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Was/Is Obamacare effective? (1 Viewer)

Was/Is Obamacare effective?


  • Total voters
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Its intended outcomes.
What were they?  I did a Google search and found this:

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) has 3 main objectives: (1) to reform the private insurance market—especially for individuals and small-group purchasers, (2) to expand Medicaid to the working poor with income up to 133% of the federal poverty level, and (3) to change the way that medical decisions are made.
Should I base it on this or something else?

 
Yes, what was actually stated by Obama during his push to shove the bill through.   I don’t believe the above to be an accurate synopsis.
Can you be more specific then?  Those three tenants have always been what the primary goal was.  We can tell by the actual legislation produced.  They wanted to give more people access to insurance.  They wanted to make the Medicaid pool larger.  They wanted to alter how medical decisions were made.  

Of course, I am not saying that all these were accomplished.  The first was definitely accomplished is originally designed.  The second was accomplished in some places.  I think the third was accomplished, but for very different reasons than you might guess.  So, if these aren't what you're talking about, then you need to explain a bit better.

 
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Not for me or people like me.  I am retired my income is to great to qualify for subsidies that Obama care offered for health ins.  At the same time I can't afford health insurance if I try to get it anywhere else.  So I am without until I turn 65 in two years.

 
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Here's my argument as per the other thread: the most important thing that Obamacare did was make it so that people with pre-existing conditions pay the same price as everybody else. That's a revolutionary change in health insurance. I was against Obamacare at the time because I believed that it was an unsustainable change- I still do. It would inevitably lead to socialized health care, though the transition might take decades. That remains my firm belief as well.

Once this change was made, it was permanent. The main reason that Republicans in 2017 could not come up with a way to repeal and replace Obamacare was that they pledged to the public that they would continue to protect pre-existing conditions. And that destroyed whatever kind of market based argument they could make, since an insurance company in a free market cannot operate under such a restriction.

So was it effective? Of course it was effective. It changed our health insurance situation, permanently.

 
The idea that it would be perfect and not need to constantly be tuned, amended is crazy. 

There is no other plan, this is a start so it served a purpose. 

 
Here's my argument as per the other thread: the most important thing that Obamacare did was make it so that people with pre-existing conditions pay the same price as everybody else. That's a revolutionary change in health insurance. I was against Obamacare at the time because I believed that it was an unsustainable change- I still do. It would inevitably lead to socialized health care, though the transition might take decades. That remains my firm belief as well.

Once this change was made, it was permanent. The main reason that Republicans in 2017 could not come up with a way to repeal and replace Obamacare was that they pledged to the public that they would continue to protect pre-existing conditions. And that destroyed whatever kind of market based argument they could make, since an insurance company in a free market cannot operate under such a restriction.

So was it effective? Of course it was effective. It changed our health insurance situation, permanently.


Is that true? Is there evidence of that? What if it is coupled with a mandate?

 
Is that true? Is there evidence of that? What if it is coupled with a mandate?
That's my opinion. A mandate would certainly have helped. But in the long term, logic tells me it's still unsustainable.

Look, nearly everybody gets sick and dies. The guy who dies immediately in his sleep or from a massive heart attack is pretty rare. Most people are going to require hundreds of hours of pretty serious medical care, even hospitalization, before they die. And our society is getting older too.

So suppose you sold fire insurance, but you knew that eventually every single house that you sold it for was going to catch fire? It might take a few years, but sooner or later you're going to go out of business.

 
Not for me or people like me.  I am retired my income is to great to qualify for subsidies that Obama care offered for health ins.  At the same time I can't afford health insurance if I try to get it anywhere else.  So I am without until I turn 65 in two years.
A very common story...and you probably paid more taxes than most.

It's disgusting.

 
I don't know how anybody can interpret Obamacare as effective when it was primarily sold to Americans as a platform to reduce costs.   I've provided several articles, all from reputable sources,  that call these lies out.

Another example of poor leftist policy that was passed with lies and broken promises and I suspect part of the reason Trump was elected and may be elected again. 

Yet here we are with 49%(currently) of this largely liberal forum that believes it was a success.  That is quite astonishing to me.  The more I read that Democrats believe it was effective, the more I want to vote Republican.

 
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I don't know how anybody can interpret Obamacare as a success when it was primarily sold to Americans as a platform to reduce costs.   I've provided several articles, all from reputable sources,  that call these lies out.

Another example of poor leftist policy that was passed with lies and broken promises and I suspect part of the reason Trump was elected and may be elected again. 

Yet here we are with 49%(currently) of this largely liberal forum that believes it was a success.  That is quite astonishing to me.  The more I read that Democrats believe it was a success, the more I want to vote Republican.
Where did the vote say success?  I don't read the question that way.

 
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I don't know how anybody can interpret Obamacare as effective when it was primarily sold to Americans as a platform to reduce costs.   I've provided several articles, all from reputable sources,  that call these lies out.

Another example of poor leftist policy that was passed with lies and broken promises and I suspect part of the reason Trump was elected and may be elected again. 

Yet here we are with 49%(currently) of this largely liberal forum that believes it was a success.  That is quite astonishing to me.  The more I read that Democrats believe it was effective, the more I want to vote Republican.
I think this could be an interesting discussion, but would you be willing to leave the political sniping out of it?

 
None of your articles contradict my main point. It was effective because of the benefit for people with pre-existing conditions. 
I agree they do not contradict your point.

Do you agree that Obamacare vastly over promised and to many deceived on the topic of lowering costs for the working class?

 
I agree they do not contradict your point.

Do you agree that Obamacare vastly over promised and to many deceived on the topic of lowering costs for the working class?
Sure. I said so at the time. I don’t really believe it was deliberate deceit though. 

 
Not for me or people like me.  I am retired my income is to great to qualify for subsidies that Obama care offered for health ins.  At the same time I can't afford health insurance if I try to get it anywhere else.  So I am without until I turn 65 in two years.
I’m curious if your situation would have been different pre-Obama care? Or did the rising costs price you out of insurance? Would it be cheaper but still too more expensive than you would like?
 

I wish we tried to work with the legislation to fix its shortcomings rather than try to repeal it, and after failing, try to strip it down to render it less effective. 

What’s the republican plan? I’ve seen cheaper plans with less coverage.  Medical costs are astronomical and vary widely. We have so much wealth at our disposal but we give tax breaks to corporations rather than give people medical coverage. We build new weapons of conventional war when war is no longer conventional. Heck, we audit the armed forces and find a ton of waste and bury the damn report! Link When people say “how do you pay for that” I think the answer is by working for the people. We give money to other countries so they can buy weapons from us. Think about that- we give them hundreds of millions (or in Iraq and Afghanistan 10s of billions) to bolster their security forces, then they buy military equipment from us, giving that tax money essentially to weapons manufacturers. Spend more domestically.

 
Thanks for the link, but it doesn't list the promises from Obama that you are measuring against to determine "failure".  There's plenty there as to why the guy opposes things philosophically.  Problem is several of the "reasons" are predictions on the future that have yet come to bear....when guesses of the future are part of your top 10 of why something IS, you're sort of doing it wrong IMO.  This doesn't seem to be what you were asking originally :oldunsure:  

 
This is pretty much an article about an insurance company pointing the finger at Obamacare and saying "See...look what you made me do" when reality is the response should be "See....this is what I did because I chose my profits and investors over my customers".  So far, several of these articles are in the same vein and don't seem to be talking at all about the actual goal of Obamacare, which you initially seemed to be asking about.  You're jumping all over the place with your articles and it still remains unclear exactly what you're asking.  The opinion pieces you are providing seem to be making your point less clear.  But the impacts to the various markets are WELL documented in the Obamacare thread and get into the predictions of what was going to happen...a good number of those predictions came true if you're genuinely interested on the takes from this forum, they are all in there.

 
This seems more in line with what you were asking initially.  I'll simply point out things like "keep your doctor if you like them" became untrue because hospitals, doctors and insurance companies decided to make business decisions not because the law forced them to.  Right or wrong, there were several "unintended consequences" that the government probably should have seen coming and didn't.

 
As with some of the others, this is an opinion piece from 2016.  This article deals with the costs of Obamacare primarily, which seem to have finally stabilized.  It also mentions the $2500 promise which was stupid.  This article then turns to the choices insurance companies and the industry at large made between shareholders and clients and doesn't really talk about the actual goal of insuring more people.  I'll take a minute to point out our anecdote here in Florida.  Now that things have stabilized, we are actually seeing companies come back into our markets and more choices being offered.  This discussion might work better if we use what's happening current day instead of what was happening almost four years ago and pretending its the exact same situation today it was then. I don't know the insurance landscape all that well though.  I can only go by what we are seeing around us.  We'd need someone like matttyl to help us through that IMO.

 
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I don't know how anybody can interpret Obamacare as effective when it was primarily sold to Americans as a platform to reduce costs.
First, It was primarily sold as an expansion of insurance coverage I know because I was really negative about how light it was on cost reduction measures.  It's the primary reason I didn't believe it would work.  There was plenty in the bill that attempted to keep costs neutral.  Very little direct mandate to reduce costs.  The philosophy was that over time if we change the way we approach healthcare, costs would go down on their own.  I didn't buy it then and I don't buy it now.  There is no question that the bill, as written, was beginning to bend the cost curve a little bit, but not nearly to the levels we need.  And I don't think we'd have gotten to where we need to be cost wise with the original legislation.  It's all but guaranteed that we aren't going to get there now with the changes this administration has instituted....it's gone from bad to worse.

Another example of poor leftist policy that was passed with lies and broken promises and I suspect part of the reason Trump was elected and may be elected again. 
On this, we probably agree more than you realize except for the last part.  The decisions made by this administration to attack the current system with absolutely no alternative has made a bad move significantly worse and is pushing us towards government run healthcare.  I've always been a proponent of a public option policy where the government is allowed into the individual market to compete with everyone else.  They can prove to me that they can do what they say they can in real time and not touch my insurance at all.

Yet here we are with 49%(currently) of this largely liberal forum that believes it was a success.  That is quite astonishing to me.  The more I read that Democrats believe it was effective, the more I want to vote Republican.
You asked if it was effective not if it was a success.  I don't think I am going out on a limb here and saying people answered the question you asked.  The primary goal of this initiative was to expand insurance coverage and medicaid while remaining as revenue neutral as possible.  It did that.  You can argue that you don't think that should be the goal (I know I did).  You can argue it was way too expensive for the little expansion that occurred (I did that too).  Yes, there were promises that the average household would save $2500.  That wasn't the goal.  Yes, there were promises that you could keep your doctor.  That wasn't the goal either.  Again, you can go back to the Obamacare thread and see the discussion unfold in real time as many pointed out there were no real cost reduction portions of the bill and you can read how unhappy many of us were with that fact.

 
I don't know how anybody can interpret Obamacare as effective when it was primarily sold to Americans as a platform to reduce costs.   I've provided several articles, all from reputable sources,  that call these lies out.

Another example of poor leftist policy that was passed with lies and broken promises and I suspect part of the reason Trump was elected and may be elected again. 

Yet here we are with 49%(currently) of this largely liberal forum that believes it was a success.  That is quite astonishing to me.  The more I read that Democrats believe it was effective, the more I want to vote Republican.


I think this could be an interesting discussion, but would you be willing to leave the political sniping out of it?


please clarify
See bolded.  You can make the case for what you want without infusing the partisan rhetoric.  The facts of the case can stand on their own and be compelling.  

 
I’m curious if your situation would have been different pre-Obama care? Or did the rising costs price you out of insurance? Would it be cheaper but still too more expensive than you would like?
 

I wish we tried to work with the legislation to fix its shortcomings rather than try to repeal it, and after failing, try to strip it down to render it less effective. 

What’s the republican plan? I’ve seen cheaper plans with less coverage.  Medical costs are astronomical and vary widely. We have so much wealth at our disposal but we give tax breaks to corporations rather than give people medical coverage. We build new weapons of conventional war when war is no longer conventional. Heck, we audit the armed forces and find a ton of waste and bury the damn report! Link When people say “how do you pay for that” I think the answer is by working for the people. We give money to other countries so they can buy weapons from us. Think about that- we give them hundreds of millions (or in Iraq and Afghanistan 10s of billions) to bolster their security forces, then they buy military equipment from us, giving that tax money essentially to weapons manufacturers. Spend more domestically.
I retired 2015.  I had been checking health insurance prices on and off for a couple of years before I retired it was expensive but I still could have afforded it.  To be honest though even if the ACA had not passed I probably would have dropped coverage.  I know I would have felt it was too expensive even then and a waste of money because I rarely go to the doctor.

Edit maybe if we could break the habit of war we could afford reasonable priced health care.  I have posted this before but here is what we have spent on endless wars since 2001.

https://www.nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/

 
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