today Act of 1993

Yes, the line has been repeated - and yet -

not one Republican endorsed it or voted for it.

Yeah, funny how that happened, huh? They endorsed the plan in 1993, but when President Obama proposed it, they changed their minds. And the objections they raised at that time, the individual mandate in particular? Part of the plan all along.

I wonder what did change? Got any ideas?

The ones who wrote the final plan - endorsed it and voted it in right down party lines - are the ones who own it.

Yup. And we know where they got the idea.

President Obama admits the ACA originated from a Heritage Foundation plan

Here is a hint - if it had been a Republican majority congress - the plan would have never made it to the floor. If it was working well - the folks on the left would never mention anyone but themselves.

Oh, I fully agree the plan the Heritage Foundation came up with isn't a great plan. I've said all along we need a comprehensive, cost effective single payer plan like many other nations have in place. But since there are no alternatives to the ACA being proposed, it's all we got until someone figures out a way to circumvent the billions of dollars in profit made by the for-profit health insurance industry every year, and the large portion of that money that is directed toward various political campaigns.

-- A2SG, good luck with that....

 

[Larniavc]

it's all we got until someone figures out a way to circumvent the billions of dollars in profit made by the for-profit health insurance industry every year,

Not going to happen. It really seems that a lot of Americans will consent to having their legs cut off as long as they can stop other people (the wrong people) getting leg replacements surgery.

 

[A2SG]

Not going to happen. It really seems that a lot of Americans will consent to having their legs cut off as long as they can stop other people (the wrong people) getting leg replacements surgery.

SchadenfreudeCare.

-- A2SG, coming soon from the Heritage Foundation.....

 

[truthuprootsevil]

Always been the plan of the Republicans to get rid of the actual named Affordable Care Act, especially Trump

 

[rjs330]

Health insurance of any sort has been expensive since long before the ACA. It was expensive before we got RomneyCare in MA. Do you guys not remember that? I knew self-employed people paying $2-3k/mo for family plans in the early 2000's.

Yes health insurance is expensive. Obamacare didn't solve that even though thats what we were promised. Instead it cost us more in the way of taxes to cover the subsidies.

 

[wing2000]

Yes health insurance is expensive. Obamacare didn't solve that even though thats what we were promised. Instead it cost us more in the way of taxes to cover the subsidies.

Obamacare did reduce the cost of insurance by supplementing plans for people who otherwise would be stuck shopping the open insurance market as individuals.

What Obamacare did not due is reduce the cost of healthcare....a cost that has risen continously over several administrations.

 

[iluvatar5150]

Yes health insurance is expensive. Obamacare didn't solve that even though thats what we were promised. Instead it cost us more in the way of taxes to cover the subsidies.

Obamacare did reduce the cost of insurance by supplementing plans for people who otherwise would be stuck shopping the open insurance market as individuals.

What Obamacare did not due is reduce the cost of healthcare....a cost that has risen continously over several administrations.

I haven't looked up the stats in a while, but what I recall is that it slowed the growth in the rise of health insurance premiums. Maybe that's not the big reduction people predicted/hoped for, but it's not nothing, either.

 

[hedrick]

A study in 2021 claimed the overall cost growth was lowered somewhat by Obamacare. It's hard to be sure what would have happened without it.

It did increase coverage: https://www.cbpp.org/research/healt...able-care-act-coverage-expansions-have-helped

Studies quoted by Wikipedia Affordable Care Act - Wikipedia claim that it reduced the deficit. That article is long, with studies covering a variety of effects.

All of these studies are hard to do, and subject to accusations of bias, and some are 10 years old. I haven't reviewed them.

In my opinion, the problem with health care is that we won't really throw people out of a hospital to die on the street. So either hospitals have to charge other patients, or they go bankrupt. What drove Obamacare was that hospitals were going bankrupt. If you assume we're going to provide some level of health care to everyone, the most effective approach is to bring everyone into the system. Republicans are trying to come up with a way to do that that doesn't involve subsidizing insurance coverage for them. In my opinion the only alternative without doing things Republicans won't do (like a single-payer system) would be to change how that subsidy is done. The basic result has to be the same, as long as private insurance is the way we coordinate health care.

 

[hedrick]

What are the alternatives? Health savings accounts won't replace insurance, for a number of obvious reasons.

One approach would be to introduce some competition. Some way to make it easier to change insurance. Maybe have people who can afford it bear some of the cost of treatment. Not a deductible, because that doesn't depend upon the cost. It would have to be proportional to the cost.

But a lot of the cost is because there are lots of monopolies, particularly in drugs. Monopolies are almost always created and maintained by laws. We need a review of patent policies and other policies that tend to reduce competition. Unfortunately the party that normally claims to want competition is unlikely to be willing to support this kind of thing, because of large lobbying efforts. It's not all drug companies. Doctors have over history been able make anything other than treatments they like illegal.

This is a more general problem. I don't think we'll be able to make major improvements until congress is willing to do rational analysis rather than ideology, and stand up to lobbying. I don't see either of those things as likely at the moment.

 

[DaisyDay]

you keep repeating it - like suddenly it will make a difference from the facts.

How does a fact make a difference from the facts?

Yes, the line has been repeated - and yet -

Repeated because it's pertinent and true.

not one Republican endorsed it or voted for it.

Nor has one Republican come up with a better replacement - fifteen years!

The ones who wrote the final plan - endorsed it and voted it in right down party lines - are the ones who own it.

Republicans helped write the final plan. Republican voted in amendment after amendment that were their own proposals even though they were evidently not in good faith as they did ultimately vote against it. But they did help write it!

Here is a hint - if it had been a Republican majority congress - the plan would have never made it to the floor. If it was working well - the folks on the left would never mention anyone but themselves.

Yeah, if things were different, things would be different!

Where are the concepts of a plan?