3301

I mean, we all understand that very, very few voters who hate Obamacare have any fucking clue what the ACA does and what its impact on the medical-industrial complex is, right?

Morons. Time to restrict the franchise. Or fix education. Either way!

3302

The market for health insurance in the United States must, the Justice Department’s respectable lawyers tell us, be destroyed, because that is what Congress would have wanted. But not just yet. Not until January 2019—after, in other words, the midterm elections. What Congress seems to have intended, in other words, is the destruction of a law most of its members will not vote to repeal—but only when the now-impoverished electorate’s power to punish those responsible will be at its absolute nadir. The audacity of that icing on this cake is so brazen as to, almost, be admirable.

3303

Just in case anyone was wondering whether today’s GOP is literally evil or not.

3304

At the risk of interfering with your plans to implement re-education camps and ensure people you don’t like cannot vote (and people say Trump’s a fascist!), keep in mind the CBO under Obama found that 71 percent of the uninsured simply couldn’t afford healthcare; only 3.5 percent of the uninsured were ruled out because of pre-existing health conditions. (https://www.cbo.gov/publication/14426).

How is Obamacare doing at keeping down costs? Not great – in fact, it’s atrocious. Obamacare premiums for families have increased more than 140% since 2013, and more than 100% for individuals. Some more from CNBC on the “crushing” Obamacare price hikes last year: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/11/these-folks-dont-get-obamacare-subsidies-now-and-it-is-really-costing-them.html

The one thing that arguably made it possible under the Obamacare framework for insurers to cover people with pre-existing conditions was the individual mandate that required everyone to get insurance or pay a penalty. The penalty for not buying insurance will soon gone, per Congress, and with it went the Supreme Court’s last-minute constitutional justification for upholding the individual mandate as a “tax.” I’m sort of perplexed why even proponents of Obamacare keep supporting what remains of it in this context, since premiums will only continue to skyrocket without the mandate, to unimaginable levels.

Several lawmakers, citing Trump’s longstanding statements that coverage should be universal, have put forth plans to subsidize people with pre-existing conditions directly, such as with tax credits, since the number of them is relatively small. That’s seems like it would work well – it’s the easy part. Bringing down costs for everyone requires a better law than Obamacare.

3305

The number is approximately 60 million, if you ignore people over 65. That is not remotely small.

3306

Are we really going to argue with the guy who’s suggesting that what we had before the ACA was working just fine, so why’d we have to go mess with it?

This is post 3290, not 5. We’ve gone around and around about the ACA, why it was the best first step, what it was meant to do and what it wasn’t meant to do, and more. There’s absolutely no reason to rewind all this because some new guy showed up making the same tired old arguments.

3307

No one said that

I said “relatively” small, ie in comparison to total uninsured population, but where are you seeing your figures?

3308

Now link the CBO report that shows that while costs have and were expected to rise under Obamacare, they rose less than they would have without Obamacare.

I’ll wait.

3309

Oh, Christ. This isn’t a pissing contest about whether Obamacare is better than the alternative circa 2008. I never made the argument, nor is it relevant. No one is making this a “my side vs. your side” other than you.

3310

Nah, I’ll spoil gman’s next post: opening up insurance across state lines is totally the answer. It would solve everything and this is a novel argument that hasn’t been covered in hundreds of posts already in this very thread.

Or maybe he’ll throw out the old “you get to keep your doctor” chestnut. Also totally original.

Seriously, though, gman, really. In all these years, the right hasn’t come up with a single new solution to the problem. Not one workable plan to even address what the ACA was doing, much less actually control costs.

Their solution is to just go back to how it was before.

3311

I actually cited a GOP lawmaker’s plan that isn’t “go back to what it was before.” There’s definitely alternatives.

Big whiff

3312

You know what other word describes “subsidizing people with pre-existing conditions”?

Insurance. That’s what it is. And a Republican plan to subsidize people with pre-existing conditions with tax credits is pretty much the ACA. It would never, ever pass this Congress and you know it.

3313

I don’t know why you keep engaging him. He chases you and Timex around to random topics to start ridiculous arguments, just look at the first part of his first sentence, and when he’s done making wild accusations he ends with some sort of question to have you do research he won’t read and will readily dismiss for, whatever reason… now let’s see if he followed the ole Trump supporter handbook… yep.

3314

I just need to go to one of @inactive_user’s re-education camps and lose my right to vote, and I’ll be good. Whose handbook is that, by the way?

He replied to me in this thread. What are you even talking about?

3315

This might be the case. If they don’t preserve protections for pre-existing conditions, that’s a huge failing, because there’s clear ways to do it.

3316

Dude, go home, you’re drunk

3317

The other fun option is to say something like: “we’re going to dedicate $50 million for tax subsidies for pre-existing conditions!” then pretend like it’s mission accomplished.

When in reality it needs something more like $50 billion.

I don’t know what the real numbers are, but that’s been another favorite tactic in the past.

But again, I must point out the hilarious irony of any Republican who rails against the individual mandate, but then suggests tax credits as a solution for anything. They’re the same god damn thing.

3318

The cost of healthcare, while continuing to go up after the implementation of the ACA, actually stabilized compared to its trend prior to the ACA. In the 8 years prior to the ACA, healthcare costs in the is were growing at a rate of around 6%. After implementation of the ACA, growth stabilized at around 3%

So, while controlling costs was not a chief goal of the ACA, it actually did achieve this.

This is a really critical piece of information that opponents of the ACA never mention… That healthcare costs in the US were skyrocketing prior to the ACA.

3319

Agree with all of that. Costs are still too high when “stabilized,” and have become very much un-stabilized in the past two years.

3320

But the fact remains that your criticism was ill founded.