Quote:Quoting the reply to my post, with the comical tea party Sam Brownback "Obacare complexity chart", is fruitless.  I understand opposition to the ACA on philosophical grounds, and that no matter what the success or failure, views against it will not change because to do so would undermine the foundation on which one has built his/her life.  What's genuinely perplexing is the admission that what we had prior to the ACA was unacceptable, but a return to that system is somehow a better idea.

 

Call it what you will, the ACA is worse than that old system and time will continue to bear this out. 


 

Anyway, in response to some of the more misleading points: (you mispelled F-A-C-T-U-A-L)


 

1. People who liked their insurance plans lost them because the law said the insurance company  could no longer offer it.
Because the law set standards that made $10,000 deductibles and other garbage illegal.  Just like we have usery laws for unreasonable interest, but I suppose those laws are unfair to the "free market" principles too. 

 

A $10,000 deductible is not unreasonable. If I want catastrophic coverage instead of a payment system for regular routine maintenance I shouldn't have the government telling me I can't do it that way. Exactly the same as car insurance for a wreck but not for an oil change.


 

2. People who liked their doctor had to switch to someone else because of their new insurance plan, or it will cost them more OOP to keep him.
Free market advocates are the first to state that if you want to eat at Ruth's Chris instead of McDonalds, don't complain about the price.  By the way, this is no different than the system before the ACA.  If you liked your doctor and he was in your system, great.  If out of network, you paid more.

 

Being forced into another network because of some bureaucratic decision instead of my own choosing to do so is the issue. Don't forget, I advocate a robust individual market so that even my employer wouldn't have a say in my decisions.


 

3. Many, many, many people will pay in excess of 15% more for their premiums in 2015 
And many, many, won't.  Some will pay even more than 15%, some will pay less.  My own premiums went up 200% from 1998 to 2004 prior to the ACA, which made me drop my policy and take my chances with the uninsured masses.  Perhaps the ACA didn't help this problem, but it sure didn't cause it.

 

It was supposed to fix it but its failed because it can't work. I'm sure you'll agree with me that a less restrictive market place would exert downward pressure on prices much more than a government demand that all citizens purchase the product.

 

4. Many of these patients were pushed to Medicaid instead of a commercial plan. Medicaid care is of significantly lower quality which puts these patients at risk.s 
Medicare is of significantly lower quality?  News to me.  And my mom.  She didn't have to change a single doctor.

 

Perhaps you should get your glasses checked and read what I wrote again.


 

5. The young and healthy, who are needed to keep the actuary table balanced, are choosing to pay the tax fine rather than pay for insurance. And according to the site at the link,  the CBO recently came out and said that 90% of the 30 million Americans who didn't buy it won't have to pay the penalty in 2016, so that, coupled with the removal of pre-existing condition rules, means that this particular cohort can wait to see if they get sick to buy a policy. All those premium dollars needed to keep the ACA afloat aren't going to come in.
  Some young folks are choosing to pay the fines, others are living their lives ignorant of the fact that they have to get health insurance or pay fines.  They're young people after all.  And if they are paying fines, at least that's better than them paying nothing, getting appendicitis, and then ditching the bill - allowing you and me to pay for it with our own higher premiums.  And the money's not going to come in??? It hasn't even been mandated a year yet - so that's just speculation, largely influenced by your core philosophy.

 

When premiums are >$5,000 per year and the penalty is <$1,000 then the simple fact is that they aren't and won't do it.


 

6. The implementation of healthcare.gov was a fiasco that cost us over 2 billion dollars. A web portal cost 2 BILLION dollars and it didn't work. That's certainly not bending the cost curve in any meaningful way.
The healthcare.gov website was indeed an incredibly embarrassing and expensive fiasco.  Web designers in just about every small city in the country could've done a better job.  The designers should have known there would be far more interest in the portal than they figured.  Bad math, for sure, but I hear it's up and running well now.

 

We'll see how it goes this year, I , of course, have my doubts. This least competent administration shouldn't give anyone confidence that they can pull it off.


 

The ACA is legislation that took us the wrong way. It gives the government more say, more power, more control; all things that make the industry worse off, not better
When an industry can't do an acceptable job of regulating itself, the government steps in with regulation.  Sucks for profits, but if you can't mine coal without killing workers, produce chemicals without poisoning groundwater, or racially integrate a public university, the government steps in.  A dozen eggs are 3 times more to buy now as when I was a teenager.  Gasoline is four times as much. An appendectomy is ten times as much, or more.

 

Because the industry hasn't been regulated for the last century? The government did so well with it already we should give them more power, never mind that the local, state and federal governments have had their disruptive paws all over the it and total screwed it up. That's the mindset that Conservatives and Libertarians just can't accept. And I had my appendix out in 1985, my God do I wish they had laproscopic surgery back then, I wouldn't have this 6 inch scar in my gut. But hey,it's clearly not worth paying for all these swell advances we've given the world. 


 

 

By the way, this ties into the Social Security thread in that this is what we'll be buying with that money that most of you don't think we'll be getting back.  Healthcare and health insurance.  Yay? 

 

You'll have your Medicare, you just might not have any doctors that will see you. Or you'll have some "C" student leftover who's willing to work for the scraps the government will pay him to treat you since all the good doctors left the business. The SGR is going to pass eventually, and when they put it into practice you'll see the mass exodus of the professionals from the industry.