White House lowballs Obamacare target in an election year

Obamacare is a disaster and it's just going to get worse. It's an ideological dream of the Democrats and had nothing to do with common sense.

As Obamacare’s third enrollment season unfolds against the backdrop of the 2016 presidential election, the administration announced a surprisingly low enrollment goal on Thursday — a target of 10 million people covered through the health law’s exchanges by the end of 2016, or a net increase of roughly 1 million.

The enrollment goal is less than half of what the Congressional Budget Office projected, and reflects the White House’s acknowledgment that the sign-up season beginning Nov. 1 will be one of the most challenging so far. Lowballing the target makes it more likely that it will exceed its 2016 goal despite those difficulties.

"The ACA’s enthusiasts have long held fast to the belief that Americans would come to love the health law as they encountered it in real life," Roy wrote in Forbes. "That has manifestly not happened."

www.politico.com...

The problem here is this isn't about affordable healthcare but affordable prevention and then affordable healthcare when needed. There wasn't any need for mandates and this behemoth of a program.

You could offer those that are low income and uninsured 2 physicals per year. You can set up sick bays like they have in the Army. If we got sick we would go to the sick bay and if it was something serious they would send us to the main Hospital. About 90% of the cases were handled in the sick bay. If it's good enough for soldiers why isn't this system good enough for the uninsured who don't need healthcare coverage just healthcare prevention and coverage when needed.

This could have been done through mostly private funds. Now you have employees reducing workers to part-time because it's cheaper to dump workers into these exchanges and make sure they work part time hours. So labor participation is at a 38 year low and 2 million fewer workers are in the work force than there was in 2007.

Again, it's not about healthcare coverage but healthcare prevention and with so many startups like crowdmed and Doctors on call services being started and funded, you could have handled prevention and healthcare services when needed without a bloated Govt. program.

I was just looking at another startup called Goodrx where you can look up the prices for your medicine and find where it's cheapest. You don't need Obamacare.

Why don't we end the endless, meaningless debate and go to a universal healthcare system? Everyone is covered, instant access for our veterans, poor, middle class and even the rich.

We shut down an insurance industry that does not serve to make sure people get care. They make 20%-40% profit while people barter with them to cover the care they need.

It's all a racket, Obamacare only aids it and people are not getting better care.

a reply to: introvert

How much do you think the govt will profit off of healthcare if it were a one payer system? Take a look the fraud and waste in the VA and that'll give you a glimpse into a universal healthcare system in the US.

You do realize that the countries that have a one payer system enforce income tax at a federal level, nearly half of Americans don't even pay income tax.

a reply to: neoholographic

Why not just go back to owning your own health and insurance. Having the government involved with Obamacare or universal healthcare takes freedom away from the individual and will only cost more for everyone.

a reply to: introvert

We don't need a universal healthcare program. That's an ideological pipe dream. We need to concentrate on prevention and then we can fix problems before they get to be major and costly problems. When there needs to be coverage then the people would be covered.

Like I said about the sick bays, about 90% of the time the problems were handled at the sick bay and not the main Hospital. I went to the main Hospital once in my 4 years at Ft. Campbell.

Today, technology is growing and with Doctor on call startups and machine learning making better diagnoses faster and cheaper, this could be about prevention not another Govt. program like Obamacare.

I personally think that political squabbles about ideology just gets in the way and needs to be disrupted in the same way Netflix destroyed Blockbuster video tapes.

a reply to: introvert

Obamacare is government mandating healthcare. And it did a terrible job. So we are to reward government because they did such a terrible job by giving them complete control over healthcare? That makes no sense.

originally posted by: neoholographic
You could offer those that are low income and uninsured 2 physicals per year. You can set up sick bays like they have in the Army. If we got sick we would go to the sick bay and if it was something serious they would send us to the main Hospital. About 90% of the cases were handled in the sick bay. If it's good enough for soldiers why isn't this system good enough for the uninsured who don't need healthcare coverage just healthcare prevention and coverage when needed.

This is a good idea.

I spent a few years working at an army hospital pharmacy, dealing mostly with the army wives and their kids, and the veterans.

Government run healthcare was a nightmare to behold, and the doctors were so overwhelmed no one got worthwhile care in the hospital. But I was lucky enough to help out at the base clinics (I'm guessing those were the 'sick bays' you are describing) and the difference was like night and day. The soldiers dealt with nurse practitioners, they had more time to diagnose and offer customer care, and the few doctors that were present on their rotation were much more methodical and involved

Eventually they brought some of the ideas back to the main hospital, and set us up with an OTC cabinet. Instead of making an appointment with the doctors, the 'patients' were able to talk to the pharm techs like me, describe their symptoms, and we were allowed to give them basic/generic non-prescription meds for non-critical conditions (we needed pharmacist approval for antibiotics), and also give them a 'waiver' that allowed them to jump the line to a doctor if their condition got worse. It gave the visitors a better sense of control over their health and reduced pressure on the hospital in the process. That was a blessing for the veterans, who needed much more extensive care than a stay-at-home mom and her army brats.

A note to those who think "Single Payer" will work in America...

As part of the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare), 23 states set up "Single Payer" experiments. They are called Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans (Co-Ops). The U.S. Government bankrolled them with $3.5 Billion taxpayer dollars.

After on 2 years in existence, 7 of the 23 have gone broke, and terminated every member/beneficiary's health insurance. The Feds say that in-spite of the current 30% failure rate, several more of the remaining 16 Co-Ops in this small scale experiment will likely fail soon. (Only our wasteful U.S. Govt would label a $3.5 Billion bad investment as "small scale")

Single-Payer MAY work here, but the entire Medical Industry (Doctors/Hospitals/Device Mfgs/Pharma,etc.) will have to accept a 30%-40% reduction in income/revenue. They're not going to do that. But even if they did, the Federal Income Tax rate would have to increase to 40% of income for most Americans as well.
-cwm

Do you really, REALLY think it is a coincidence that the full benefits (aka wrath) of Obamacare take effect as he leaves office?

originally posted by: DBCowboy
a reply to: neoholographic

Why not just go back to owning your own health and insurance. Having the government involved with Obamacare or universal healthcare takes freedom away from the individual and will only cost more for everyone.

I don't know why....
I don't know how...
I have no real logical against your stance....

Yet somehow....

Somehow you are a racist.

The white house has lowballed everything Obama has passed. What's new? He has set the bar so low as a leader and president, almost anyone as POTUS in the future will be a better choice and do a better job. Can anyone point to something he has enacted that has done well and been successful? Everything he does is embroiled in lies or else indifference or egotistical back patting. He can barely connect to his own elected party and he has to use intimidation to get them to go along with many of his ideas.

a reply to: neoholographic

Its not ideological. Its money and power, the 2 currencies of politics.

Plain and simple.