What was the national benefit of Obamacare?

Obamacare is one of the cornerstones of his platform that connected him with the left. Personally, I feel his administration was an extention of Bush era policy.

In all reality, it was a bailout. We can all agree our health care system needs to be seriously addressed. Rather than look at the root problems such as the price gouging of medication, over-prescription of said medication, Americans wanting a fix me pill rather than a lifestyle change, or any other valid point.... We doubled down and gave the insurance companies we are all disgruntled with guaranteed business or penalty for those who don't participate.

So we awarded those who abused the market in the first place, and made employers and employees foot the bill. We ended up with an exodus of full time jobs so companies wouldn't take a blow.

Wherever you stand on the morality of those jobs shifting to part time to skirt the regulation, the problems at hand were not only ignored, but inflamed.

So ends my short opinion piece. This was far from a solution, but rather a very shi##ty bandaid.

Is ending it any better? Probably not without a plan to fix it.

a reply to: CriticalStinker

It was Corporate Fascism sold under the guise of Socialism.

And liberals were so thoroughly hoodwinked by Him that they still beLIEve it was Socialism.

It did bring insurance to millions of people who didn't have it, and saved a lot of lives.

But yes, it's a shame you didn't get the original version of Obama care, and not the watered down, corporate machine rewarding compromise that the Republican party insisted on before they'd allow it to pass.

a reply to: CriticalStinker

People like me and my mom that use it WONT be a WORSE health burden on the country latter when we get sick and old.


Also people like me get to be healthy and thus more happy and productive.
I work but couldn't afford healthcare.

i can't keep working if I'm sick and have no real doctors.

The clinic doctors are a joke. They missed diagnosed three different illnesses I have.
Thankfully now that I'm on the aca I have got those three things taken care of.

a reply to: scraedtosleep

I'm glad you got healthcare, really.

I'd like to show you two graphs:
www.statista.com...

Vs.

www.kff.org...

Duh Insurance for millions who before that couldn't afford it.

Just look at how many became enraged when trump and company tried to take it away.

a reply to: Sillyolme

Duh take fascism away from millions and they'll cry, and start stormtroopering around about it.

originally posted by: IgnoranceIsntBlisss
a reply to: Sillyolme

Duh take fascism away from millions and they'll cry, and start stormtroopering around about it.

Reminiscent of a Metallica song

a reply to: JinMI

I am not going to pay $50 to look at your graph.

a reply to: Sillyolme

$685 Billion @ year to help 20 million afford an ObamaCare premium, or to be on Free state Medicaid.

www.bloomberg.com...


Taxpayers are paying $34,000 per year, to each person on ObamaCare. (10 million buy insurance. 10 million on Medicaid.)

Very VERY expensive health insurance!

Would you pay $2,833.00 per month for your health insurance?

If you are on Obamacare, that is how much you are costing this nation.

a reply to: toms54

Ugh, yea, that sucks.

It shows sub 10% incremental rise after a fall in healthcare costs. That vs the rising insurance cost.

originally posted by: Painterz
It did bring insurance to millions of people who didn't have it, and saved a lot of lives.

But yes, it's a shame you didn't get the original version of Obama care, and not the watered down, corporate machine rewarding compromise that the Republican party insisted on before they'd allow it to pass.

Obama had a supper majority in Congress; he didnt need a single Republican vote to pass his original version or the final version... all of which where written by the insurance companies for the insurance companies.

originally posted by: Sillyolme
Duh Insurance for millions who before that couldn't afford it.

Just look at how many became enraged when trump and company tried to take it away.

Its said when we have to count the beneficiaries of a sweeping national social program in the millions in a country with over 300 million people.... Yes this sweeping national social program helped ~2% of the population what an amazing success.

... not to mention the "millions" of people who where directly harmed by the act.

originally posted by: carewemust
a reply to: Sillyolme

$685 Billion @ year to help 20 million afford an ObamaCare premium, or to be on Free state Medicaid.

www.bloomberg.com...


Taxpayers are paying $34,000 per year, to each person on ObamaCare. (10 million buy insurance. 10 million on Medicaid.)

Very VERY expensive health insurance!

Would you pay $2,833.00 per month for your health insurance?

If you are on Obamacare, that is how much you are costing this nation.

It's almost like America needs some sort of Nationalised Health Service. Something that removes the profit principle from healthcare provision, and mandates that access to healthcare is a basic human right and not a service for companies to make vast profits from human misery. Thus ensuring costs are driven down and healthcare is lead by patient needs, not profits for share holders.

You could call it, I don't know, the NHS or something.

a reply to: Painterz

You don't need to make "access to healthcare is a basic human right" in order to have a single payer system.

In fact talking about it as a right is problematic as you will not win over hearts and minds of the opposition with that argument. I wouldn't mind single payer as an alternative to what we have currently but the idea of "access to healthcare is a basic human right" leaves a bad taste in my mouth simply because as a "right" its completely indefinable.... Do I have access to the top brain surgeon in the country if I come down with brain cancer? How could this person provide access to everyone who needs his service? Items our right to have access to him/her is it not? ... not to mention finite resources all through out the medical system... we can't all have a right to access everything its not sustainable... the right is doomed to be infringed the moment you make it a right

The argument for a single payer system has to be monetary. Prove in a inspiring way that single payer will be cheaper than the current system and Americans will flock to it.

Nore does single payer need to be a national program ... and probably nor should it. The needs of one side of a country as vast as the US is not the same as the needs of the other sides make a one size fits all system is doomed to failure. Single payer should be enacted on a state by state bases; this would put the system in parity with European countries.

a reply to: CriticalStinker


It was just the "Insurance Industry™" turn at "The Trough" (never ending supply of taxpayer $$$$)

In late 2003 the HousingLobby were feeling the weight of a bunch of crappy home loans and they started bleeding a$$et$. Relief.

Then it was the AutomakersLobby and because they were 'too big to fail' and they hadn't received their million$ in $alary and Bonu$e$, they got a turn at 'TheTrough'

This whole time the "Insurance Cabal" was watching and they hadn't got "PAID OFF" in quite awhile so a new plan was hatched. They got together and called it "Affordable Healthcare Act" this way when members of their own Cabal got down to author it, just about every avenue of income was turned "on"...

Want to guess who is next to get paid off?

a reply to: CriticalStinker

It gave everyone I know a nice increase in cost of healthcare, and allowed the quality of said healthcare to further slip into madness.

Now that it's finally being killed, we'll be left with the increased costs that were afforded by more insurance.

Maybe we can finally focus on how broken our medical system is, now?

Insurance is a casino. The house always wins.

Before obamacare my employer provided healthcare insurance didn't cost me anything. I had no deductible. An office visit was $15, prescriptions were $10 or $5 (generic) copay, plan included dental and eye care. Family coverage was available on same plan with employer paying half for the coverage on employees families.

After Obamacare premiums skyrocketed, employees had to choose a plan provided by the employer and agree to have premiums deducted from their pay.

For me my plan has a $5,500 annual deductible, and with that met it will pay only 80% above that amount. For the family plans the deductible and premiums are MUCH higher.

But, preexisting conditions are covered!

It's better than nothing, but not much, and costs so much more with high annual deductibles that for most people it's completely unaffordable. Better off just paying the medical bills yourself. But there was that mandate.

Meh

a reply to: CriticalStinker

It was supposed to be a transition into single-payer.

It was unsustainable and was never meant to be sustainable.


The issue is that politicians on both sides want single-payer.

Democrats are open about it. Republicans are working to bring it in but "repackaged" and "rebranded" as something else.


The negatives are that too many people still don't want it, it would be a huge burden on tax payers, and our system is hopelessly corrupt.

It doesn't matter how many times this is explained. There are people that simply will not or lack the intellectual prowess to understand. It's simple really. Because employers have steadily shrunk employer-paid healthcare benefits over the last decades, and because the cost of healthcare has risen dramatically, fewer people were able to afford coverage. Naturally, this was most prevalent in lower economic areas. People, however, still get sick and without healthcare, they were unable to afford regular, preventative care. So when they DID get sick and sought care, it was more severe (read: more expensive). Since they had no health coverage (and hence no primary doctor) they flooded hospital emergency departments. Emergency Departments are very expensive due to the range of care they are required to provide and consequently the cost for these otherwise routine visits was unnecessarily expensive. Much more so than through a PCP (which, without health coverage, they were unable to have).

Hospitals were not reimbursed for much of these visits. Charges for procedures had to be raised to cover for the losses and some of that was passed-on through the insurance companies thereby driving-up health coverage costs for everyone else in a vicious cycle. Hospitals were increasingly being forced to close at an accelerating rate --- particularly in the less affluent and rural areas. In order to prevent the escalating collapse of the healthcare system, more people needed to be able to afford coverage --- especially preventative care.

Let's look at it another way. Let's say grocery stores are legally required to provide food to customers whether or not they can pay (as hospitals are). Let's say you live in a lower economic area where fewer people are able to pay for food. Your grocery store is going to start taking losses as the amount of free food they provide increases. At first they raise prices to the paying customers but their suppliers place a limit on what they are allowed to charge ( as the insurance companies do to hospitals). Eventually they will go out of business. Now you need to drive twice as far to get groceries. But eventually the same thing happens there so you have to drive even further.

That's why they came up with the ACA. Perfect? No. But shoving a rag into a hole in a boat isn't perfect either. But it will keep the boat afloat until a better solution can be found.