(07-12-2019 07:14 PM)Rice93 Wrote:  

(07-12-2019 05:44 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(07-12-2019 10:16 AM)Rice93 Wrote:  I didn't say that I am "happy with it". It's an imperfect solution to the issue of getting additional people insured.

That is an overly favorable characterization. It basically screwed as many people as it helped. Some people who were previously uninsured were able to obtain health insurance, while some people who previously had health insurance were forced off their plans by economics.

Quote:It certainly has a lot of problems. Every proposed solution to redoing healthcare does. I'm still waiting for the GOP's amazing healthcare plan.

Obamacare combined the worst aspect of our prior system (tying health insurance to employment, a democrat idea from the post-WWII era) with the worst aspect of single-payer/single-provider systems (one-size-fits-all bureaucratic decision-making infringing on the doctor-patient relationship). Bismarck universal private care solves both those problems. The systems using it are generally accepted as best in the world. Why republicans won't go there is mystifying to me. I understand why democrats don't want it. It actually provides health care instead of bureaucratic micromanagement and control over people.

I honestly have no idea as to the number of people screwed over by the ACA as opposed to those helped by it. It strikes me, though, that the 2018 elections seemed to indicate that more people were in favor of maintaining it than doing away with it. If I remember correctly, it seemed that polls suggested that the ACA was reasonably popular.

I think the blue-collar working-class voters who surprised the oddsmakers and went for Trump in 2016 were largely those who were screwed by it. I think that when republicans fumbled the ball and failed to come up with a replacement, they did not support the party in 2018. Neither you nor I knows for sure at this point, but we are both free to make our guesses.

Basically, Obamacare was a zero-sum game. It could not help anyone without screwing someone else. The only way to avoid that result is to pump money into the system. Otherwise, you are just reallocating the same resources, and you can help Paul without robbing Peter. Actually, when the delayed cost controls kick in, it will become a negative sum game. You can't artificially constrain prices below market levels without creating excess demand leading to waits and queues.