15 year later: Obamacare

[Man With A Plan]

It's open enrollment right now and tens of millions of Americans are discovering that subsidies were indeed making their coverage substantially more affordable for them.

So what you're basically admitting is that Obamacare is "affordable" as long as it's propped up with huge subsidies from the tax payers? Correct me if I'm wrong, Greenie but wasn't Obamacare supposed to "bend the curve"...making subsidies unneeded after a few years? Wasn't that what you on the left promised us?

 

[g5000]

There's a reason you can't pick up your phone and call any insurance company in the country and buy your health insurance the same way you buy your auto, home, and life insurance.

There's a reason you are held hostage to your employer's health care plan, and have no options.

Our politicians are being paid very well to keep you in a box.

Both sides.

.

 

[Lockback]

I've always been right. You are just blinded by your partisanship.

Here's a mirror for you.

 

[Deplorable Yankee]

 

[Lockback]

There's a reason you can't pick up your phone and call any insurance company in the country and buy your health insurance the same way you buy your auto, home, and life insurance.

There's a reason you are held hostage to your employer's health care plan, and have no options.

Our politicians are being paid very well to keep you in a box.

Both sides.

.

For once, we agree on something.
Congratulations.

 

[g5000]

So what you're basically admitting is that Obamacare is "affordable" as long as it's propped up with huge subsidies from the tax payers? Correct me if I'm wrong, Greenie but wasn't Obamacare supposed to "bend the curve"...making subsidies unneeded after a few years? Wasn't that what you on the left promised us?

This is why I have always called Obamacare a bait-and-switch con.

All during the push for voter support for Obamacare, the Left kept showing us charts of how far, far less per capita health care costs were in the other developed nations, and claimed ours would also fall to those levels.

Pretty ******* funny when you think about it now.

.

 

[Greenbeard]

So what you're basically admitting is that Obamacare is "affordable" as long as it's propped up with huge subsidies from the tax payers?

The coverage provisions in the ACA make insurance affordable via tax credits to defray premium costs. That's what the law is, how is this a revelation after fifteen years?

Correct me if I'm wrong, Greenie but wasn't Obamacare supposed to "bend the curve"...making subsidies unneeded after a few years? Wasn't that what you on the left promised us?

It did bend the curve, but that doesn't "make subsidies unneeded."

 

[Greenbeard]

This is why I have always called Obamacare a bait-and-switch con.

All during the push for voter support for Obamacare, the Left kept showing us charts of how far, far less per capita health care costs were in the other developed nations, and claimed ours would also fall to those levels.

There's a pretty clear association between per capita income and per capita health spending. We're rich, we're always going to spend more on health care than poorer countries.

 

[g5000]

It's coming, folks. Single-payer health care.

The Democrats have never hidden the fact that is their goal. Ever since Ted Kennedy's "socialized medicine" plan in the 70s.

That's what they called single-payer health care back then. Socialized medicine.

That's their plan. Always has been.


The Republican counter to the Democratic plan?

NOTHING.



And that's how I know the Democrats are going to win.


The Republicans sold you down the river decades ago, kids. They are putting up token resistance as theater for you rubes.

And you let them get away with it.

.

 

[g5000]

There's a pretty clear association between per capita income and per capita health spending. We're rich, we're always going to spend more on health care than poorer countries.

You were just bragging about record slow growth.

Perhaps you should look at the growth rate of health care in the other developed nations.

 

[Greenbeard]

I don't think you understand what per capita means.

It means our being richer isn't just a function of us being bigger than most other countries. We're genuinely just very rich. And rich countries spend more on health care.

This also holds within the U.S. for individual states, for that matter.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Worked fine until the GOP showed up.

Trillions in subsidies to rescue a disaster that never accomplished its stated goal of lowering costs is “working fine”?

 

[g5000]

The coverage provisions in the ACA make insurance affordable via tax credits to defray premium costs. That's what the law is, how is this a revelation after fifteen years?

I guess you have forgotten Obama promised the ACA would "not add one dime" to the federal debt.

I can link to the SOTU address where he said that, if you like.

.

It did bend the curve.

The hell it did. Obamacare was supposed to bend the cost curve DOWN. That was the promise.

 

[berg80]

This is EXACTLY what every knowledgeable observer knew when the ACA was thrust down America's throat by Democrats (never a single Republican vote). It told health insurers:

• You cannot turn anyone down because of a pre-existing injury or medical condition,
• You cannot charge a higher premium to anyone with a pre-existing condition,
• You must group those people in with everyone else when calculating premiums, and
• We will not place any restrictions on premiums, so you - medical insurers - don't lose out.

OF COURSE, premiums would skyrocket, as would the profits of medical insurers. This is like asking what will happen if I drop a rock off the top of a building. Surprise! It falls to the ground!

The current ACA subsidies were "temporary" during Covid, but more importantly from a political standpoint, they were intended to conceal from the public how badly ACA had failed to control health insurance premiums as promised. THIS is why Schumer frantically demanded that the subsidies last AT LEAST UNTIL NOVEMBER 2026!

Guess what happens in November 2026. Mid-terms.

The only solution is to create an unconstitutional government program that allows insurers to separate out the aforementioned unfortunates, allows insurers to create logical groupings of insured persons and charge them appropriate rates, and "backstops" the insurers directly for the excess costs of insuring the people with pre-existing conditions.

Also, it would be cool to put some constraints on profiteering by the health insurers, allow interstate competition among insurers, and tackle tort reform

This is all unconstitutional, of course. Congress has no "power" to get into the health insurance business, but that train left the station a long time ago. But it would be a better unconstitutional solution than the current unconstitutional one.

It's very unfortunate that folks like you write posts like that out of a lack of knowledge. The principle on which the ACA was passed was the MA model where a larger pool of insured clients was the bargain made for insurance companies to be willing to cover pre-existing conditions and preventative care. The former making the latter more cost effective. A bill of that magnitude was always going to need tweaking to make improvements. Something R's had no interest in. Then the GOP sabotage began.
FACT SHEET: 15 Times Republicans Have Sabotaged the Affordable Care Act

FACT SHEET: 15 Times Republicans Have Sabotaged The Affordable Care Act — Protect Our Care

The GOP Has Tried and Failed Hundreds of Times To Repeal and Undermine It 15 years ago, President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act (ACA) into law, and it has...

www.protectourcare.org

Six ways Trump has sabotaged the Affordable Care Act​

Six ways Trump has sabotaged the Affordable Care Act | Brookings

The Trump administration has vigorously sought to undo the Affordable Care Act through both administrative and judicial means.

www.brookings.edu

 

[Billiejeens]

We're not in COVID. Do you need to sit down?

Then why did you shut down the Government to keep covid subsidies?

 

[Billiejeens]

The discount cards are an outstanding option.

GoodRX
Blink
Etc

 

[Nostra]

15 years of a flat cost curve is unprecedented, of course it's a success. Now that the GOP is bending the cost curve back up, you can see what it looks like when costs start rising again.

Lies.

 

[Billiejeens]

Lies.

That **** is not even remotely sane.

 

[Nostra]

Donald Trump and the GOP do not have a replacement. They never have. They lied.

JD Vance lied when he said they have "concepts of a plan". You could hear the laughter from coast-to-coast.

Trump and the Republicans have no plan because they are owned by the insurance companies.

Obamacare is the result of Obama being owned by the labor unions.

The American people are getting fucked from both ends.

It's time to get pissed, people. Angry with both parties.

Furious.

Stop taking their lies like cucks.


.

You clowns are the only ones whining and crying that Republicans won’t fix your Barrycare clusterfuck.

 

[Greenbeard]

I guess you have forgotten Obama promised the ACA would "not add one dime" to the federal debt.

It didn't add to the debt. The costs of the coverage expansion were designed to be offset by new revenues and reductions of Medicare spending below the pre-ACA baseline.

The coverage expansions ended up costing far less than projected, and the savings to Medicare have been way more than expected thanks to the bending of the cost curve.

Shit, tens of trillions of dollars in future federal liabilities on health care spending this century have melted away as the cost curve bent. It's by far the most important budgetary story of the past two decades.

The hell it did. Obamacare was supposed to bend the cost curve DOWN. That was the promise.

Taking something that's bent upwards and pushing it down to flat is bending it down. If you want to keep the (unprecedented) progress going, you need to build on it, not tear it down.