patrick.net

Peter P says

You cannot eliminate the concept of pre-existing conditions without covering everybody.

Democrats parrot insurers' "adverse selection" argument in isolation, illustrating the difference between "the truth" and "the whole truth;" in reality, propitious selection and subsidies can outweigh adverse selection. The insurance industry evolved over centuries without mandates. No other country on earth levies a tax/penalty on ordinary individuals for not buying insurance; the nearest parallel might be Australia, where persons with exceptionally high incomes incur a 1% surcharge (less than half the Obamacare penalty) for not buying. The individual mandate was unnecessary from a public perspective but it gave unprecedented power to the politicians and lobbyists who wrote it on behalf of their corporate sponsors.

Peter P says

Universal healthcare is simply another form of national defense.

Neither major party sees it that way. As part of Obamacare and "stimulus," the federal government bought flu vaccines but refused to give them to actual people. Instead, the administration gave the vaccines to corporate sponsors to sell at a profit, and the providers charged more than the market would bear, so more than 70 million vaccines expired unused while more than 10,000 Americans died of H1N1 and hundreds of thousands were hospitalized enriching the Chicago-based AHA. "Thanks, Obamacare!" By far the biggest beneficiaries of that legislation have been the revenue recipients and the Republican party.

Peter P says

Universal healthcare is simply another form of national defense.

Well then the conservative solution will be to bring healthcare to Iraq and Syria first before they bring it here!

"Wisconsin woman faces bankruptcy from hospital bills after cardiac arrest.... because of balanced billing through [Obamacare], the 30-year-old owes at least $50,000."

CBS has the Wisconsin story too, in case the "Dislike"r above didn't believe the NY Daily News:

"There's no definitive data on how often patients are taken to hospitals not covered by insurance, but officials at St. Mary's said they believe Rothbauer's case is hardly isolated.

"I'm most frustrated that I didn't have a choice," Rothbauer said. "I didn't have a choice then and don't have a choice now.""

Democrats cling to their belief in this legislation as fervently and desperately as religious fanatics cling to their belief in eternal life through Crusade/Jihad/whatever. I've racked up more than a dozen Dislikes in this thread alone, mainly for quoting accurately reported facts. Simply quoting a report of this woman's story got Disliked. Democrats don't want to understand why a majority of Americans are now turning to Republicans. It's like not wanting to understand a train wreck, oh it's nobody's fault, trains just wreck, or the train didn't wreck and anybody who claims to have been injured by it is lying. The issue is, a majority of Americans disapprove of the legislation, often with legitimate reasons why, and many of them vote. Since enacting this legislation, Democrats have fallen numerically to their lowest (in share of elected officials) in more than a century, and yet they refuse even to consider that they might possibly have a problem.

The democrats problem is that the voters are too stupid. Ask yourself one question. Is your mother a dumb ass tea bagger? If so, You have every right to blame all the world's problems on republicans.

No, the problem isn't that democrats were stupid enough to think x that Americans are stupid enough to support heritage foundation care, So long as its called ohblahblah

I think the Dems lost because Obama lied to us. In order to get a smaller group of uninsured covered, he had to fuck over a really big group with insurance. And how did he do it? He had to lie: Save $2500, keep your plan, keep your doctor. The arm-twisting at the 11th hour to get it passed... It's that simple.

Defend Obamacare all you want. Every Dem trying to keep their job wanted to hide their record of supporting Obama, and wanted him far fuckin AWAY from their campaign.... And Nov 4th proved them right....

The Loretta Lynch nomination demonstrates how out of touch the Dems are.

APOCALYPSEFUCKisShostikovitch says

Mark Foley

Don't forget Senator Emeritus Larry Craig, who will be the nation's new Restroom Security Inspector, traveling tirelessly from one airport toilet to the next, searching for terrorists with whom he can practice his wide stance.

The question is not whether the Republicans are bad or horrible or both; the question is, how did the Democrats lose to those guys, and what can Democrats do differently next time. Hint: maybe reconsider the policy that polls between -10 and -20...

I think that the biggest backlash to ACA must be due to costs. For example, if someone does not have health insurance from their job and their income is too high to qualify for subsidies, DINKS could easily fork over $500 per month, a couple with 1 child would spend in the $600s and a couple with 2 kids will pay almost $800 per month for a bronze plan according to Covered California. That is a rather hefty sum that could and would be lifestyle affecting to many people especially to those who just make enough not to qualify for a subsidy.

dublin hillz says

the biggest backlash to ACA must be due to costs.

I quoted a 2010 article with data supporting that view, and got 3 Dislikes for my effort.

A deeper issue though is that the legislation changes, in a fundamental way, the relationship between the federal government and individual citizens. It is like the closing of the western frontier in the 19th century. Since 2010, for the first time, executives and lobbyists for one industry sector have converted your government into their tool to compel you to buy their products and "services" at prices no one else in the world would pay. From their POV, you are cattle in a feedlot, and the purpose of your life is to maximize their revenue, and your government agrees with them. Most of the money goes to waste, fraud, and abuse, as multiple measures confirm, but that's the point. The additional markup is shared out via lobbyists to political patronage networks, so the game continues.

Since Democrats don't listen to me on this issue, please go Dislike Democratic Senator Schumer instead:

"Democrats Erred by Acting on Health Care in 2010, Schumer Says
***
“Unfortunately, Democrats blew the opportunity the American people gave them” in electing Obama and a Democratic Congress in 2008 amid a recession, Schumer of New York said in a speech in Washington.
***
He said he opposed the timing of the health-care vote and was overruled by other party members.
***
“The rollout was a glaring example of government’s ineffectiveness and became the perfect anecdote for the Republicans' anti-government argument,” he said.

Partisans tend to blame the messenger rather than consider the message. Since 2009, Democrats have been saying Obamneycare would be either popular or forgotten by 2010; it's now 2014, and Grubercare continues to poll at -10. Maybe, just maybe, somebody might consider that the problem is Grubercare itself, rather than the messengers (voters) who disapprove of it.

A recent comment persuaded me it's time to bump this thread by going through my 157 posts on PatNet and linking the ones that relate to Obamneycare. I count 24 that relate directly, plus eight that relate indirectly via the medical sector, total 32 out of 157. That's 20%, which happens to be the share of GDP that Americans spend on the medical sector.

CBO: Repealing Individual Mandate Would Save $30B/yr

Brian Schweitzer: Obamacare "will collapse on its own weight"

Flaws could expose Obamacare user data

You can't keep your drugs under Obamacare

Obamacare enrollees hit snags at doctor's offices

Doctor Became the Most Miserable Profession

massive prescription price hikes

SSRIs in pregnancy tied to autism, delays

Kids' Diabetes Rates Up Dramatically

Oregon gives up on troubled Obamneycare exchange, joins U.S. site

Hawaii ends Obamneycare Connector

900,000 get wrong tax info in latest Obamneycare snafu

Obamacare partly delayed

Mammograms under 60 don't reduce deaths

3 Unions: Obamacare will destroy health

Another union turns against Obamacare

Unions Wary of Obamacare, Roofers call for repeal, Republicans for more $

Obamacare question: "balance billing"

Et tu, Cepa? Et tu?

A Sale of Two Parties

Lie of the Year: 'If you like your health care plan, you can keep it'

Even Mild Hits to the Head Might Harm the Brain

app as effective at testing eyesight as optician's clinic

Referendum on Obamacare?

These don't mention Obamneycare directly, but relate to the larger system that Obamneycare took over and promised to "reform" by empowering the entrenched industry players with infinite revenue that they can use to finance political patronage networks and crush innovation that might disrupt their revenue models:

Hospital chain allegedly admitted patients fraudulently to make more $$$

Hackers steal millions' data via hospital computers

Avoid American Hospitals especially in July

Labs settle unnecessary testing claims

12 million Americans misdiagnosed each year

1/4 of CA foster kids on psychotropic Rx drugs

Depression therapies overrated

Parkinson's Disease research

"Obamacare's 2017 Insurer Rate Requests Are Starting to Stream in, and the Figures Are Scary
***
UnitedHealth Group (NYSE:UNH), the largest insurer in the U.S., recently announced that it would be vacating a majority of the 34 states it's currently operating in beginning in 2017... Also, more than half of all of Obamacare's approved healthcare cooperatives closed up shop heading into 2016 due to unsustainable losses and an insufficiently funded risk corridor, which was designed to protect money-losing insurers by taking money from insurers that were raking in the dough hand over fist.
***
Recently, two states -- Virginia and Oregon -- lifted the covers on preliminary rate requests from insurers in 2017. Note the emphasis on "preliminary", as double-digit percentage rate hike requests will need to be approved by each state's respective Office of the Insurance Commissioner.
***
Virginia's rate request data is still trickling in, and it very well could change many times over prior to the start of open enrollment -- but according to Obamacare data aggregators ACASignUps.net, the weighted average of the 13 received rate requests is nearly 18%.
***
Oregon...released proposed health insurance rate requests earlier this month...three health plans comprise practically three-quarters of all enrollees in Oregon's individual Obamacare marketplace, implying a weighted average increase per ACASignUps.net of 27%!"

Obamneycare boosters chanted talking points about "double-digit" annual increases from a decade ago, claiming Obamneycare would end that. In reality, the legislation was designed to increase prices, and it is operating as designed. "Winning!"

curious2 says

etter results for people, including better value for money, would be possible if even one of the two major parties prioritized that. Neither does

Trump does:
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/healthcare-reform

jazz music says

it's...it's

1) Please learn the difference between "it's" and "its"
2) Free market reforms could help enormously for everything other than vaccines and true emergencies, which add up to less than 10% of annual medical spending. What I don't see in Donald Trump's proposal is how to handle vaccines and true emergencies, where we tend to see market failure because (a) vaccines are mostly a public good, like national defense, and (b) true emergencies don't allow time to shop around.

I would really like to see an honest debate between serious candidates proposing real solutions, but instead we get political theater more like reality TV than actual reality. Candidates campaign on reality TV and, if elected, govern in actual reality. Donald Trump's reality TV background helped him get the nomination, but pretending he's nothing other than "a rich guy" or a reality TV star doesn't help. The real question is, what would he do about vaccines and true emergencies? We've experienced Hillary's Plan, and we've heard Bernie's (arguably better but more expensive), but what would Donald's plan be? If it's only "free market," then that probably won't work in those two areas.

Also, his tax deductions (aka tax subsidies) for "insurance" remind me of the mortgage interest deduction (MID), which mainly enables sellers to charge higher prices, especially in markets where supply is restricted. If legislators can continue to tack on an endless list of disproven chronic treatments for "health maintenance" that insurance must cover, then their corporate sponsors will continue to capture the benefit of the deduction (aka tax subsidy). Even if we allow insurance companies to sell true insurance, i.e. coverage against true emergencies, their corporate sponsors will continue to capture any "benefit" from the tax deduction (aka tax subsidy) as long as they can continue to charge unlimited prices for emergencies. I would like to see that issue debated as well, though I doubt that will happen, because neither side would dare question the MID.

http://i.imgur.com/CNjg3cP.jpg

In 2008, Americans elected Democrats to control both houses of Congress and the White House. In 2010, Democrats enacted this disaster. Now, Democrats have lost everything.

I feel truly sorry to have failed to persuade Democrats to reconsider. In my defense, we live in a partisan era of "safe zones," where people recite their preferred partisan narrative and ignore facts that might "trigger" them.

Republicans campaigned on repealing this legislation, and won. Democrats campaigned on keeping it, and lost.

We will see what America loses along with it.

Hillary was the worse possible candidate period. Nobody wanted another Bush or Clinton. She reeked of corruption.