Why do many liberals think Obamacare is a success?
Let me add one more success story.. I have a heart condition, I’ve had it all my adult life and I’ve had 4 heart surgeries - 3 open heart surgeries and one minimally invasive surgery. 15 years before the ACA came into existence, my health insurance was cancelled by my provider after my last heart surgery and since that day getting health insurance has either been incredibly expensive or just impossible. When the ACA went into effect, I got health insurance for the first time at the same rate as other people, through my employer. It was, to me, an absolute miracle. I was able to afford the preventative care necessary for my condition (which, by the way, was mostly corrected through the last heart surgery and I was no longer a huge insurance risk….but that’s a different story) and felt, for the very first time, safe. That year, I also needed a hysterectomy due to a cancer scare and didn’t worry about the costs, which, after surgery, were about $500 in co-pays.But that wasn’t the biggest benefit for me. I was laid off in 2016 and received information on COBRA. It was $400 per month! Generally, if I did receive a COBRA letter after getting laid off or when a company went under (which was rare), it was for $1800-$3000 per month. $400 was incredible! But, I didn’t have to do it. NYS embraced the Medicaid expansion and while on unemployment, I received Medicaid. First time in my life I had health insurance while unemployed and I didn’t have to worry about using my pittance of unemployment dollars to pay for it. During that time period, I had emergency gall bladder surgery for a blockage and paid NOTHING. (Some may say I am living off of the welfare of others while on Medicaid and I say, bite me. I have worked and paid my taxes for more than 25 years and didn’t have health insurance for many of those years. I think I earned a year on Medicaid.)The ACA truly did save me. It saved my life when I had the cancer scare - I got the surgery I needed without constant stress of bills and debt. It saved my life when I had emergency gall bladder surgery. And when I go back to work this month, I will be eligible, once again, for employer provided health insurance. Does it have problems? Sure, but I would rather have it and push our government to fix those problems than have nothing again. And, I think, so would most of us.
The FDIC has been successful since 1933 so why can't a government-run option to private health insurance be?
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is independent agency of the federal government that is is funded by premiums that the banks pay. Government-run option to private health insurance will be funded by the premiums of the people who sign up for it.
Do conservatives realize Obamacare has been a success?
ABSOLUTELYThere is NO doubt that the ACA could have been a GREAT success but typical of the left they took their basic idea to the extreme and flew right past success to total disasterThe portions that were actually valuable were the elimination of the annual and lifetime spending limtsThe elimination of the pre-existing condition clauseThe inclusion of VERY basic care with no copayThe rest is the typical if a little is good giving them a lot more has to be even better scenarioThe issue of pre-existing condition and the over expense of people who were locked out due to life or annual max could have MUCH easier be handled by expanding Welfare programsThe issue of rating premiums without the need to assess medical health could have been handled with state and federally funded reinsurance assistance rather then redesigning the entire processThe REAL killer was the inclusion of BILLIONS of dollars in treatments at no copay that otherwise were self regulating and well established. Things like birth control being mandatorily free and colonoscopies and mammograms the sameInstead of focusing on getting VERY basic care for EVERYONE they wanted to do TWO things provide AFFORDABLE and EXPANSIVE care for everyoneEconomically that is an oxymoron. One can NOT increase coverage at the same time lower premiums. We EITHER lower premiums OR we build a more comprehensive coverage system but the two together REQUIRES by definition a high premium for SOMEONE to pay. That someone is either the individual or the employer or in some cases the Government which means ALL of usLook back at things like food stamps Social Security and even Medicare and you will see they STARTED out to be a little helping hand to get one past the rough times to get back on their feet and to then be able to handle life’s issues on their ownThen as time progressed the Gov made them into full blown entitlements with HUGE scopes that literally make the recipients invalids and no longer require anyone to do anything because the Gov will take care of them.We have millions of families who are now multi-generational have never worked and yet collect benefits paid for by the rest of the society while they continue to make more and more generational clonesThe ACA is/was an example of a nice thought taken FAR TOO FAR to the point that it decimated an entire industry and something isn’t done VERY soon the outcome is going to be seen in the life and health statistics of our country for decades to comeDr Dave
What good will Obamacare do?
We got the negatives: -You face a penalty if you don't buy health insurance What are the positives? There's no public option. No medicare-buy-in. What are the positives?
Why is Obamacare currently failing?
For the people who have it, Obamacare was and still is very successful. I have plenty of patients who just picked up the phone and called an insurance company and got a reasonable, affordable policy without too much hassle.The primary reasons why Obamacare was not more widely accepted was because of the numerous destructive cuts the republicans put in place to debilitate the program.The first and most destructive insult was simply making it clear to the insurance companies participating in the plan that they would do whatever it took to keep the plan form working. If you’re an insurance company and you know that the government is not going to support the plan and that they will do anything in their power to keep it from working, it’s kind of difficult to keep selling plans, right?The next most destructive move the republicans made was to end their financial support of the program through a number of incentives directed at consumers and insurance companies.Getting rid of the individual mandate was another nail in the coffin. Never mind that every type of insurance on the planet relies on participation from a large population of people in varied risk categories. Did you for one minute think that your auto/home/dental/vision/life insurance coverage is not subsidized by the sheer number of people participating in the program? News flash: it is!!!! Why would you think that health insurance could be different and still succeed?Getting rid of the individual mandate was an easy sell to the general “we should get everything we want for free” republican supporting populace. That’s why it was a mandate. Duh. Guess how health insurance works in the entire rest of the civilized world? People pay for it. Yes, that’s right, they pay for it! Whether they pay for it in income tax, real estate tax, poll tax, gasoline tax, bridge tax, burger tax, or carpet tacks, every person who uses it pays for it in one way or another. Why would you expect the US to be any different? Oh, that’s right, you’re a magical thinker, like Mexico is going to pay for the wall, right?Unfortunately for the republicans the ACA is like Jason in Halloween. Despite being shot in the head, run over, set on fire, buried, and drowned in a vat of acid it continues to survive. Not only that, but the general public even notices that they kind of like it. Get ready for the hypocrisy.
Obamacare vs employer health insurance?
I was going to sign up for my employers health insurance next month. I work at a library and they have Anthem. I took it out once before and it was very expensive. Since my job is part-time and I had trouble finding a physician who would even accept it, I dropped it and went back to the VA since I'm a veteran. I now have nerve damage from a dental visit which the VA cannot treat and the pain clinic they out-sourced me to first cauterized the nerve and when that failed I had cyber-knife treatment (3 hours of radiation) still with no success. Now people are telling me to hold out until October when Obamacare kicks in to save money as the cost of the Anthem insurance is due to quadruple!? This is so confusing and I really need to find a doctor who can prescribe ongoing pain medication. (The VA has discontinued Oxycontin and replaced it with morphine which does nothing for severe nerve damage.) Thanks for all your answers from an Iraq/Afghanistan veteran.
Why do liberals support Obamacare, when socialism has always failed?
Every time anyone has every tried big government socialism it's always been a failure - like North Korea and the former Soviet Union for example. Yet, liberals still socialist government run healthcare. When will they realize that socialism has never worked and never will work?
What happens if I simply don't want Obamacare? Can I simply pay the penalty, then sign up for insurance if I wake up in the hospital or need to make a doctor appointment?
First, please understand that many many people are not affected by the ACA. If you have employer-supplied coverage, or if you're already on Medicare, you're not affected, I believe. Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong.Now to my actual answer: Suppose I lived in a place where stealing small items was not a crime. And supposed I've been stealing stuff from my neighbor's garage for years. Then one day the government passes a law criminalizing such behavior.What happens if I simply don't want to stop stealing? The answer is that I'll face the penalty the law specifies. I googled "ACA individual mandate penalty" and the first hit specifies how much you'll have to pay for not obeying the law:The greater of:For 2014, $95 per uninsured person or 1 percent of household income over the filing threshold,For 2015, $325 per uninsured person or 2 percent of household income over the filing threshold, andFor 2016 and beyond, $695 per uninsured person or 2.5 percent of household income over the filing threshold.The second hit is worth reading, too, and it's very short:The individual mandate’s penalty costs more than you thinkEdit, because question details were added: according to an NPR show I was listening to this morning on my way to work, the ACA is like most employer-sponsored health plans, in that there is an open season, and you can't enroll outside of that open season, except in the case of major life changes. I would guess that suddenly needing the insurance you should have bought in the first place doesn't count. I'm reminded of the story (no doubt apocryphal) of the guy whose house caught on fire. In his area, the firefighters were private. You paid up front for your coverage for the year, and this guy hadn't paid, so they let his house burn down. Insurance doesn't work if you wait until you need it, to buy it. The success of the ACA depends on young healthy people buying into the system. Even if they don't perceive they will need it.Here's what I don't understand. We have a law in California that everybody has to have auto insurance to drive on the public roads. I don't remember there being a whole lot of protest about this. Why is there such pushback about what's essentially the same thing with the ACA? The individual mandate is enforcing personal responsibility. It was invented by Republicans and was the system in force in Massachusets when Mitt Romney was governor. Why is it suddenly a bad idea, when it's been signed into law by a Democrat?