tands said:...Stuff...
Gold said:I would bet a small amount of money that the Republican leadership will craft a bill that fixes some of the worst parts of the ACA. Then waive their magic wands, pronounce it fixed, take credit and move on.
Matador said:Just a pointer, you don't need to quote the entire article - maybe summarize why it's relevant?
Modulo using shadowproof ( ) as "proof": Republicans have been dead set against any kind of Medicaide expansion. Ryan and company have been desperate to convert Medicaide into a voucher program for years, so that the burden of costs shifts back to individual payers - you know, the exact opposite of a public option.
So arguing that Obama "sold out" because he didn't push for a public option ignores what most Republicans have been pushing for the past 10+ years.
tands said:Is this even debatable?
Gold said:I thought that was what we were doing.
tands said:That's what they'd prefer. It doesn't seem that that's good enough for Trump, though. He wants it repealed. Why do you think we're being told about piss and such?
JohnRoberts said:I hold both political parties in low regard but republicans seem a little better at business and budgets.
nielsk said:The real problem with the ACA is they did not eliminate the employer provided insurance, an incredibly stupid system, typical of the "s**t that stuck against the wall" approach to dealing with things in the USA
author=DaveP link
The US system gives evolution a boost, survival of the fittest, survival of the richest.
Yup. Pretty much government working with big business to lock up workers. A benefit to big businesses that small companies couldn't effectively take advantage of.Andy Peters said:The reason we have this bonkers system goes back to after WW2. Big manufacturing companies wanted to limit the ability of workers to move between employers. Rather than give the workers' unions the responsibility for managing benefits (health insurance and retirement/pension mainly), the companies chose to offer those benefits themselves. Of course we all know what happened to the defined-benefits pension plans, and now employers large and small find themselves being in the business of offering health insurance coverage as a benefit because the employees they want to retain won't work for them otherwise.
Maybe some will, but once the public gets a taste for the government teat it will be hard to wean them off.I honestly don't understand why any "business leader" worthy of the title doesn't come right out and say, "we've had enough of being in the health insurance business."
Nobody remembers "Hillarycare" promoted (and rejected) back during her husbands administration? The democrats have been pushing for socialized medicine since the depression (the real one), if not even before.Now the ACA, which as everyone should know was originally a Heritage Foundation proposal and was actually implemented in Massachusetts by that flaming liberal* Mitt Romney, where the plan proved popular.
they had a super majority so it didn't matter what the republicans would go for.. the present ACA is flirting with marginal constitutionality. (I don't agree with my namesakes generous SCOTUS opinion on this mandate being a tax.)Whether Obama was always in favor of a single-payer plan or not is actually irrelevant -- what is important is that he (and anyone on the left here in the US with a brain) realized that there was simply no way that the Republicans would go for single payer.
Several insurers were paying out more in claims than they took in from customer payments from their ACA accounts, before they exited the ACA business. They could still be profitable in other insurance lines but that just reinforces the failed business model of the ACA. For the first few years the ACA actually subsidized insurance companies to cover their losses. As the subsidies tapered off so did the profit for several insurers.Thus the choice to expand the Massachusetts plan to a national plan, keeping in place the whole industry of for-profit health insurance while requiring that they cover things at reasonable cost that they would ordinarily not even cover at all or charge insane premiums (the whole "pre-existing conditions" issue). And the only way to appease the insurers is to mandate that everyone participate, as that would expand the insured pool so that premium income wouldn't be swamped by claim payouts.
So what happened is what could reasonably be expected: people who were previously uninsurable and others who needed care but didn't have insurance before all went out and bought insurance and ACTUALLY USED IT. That meant that the insurers' profits went down. It wasn't that they were losing money, but that they weren't making as much as they expected.
Obviously.... ;D ;D ;D Just like the government run veteran's healthcare?A further problem with the ACA plans is that it insures individuals. As we know, the larger the group, the better the insurance. By "better" I mean lower premiums with better coverage (lower deductibles, no maximums, etc). This is why my wife's plan (she works at the local land grant research university, which means her employer is the state) is significantly better than the plan offered by my employer (50-person firm). The ACA allowed individuals to buy insurance at rates much less than previously offered, but still, at higher rates than an employee of a large company.
So, obviously the solution to this mess is a single payer plan that eliminates for-profit insurance companies.
It's funny how well FUD regarding Obamacare was leveraged in the election: yes, premiums did increase, but they were steadily increasing well before Obamacare was enacted, and the rate-of-increase slowed after ACA became law.JohnRoberts said:Several insurers were paying out more in claims than they took in from customer payments from their ACA accounts, before they exited the ACA business. They could still be profitable in other insurance lines but that just reinforces the failed business model of the ACA. For the first few years the ACA actually subsidized insurance companies to cover their losses. As the subsidies tapered off so did the profit for several insurers.
straw man much?Matador said:Brilliantly summarized Andy.
It's funny how well FUD regarding Obamacare was leveraged in the election: yes, premiums did increase, but they were steadily increasing well before Obamacare was enacted, and the rate-of-increase slowed after ACA became law.
John, would you care to take a guess at the total profits of the top 5 private insurance companies between 2010 and 2016?
Let's review the bidding (just in general, I'm not trying to quote you John):
1) The ACA is a disaster that must be killed, because it's "collapsing"?
2) The federal government cannot run anything without it becoming awash in corruption and bureaucracy: so single payer is out?
3) Government supplied health care like the VA is a disaster: we can't possibly do that?
4) The private insurance companies will always place their for-profit motive above all else (the main problem with the ACA that I see), so that is out?
So are we left at a point where we should just buy everyone man, woman, and child in the US a Glock 17, and let everyone fight it out in the streets for health care?
Matador said:It's funny how well FUD regarding Obamacare was leveraged in the election: yes, premiums did increase, but they were steadily increasing well before Obamacare was enacted, and the rate-of-increase slowed after ACA became law.
Matador said:So are we left at a point where we should just buy everyone man, woman, and child in the US a Glock 17, and let everyone fight it out in the streets for health care?
fazer said:Single payer also IMO requires tort reform.
JohnRoberts said:The democrats have been pushing for socialized medicine since the depression (the real one), if not even before. they had a super majority so it didn't matter what the republicans would go for.. the present ACA is flirting with marginal constitutionality. (I don't agree with my namesakes generous SCOTUS opinion on this mandate being a tax.)
Matador said:It's funny how well FUD regarding Obamacare was leveraged in the election: yes, premiums did increase, but they were steadily increasing well before Obamacare was enacted, and the rate-of-increase slowed after ACA became law.
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