What do you think of Obamacare?
“The Obamacare”, really Affordable Care Act, has two parts. One extended Medicaid, the program for the poor, to more people, particularly single people without children, who were not previously eligible. Unfortunately this became optional for states, so many people were STILL not covered.The second part set up a “marketplace” for individuals not poor enough for Medicaid and not covered by a health insurance plan from their employer. An attempt was made to keep it affordable by subsidizing the premiums. It still did not provide health care, just some sort of access to health insurance. It had several useful rules: children could remain on the parents’ insurance until age 26; insurance could not be denied because of pre-existing conditions; and there were minimum standards of coverage. These rules also applied to the insurance obtained through the employer.These did not provide insurance to ALL AMERICAN CITIZENS. There were big holes left. The states that did not extend Medicaid, of course. And there were people who could not afford the offerings of the “marketplace” no matter how they were subsidized. They were allowed to go without and not pay a penalty.Yes, it is a KLUGE. But the “public option” was not allowed. And the implementation was not entirely in good faith. And anything that is not national is going to be subject to the vagaries of the states’ politicians. It was a good start, considering what existed before.The original question has changed; the premise was that insurance was provided to all Americans, which is false.
What do you think of Obamacare?
Having worked in the Canadian single payer system and our own for profit hospitals, I greatly admire and prefer the Canadian. From the point of view as a critical care nurse, I loved being focussed on treatment first. The second the patient hit the triage desk we were about treatment only. The bureaucracy came later. In the USA nurses and doctors are expected to count each individual gauze, every tube of lotion, and every second spent on billing is time spent away from providing care. In Canada we just do our nursing duties and let stores and accounting count the costs. Accounting is a place a single payer system saves Canadians a fortune. In the USA we have entire towers filled with bookkeepers and accountants, not to mention the required collections department. Canadian hospitals have accounting departments that take up less room than most nursing units, which leaves the towers available for more patient beds. Fewer accountants means more nurses. People who argue that their system costs more fail to take this efficiency into account. Obamacare is a small step towards that superior Canadian system, where every citizen is covered through the general revenues of the tax system. In Canada there has not been a medical bankruptcy in the last half century, and no person has been denied treatment because of a pre existing condition. I never worked in Europe, but nurses and doctors have assured me that this is true in every industrialized democracy but ours. In terms of access to health care we are number thirty seven! The Canadian system is great for doctors as well, although the younger ones do not realize it because they do not remember how they used to need five clerks for the single one they employ today. They also do not need bill collection agencies and lawyers to track down their patients. Seriously, the Canadian system save so much on bureaucracy that can then be spent on parient care! I admit this is more about private care, including the Obama version, versus single payer universal coverage, but my point is that I think Obamacare is a very small but significant step towards equality with Canada and the European Union. That's why I will vote for a Democrat who supports single payer before any other candidate in the upcoming primaries. We deserve to be at least as good as Portugal, don't we?
What do you think about Obama's presidency from 2009-2016?
his health care reform could have been better.his international policy sucks and has inflamed/ drag out the Syrian conflict. plus he has had a poor position in other middle east conflicts.his stance and backbone against Russia and china is pathetic (he’s made america look very weak) plus he’s edge to world closer to WW3 at time with supporting the expansion of the EU to Ukraine while not respecting Russia's stance.His hollow stance against china and the ocean conflict is pathetic, it was to little to late.his stance on trade benefit everyone else but the west.under his watch race relations in america is at a very low point.he’s proven that some people are above the law in this country… Hillary for the scandal with her server scandal and shouldn't have been given the opportunity to run for presidentthe only true positive from the obama admin is the tightening of finanical regulation that caused the housing market crashso overall bad
What do you think of when you hear the name Obama?
He was a racist and a race baiter. He wanted to destroy America and he helped our enemies . He makes me want to throw up . a disgrace to the office of the United States of America traitor.
What do you think about Obama and the ACORN scandal?
Obama should denounce ACORN. They paid young adults to get as many registrations to vote as possible. They got some and ended up making up thousands of others to get the money. Now we have characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck signed up to vote for Democrats. The whole deal emits a bad smell. Makes us look bad to the whole world who then sees thousands signed up to vote who are not eligible (even the dead). No. Bush didn't cheat his way in. Those darn votes were counted and recounted and recounted as pressured by the Demo- crats and still Bush won. Democrats didn't even want to count the absentee votes that came in from our own beloved military. That really irritated me.
What do you think of President Obama's legacy?
I think the fact that it’s been so easy to dismantle, shows how insubstantial it really was.Obama was never the radical he ought to have been . America needed someone to do the hard work of reforming Wall Street and who would be willing to take a stand against the military-industrial complex.Instead it got a token black-guy who said a lot of nice things, was a decent sort of chap, but who did very little to address the deep structural problems in America.It’s not all his fault, he faced a very hostile climate in the Congress / Senate. And, to an extent, media. Nevertheless, most of his achievements came from executive orders. And the result was that they were easy to erase when the next guy took over.
What do you think of Obama's idea to do a gangsta rap video to lay out his plan for economic recovery?
You ever seen one of those McDonald's commercials where Ronald raps? Obama can't get gangsta cred without getting shot at least twice. If only he had taken some sniper fire like Hillary.