There seems to be one big worry of certain Republican Obamacare opponents. What if people end up liking it?
After all, many of the same arguments against Obamacare were used against Social Security and Medicare (“It’s socialism! It’ll bankrupt us! We will lose all our freedoms and the world will be encased in fire and brimstone!”). Yet here we are, fifty years later, and most people seem to like those things just fine.
Does this man look worried?
Worse yet, Obamacare is working. Kids are not being thrown off their health care for pre-existing conditions. Young adults stay on their parent’s health care longer. People are getting refund checks from their insurance companies who had overcharged them before. And in states that are working to implement it, health care insurance costs have gone down.
Why, if this works, people might actually realize it’s not a bad idea, and may even (shudder) vote for Democrats!
So the GOP has gone into overdrive, banging its head against the wall, trying every damn thing they can think of to stop something that was passed years ago and has no chance of being repealed.
Because the horror of what may become of them if it works is too terrible to imagine.
ventrellaquest.com 
The first qualitative aspects of Obamacare are working. The first quantitative aspects are stuttering (no, insurance costs are _not_ going down everywhere, and after the “land grab” phase, they are still expected to rise). But the bulk of the guaranteed customer base for the insurance industry doesn’t take effect until next year.
Social Security is _still_ heading us for a national debt crisis (mostly because Congress is congenitally unable to deal). The SSA has been cashing in their “iron-clad lock-box” moneys for almost four years now, and the Treasury has had to cover that with more borrowing.
But I’m glad you brought up Social Security and Medicare as examples, as they are two of the largest three items on the Federal budget (“defense” being the other). They are indeed well-liked by the public, to the point that many still call them “third rail” issues: piss on them and die (politically). It took demographics forty-five years before Social Security taxes had to be revamped (which has crushed young low-income earners), and thirty years after _that_ demographics are requiring increases in the retirement age just to keep the whole thing afloat.
What if it takes the ACA longer to start dragging on the economy (and I remind you, poverty is bad for health) than it takes Americans to adopt it as another third rail?
(Mind you, none of this is intended to excuse contemporary Republican rhetoric on the issue, nor support any current Republican plans to provide more corporate welfare to the insurance or pharmaceutical industries.)
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Once more, I only like Obamacare as opposed to the Republican plan of doing absolutely nothing (“I-don’t-care”).
A medicare-for-all plan would actually bring costs down even more, by cutting out a middleman (insurance companies) that provide no health care whatsoever, and by distributing the costs over all Americans instead of just those in whatever specific health care plan you’re currently in. It would also help business by relieving them of health care costs, allowing them to hire more workers and increase profits.
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No, you’d be replacing one middle-man with another (government). And it might shift around the burden, but it wouldn’t “relieve” businesses of health care costs; it would just be called “taxes”.
Unfortunately, the whole health-care system in our country is so mired with 70+ years of meddling, it would take something absolutely revolutionary to cut this Gordian knot.
I say we start with advertizing just how much procedures cost. It’s impossible to shop without that kind of information.
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You Socialist, Mike! 🙂 How dare you be rational at a time like this? You are in danger of making too much sense!
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One reason that the plans are cheaper EVERYWHERE is (which I found out after doing some research) the fact that the states that are seeing an increase had such horrible “base” insurance plans that even the minimum plans that are required in the new bill are a vast improvement. I’m not sure that people understand that each state determines separately what plans can be marketed. In some cases the plans that are allowable in the states are so distressingly bad that they can barely be called insurance at all.
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Well, Mark, I’m a small business owner and I’m spending over $5000 a month on health insurance. Will my personal taxes go up $5000 a month if we had a medicare for all plan?
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You’re replying to Mark, but your reply appears to be directed to Sam. Depending on how comments, etc. get notified, Mark may not have seen your question.
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