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The $1.5 Trillion being spent by the taxpayers over the next decade..
I get it.
$1.3 Trillion for healthcare over the next decade is bad.
$ 6 Trillion ( when future interest on incremental debt and veteran benefits are included) for the Iraq War is good.
Healthcare is big business in the U.S. Big Pharm and the medical device industry are 2/5 most profitable business sectors in the U.S. and out perform the financial sector in terms of ROI. Both substantially lobby and donate to politicians who don't bite the wallets that feed them. Then there's the American Hospital Association....another massive lobby and political donor.
Congress twice voted against giving Medicare the authority to negotiate the price of prescription meds and did so at the same time as expanding Medicare to include an unfounded prescription drug benefit. Allowing Medicare to negotiate would hurt the bottom line of Big Pharma and might lead to a loss of venture capital interest in front end research.
So while many openly crab about subsidizing low / no income folk, the U.S. subsidizies the rest of the world that have governments that choose to negotiate price.
$1.3 Trillion for healthcare over the next decade is bad.
$1.5 trillion, to "give free" insurance to about 10 million people.. (giving ACA proponents the benefit of the doubt on this one, given 11 million lost policies)
Where was the Republican alternative? They sat on their hands and screamed about Obama care but had no ideas of their own. Republicans have been bashing this man since he took office. Where are the Republicans ideas? Crickets.....
Personally, I'm tired of seeing right wingers alternately whine about the ACA and gloat about its shortcomings. Why can't the Republicans come up with something better if it's so awful? It's been over FIVE YEARS and they have no alternatives.
5+ years and even the high level concept bills have not gotten any traction within Congress. It's politics as usual. The GOP gets more mileage out of condemning it instead of working to improve it.
Germany's universial healthcare plan is 100+ years old. It is tweaked annually and periodically reformed. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater is not an option.
No two countries do universial healthcare the same way. Some operate single payer systems. Some rely entirely on mandated private insurance with statutory coverage. Some own and/ operate most hospitals. In at least one country most hospitals are 10-12 bed operations owned and operated by MDs. Most cover maternity and all children at no incremental cost to the consumer. All subsidize premiums for the unemployed.
What they have in common are the 500 pound governments who negotiate the price of everything related to healthcare and control costs.
At some future point in time, it will likely become necessary to peg consumer premiums to preventable healthcare risks. 70% of US adults are overweight/ obese and are at substantially higher risk for otherwise preventable diseases, Heart Disease, Diabetes, High Blood Pressure and some Cancers. With a few years lead time, there is no reason why most U.S. people could not achieve a waist measure in the generous normal range and in doing so substantially reduce their healthcare risks and costs.
My hope is that now that the ACA is here to stay, we can all (left and right) start pushing to correct what is wrong with it and make it better. ...but I certainly don't want to eliminate it.
I believe the U.S. Has passed the tipping point. There is no going back to pre ACA days.
The rest of the developed world tweaks their universial healthcare programs ( ACA is not universal healthcare and no two countries do universal healthcare the same way) and periodically reforms their programs.
Instead, what we have here is a Congress that agrees that what existed was broken. Nonetheless, the House has voted to repeal the ACA 56 times and did so with no alternative and no risk that a veto- proof order to repeal would ever happen. This is political grandstanding at an unprecidented level.
My family's coverage is comparable to what we had before the ACA. Out of pocket costs are way higher though.
The biggest problem is premiums. For just my wife and child, their premiums have skyrocketed.
Instead of the $2500 reduction Obama was touting, our rates have increased by over $4000/yr since Obamacare took effect. And they're scheduled to increase again later this year. It would be nice if we could get a subsidy, but through the idiotic way the law was written we don't qualify even though we should.
The polling contradicts findings in other surveys that seemed to show higher levels of satisfaction, including a Kaiser Family Foundation poll, that found three-quarters of people on exchange plans rated their overall coverage as “excellent” or “good.”
So which polls do people want to believe?
I'd love to know WHEN each survey was done.
Most people are thrilled the first week or two they purchased a car, but satisfaction seems to fade after driving it daily.
Additionally, I know a lot of people actually believed they were getting healthcare and not health insurance.
Obamacare sux is the worst plan ever implemented. It's cost me and my son thousands extra for much worse coverage than what we had before but the worst part is that now my daughter and son in law, who had good health coverage their entire lives prior to Obamacare sux, refuse the access the Obamacare sux due to the over $6K deductible which effectively has shut them out of health coverage. About their only option now is to quit working and become freeloaders.
The problem is that conservatives offer no alternatives, they didn't in the years in which they controlled congress and/or the presidency and they still don't. Your 'examples' of alternatives to health insurance absolutely proves that.
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