<p>Again, “Obamacare” was a conservative proposal originally developed by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank and first implemented by Gov. Mitt Romney. I know he ran away from that in the election and wanted to pretend he had nothing to do with it, but the fact is that Obamacare is already a compromise - the liberal wing wanted single-payer or at least a “public option” to buy into Medicare.</p>
<p>Obamacare is what conservatives came up with as a health reform plan. That’s why calling it “socialism” never had a chance in the court of public opinion.</p>
<p>So, basically, you have no evidence for your positions and can do nothing but fling passive-aggressive ad-hominem remarks at those who challenge them.</p>
<p>There will be no answers until we completely overhaul campaign finance. The electeds can’t see the forest for the green. That hole was dug infinitely deeper by the Supreme Court.</p>
<p>All true, polar. And when one side proposes a plan that was the others side position to begin with, I think it is very easy to see who the adults in the room were.</p>
<p>emily, I can’t come up with an easy solution. But ideas like taking best practices from other countries, and leaving ideology out of it would be a start. Leaving behind statements like “fairness” and “redistribution” would be useful. Keeping the things that work and only look at changing the things that don’t. The reality is, for many people our health care system is working just great. Of course they will resent being forced out of their current system and additionally being taxed highly for something they feel is worse. That seems unnecessary.</p>
<p>I don’t think it is a good thing that health care is tied to work, but if we can still get large companies to offer health care as part of their compensation, then what is wrong with that? But maybe they shouldn’t be allowed a tax break for it, if it is too costly. It seems to me that there could be ways to help people who are uninsured to obtain coverage in a humane way that doesn’t bankrupt them or the country.</p>
<p>I don’t think the people looking for the solutions should be politicians or some sort of ideologists. They should be merely focused on solving the problem without creating new ones.</p>
<p>“So, basically, you have no evidence for your positions and can do nothing but fling passive-aggressive ad-hominem remarks at those who challenge them.”</p>
<p>No. I just remembered you. You enjoy inflammatory discussions that aren’t acceptable for this site any more. I don’t think it’s a good idea to engage with you, as this is an interesting and worthwhile thread. Besides, you are so biased, nobody will convince you of anything anyways, right?</p>
<p>Now I’m going to go all out aggressive and get breakfast before the buffet closes.</p>
<p>“But ideas like taking best practices from other countries, and leaving ideology out of it would be a start.”</p>
<p>Why is it necessary to reinvent the wheel when we know the wheel works just fine? </p>
<p>Why was this same plan lauded as a great solution when it was proposed by the Heritage Foundation but socialism now? </p>
<p>The mandate was originally proposed during the HillaryCare debacle so that people would have to take personal responsibility for their health care costs and have “skin in the game” by the people who are now saying it’s taking away one’s freedom. </p>
<p>And we have kept the things that work. Employer subsidized health care is still in place - it’s not been made illegal or replaced.</p>
<p>I’m confused at why you say this is the same plan as the Massachusetts plan, emily. I am no expert on either plan, but it is my understanding is that the MA plan only dealt with the uninsured. It was not an all encompassing plan, it only affected those who had no insurance with the mandate. I have no idea why it would be compared to a plan that affects every single American, that specifies what insurance must cover, that companies over a certain size must offer a plan that covers what the govt specifies, what reimbursement rates will be, etc. Thousands of pages of changes and regulations.</p>
<p>Straighten me out here. Why do you think that because one aspect is addressed by both plans (everyone gets covered), that they are the same plan?</p>
<p>I would be interested in hearing from people who live in MA, how they like their health care program, if it has changed health care for them. I know costs have gone way up, but I have also read that most people are happy with the plan.</p>
<p>You can’t address “those who had no insurance” without addressing the broader health insurance market.</p>
<p>For example, there is an entire class of people who cannot buy individual insurance at any price due to “pre-existing conditions” - anything from cancer to heart disease to autism. They are known to be at high risk of expensive treatments and actuarially, will be completely unprofitable. Even if you were to require them to buy insurance, nobody would sell them a policy. So “high-risk pools” have to be set up in every state, and those insurance policies must be subsidized by the government to have remotely-affordable premiums.</p>
<p>Beginning in 2014, insurance companies will be required to offer policies to people regardless of pre-existing conditions.</p>
<p>One thing that did strike me about the difference in plans is: " Romneycare depends upon hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from the federal government and so the plan did not raise taxes for Massachusetts residents. Obamacare, on the other hand, is a federal program so its funding comes from new taxes."</p>
<p>Meaning that perhaps the MA plan can work fine for MA because they are getting the funding from the feds and not from their residents. They are getting people from other states to pay for their health care plan, so they don’t have to tax. Someone else is paying for it. It always comes down to that, who is going to pay for it? And a federal program, well, there isn’t the “someone else” available to pay for it, and we don’t have many extra $$ floating around in our budget.</p>
<p>“For example, there is an entire class of people who cannot buy individual insurance at any price due to “pre-existing conditions” - anything from cancer to heart disease to autism. They are known to be at high risk of expensive treatments and actuarially, will be completely unprofitable”</p>
<p>There are some very positive things in the health care law that very few would disagree with.</p>
<p>“One thing that did strike me about the difference in plans is: " Romneycare depends upon hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from the federal government and so the plan did not raise taxes for Massachusetts residents. Obamacare, on the other hand, is a federal program so its funding comes from new taxes.”</p>
<p>So, it’s okay for residents of Massachusetts to get these benefits with the help of my tax dollars and yours to pay for their plan but not for the rest of us to get help from the federal government from the taxes we pay?</p>
<p>“It always comes down to that, who is going to pay for it? And a federal program, well, there isn’t the “someone else” available to pay for it, and we don’t have many extra $$ floating around in our budget.”</p>
<p>So, if no one is willing to pay more how are we going to solve the problem of 50 million people being uninsured? </p>
<p>We have medicaid for the poorest of the poor and medicare for the elderly and all I hear is how bad these programs are and how expensive they are so should we pass a law requiring all insurance companies to cover everyone regardless of their ability to pay? </p>
<p>Should we pass a law limiting the amount of money any insurance company can charge anyone for coverage? </p>
<p>Should we pass a law requiring every employer to provide comprehensive health insurance no matter how many employees they have and provide this coverage until the employee dies? </p>
<p>How do we cover everyone if we don’t offer government subsidies (tax $$'s) to offset the cost?</p>
<p>^^I didn’t say anything about it being okay. I just said that it might be working for them because they aren’t picking up the tab (except whatever their portion of federal taxes is). It’s amazing what can be done if you aren’t paying for the program. Which obviously can’t be done on a federal level.</p>
<p>^ But now with ACA Mass taxes paid to the government will go up, too. </p>
<p>If you don’t want to pay more in taxes or pay more for your own health care than just say so but to pretend that this problem can be solved without any additional cost for someone is disingenuous at best.</p>
<p>“If you don’t want to pay more in taxes or pay more for your own health care than just say so but to pretend that this problem can be solved without any additional cost for someone is disingenuous at best.”</p>
<p>Nobody wants to pay more in taxes, and why would anyone want to pay more for their own health care. But I think many of us are willing to do so, if it would improve the system and cover more people. I certainly am not saying this problem can be solved at no cost.</p>
<p>I think you missed that my objection was not addressed towards the current health care act, but the proposal for single payer insurance that you linked to, adding a massive tax increase and changing the entire system. I am actually quite conflicted about the ACA (sometimes referred to as the UCA), as I like much of it. My main concern is that its purpose is to push us towards single payer, and I don’t know if that’s the best solution.</p>
<p>^ yes, I must have missed that your objection was only to a single payer plan. </p>
<p>In my opinion if most people comply with the mandate and most employers keep covering their employees, ACA has a good chance of succeeding. We will only go to a single payer if corporations decide they no longer will offer health insurance to their employees. If that happens the majority of people in this country, including 99.9% of the posters here, will demand single payer since they would then be faced with paying the whole cost of their insurance versus the subsidized cost they are paying now.</p>
<p>Debating ACA is a moot point for me. It’s done and its here. What I would like to hear at this point is a national dialogue about what individual Americans are going to do to help keep our costs down. I don’t hear enough about that. I feel like I only hear about how we must force everyone to pay more for everyone else’s healthcare. I actually would not have much of a problem doing this if I felt everyone was doing their part to minimize costs. Instead, I feel like Americans are getting fatter and lazier and making bad choices about their health at a time when we’ve never had more good information about how to live a healthy life. I’d like to hear a conversation that doesn’t end up villianizing me for bringing it up and rationalizing everyone as victims of their condition.</p>
<p>In my plan of Medicare for all with the ability to purchase private gap insurance you have both. In fact if employers want they can offer the gap insurance as a benefit.</p>
<p>It’s a myth that Canadians are paying significantly higher taxes than are Americans. That claim is nothing more than a scare tactic, and it’s WRONG. </p>
<p>It’s also a myth that if the US were to implement a Canadian style healthcare system, Americans would have Canadian style wait times. Canadians wait on healthcare services mostly because they have comparatively less healthcare infrastructure per capita there than we have here (fewer hospitals, labs, doctors, etc).</p>