A man you can bait with a Tweet

[zoogs]

I'm assuming this was towards me.

 

I fail to see how I "need to get a little dig in at the ACA" when I'm pointing out real problems that still exist within our healthcare.

 

The comment you made was...."the ACA is on track to work well". THAT statement is sticking your head in the sand.

The ACA is on track to work well. What I mean is that contrary to reports that it's collapsing, it's stabilizing. It accomplished a lot, improved enrollment significantly, and was on track to improve on even that. Again: it's not the ultimate ideal, and it hasn't gone without hitches.

 

You've made MANY statements about the ACA being garbage (or "also" terrible; in fact, there is no comparison between the ACA and the proposed alternatives) that I find much more inaccurate in their depiction of what is pretty significant and landmark legislation.

 

All in all, we're sort of picking nits here. The issue I'm taking is anchoring the conversation with "The GOP plan and ACA both suck." I can't quite figure out how much you yourself believe this, since you do seem to have a grounded and reasonable understanding of the ACA's gains. It may just be me, but I'm concerned that this sort of sentiment adopted at large will make it easy for the public to justify (or just accept) the dismantlement of the ACA.

 

As a comparison, Sam Brownback's Kansas governorship. You see similar reasonings when he pursues his aggressive budget plans: this spending is irresponsible, this budget is terrible, etc, etc. Not to say the previous status quo was some paragon of democratic society, but general popular cynicism lets these guys get through. It's why, in my opinion, we have so many relatively moderate people who genuinely didn't take the ACA threats as seriously as they should have because they figured "Healthcare is going to hell anyway, so I want to see what the Republicans can come up with." That's certainly not you, to be clear.

 

This is getting a bit rambling, but I hope you can see what I'm trying to say. I'm not going after you here, just musing on common arguments and perceptions.

[BigRedBuster]

You're delusional if you think the ACA is set up to work well as is.

[zoogs]

Waiting for your excellent head-out-of-sand take on the ACA.

[NM11046]

[BigRedBuster]

Waiting for your excellent head-out-of-sand take on the ACA.

Then you haven't been paying attention. I have said multiple times on this board that what I don't like about either plan is that they don't control costs.

 

I have also said multiple times that the ACA did do some good things with preexisting conditions, insurance exchanges...etc. But, that doesn't make it a good bill. It's not a good bill when you force someone to buy something and then have no ability to control the cost for which they have to pay for what you are forcing them to purchase.

 

The AHCA was a horrible bill because it actually made the ACA worse by taking the mandate away that at least attempted (poorly) to pay for the program.

 

NOTHING in either of these programs gives any motivation from the provider or the insurance company to provide the services at a cheaper cost. A drug someone can buy in Canada for $200 shouldn't be $2000 in the US. A procedure that costs $15,000 in Europe shouldn't cost $150,000 in the US.

 

Now, I have explained this all many times on here over the last few years and you have been on the board. But...all of a sudden you come up with this cockamamie idea that I actually secretly like the ACA. That makes no sense.

[zoogs]

Oh. Well, then, we're back at "The ACA is a bad bill", which I will argue is both unfairly negative as well as the kind of rhetoric that encourages backsliding repeal efforts.

We wonder why the GOP has the brazen audacity to want to take the torch to a goernment healthcare approach. This is why: because people readily latch on to the idea that the ACA is terrible. You are willing to sweep away ALL of its gains as "some good things with preexisting conditions etc" in order to focus on the singular, long-term, fundamental and structural challenge of why drugs and procedures can be exorbitantly expensive in the U.S compared to Europe.

(By the way, the gains aren't merely in the numbers of insured people:

1. https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/the-affordable-care-act-does-control-health-care-costs/

2. http://fortune.com/2016/06/21/us-health-care-costs/

)

My argument is that if you are this amenable to government-involved solutions such as those that exist in Europe, then skewering the ACA at many opportunities over the last few years isn't only inaccurate, it concedes rhetorical groun in a way that pushes American health care policy in the opposite direction of what you want.

Furthermore, almost everyone here who has argued in favor of the ACA acknowledges its weaknesses and shortcomings. And yet every positive thing said about it, however moderated, seems to draw an extremely strong reaction from you -- "head in the sand", "delusional", etc. This is puzzling to me. I feel like you're not seeing the forest through the trees here in a way that the Tea Party vision feeds on. I also feel like that's not your intention.

[ZRod]

BRB believes it's bad because it didn't cover the single most important issue in his eyes, cost. He's not burying his head or unfairly diggin at the bill, he's calling it as he sees it. This is a pretty common complaint with the bill. I see no issue with acknowledging the bill failed to address a major issue and needs an overhaul, we all agree on that. Acknowledging short comings pushes us forward in a constructive conversation, not backwards. Congress drives us backwards...

 

Where is his strong reaction to the positives? BRB usually acknowledges the good things the bill has done without promp.

[zoogs]

Congress is allowed to drive us backwards because we perpetuate this notion that the ACA is terrible. Again:

 

Transforming the current chaotic mélange of health care payment and delivery arrangements into a genuine system will take many years, because current arrangements are entrenched and structured to resist effective cost control.

You can pick out the fact that there is a serious, intractable problem not decisively addressed by the ACA to harp on it, and call anyone who says "The ACA is working well" with caveats as having their head in the sand...

 

...but you should recognize that such rhetoric a) misses the point of the ACA, and b) supports efforts to move policy to less or no government directions. If that aligns with your goals, so be it. If the EU is your model, this is the opposite direction. There's a difference between acknowledging shortcomings, which as you point out is universal, and letting them become completely defining.

 

The very fact that so many people see the ACA as a bad bill sorely in need of immediate overhaul is *precisely* why we have come so close to losing it to the AHCA or worse -- and we're not out of the woods yet.

[ZRod]

But it did fail to address probably the number one concern of citizens. That should rightly drive down its hype, for lack of a better word. I don't think it's fair to blame those critical of the bills flaws for some how giving life to a turd sandwich like the ACHA. That's a reflection of extremism run-a-muck, and people no longer using reason and critical thinking. The end of enlightenment if you will.

[zoogs]

We are *all* aware of the bill's shortcomings and limitations. There are two tracks to take, only one of which is harping on it as a terrible bill that needs overhaul or replacement. There is a logical outcome of that sentiment. Hype is currently the problem with the ACA, is it? Quite the opposite. At least this is my argument: people are generally too negative about it.

 

Additionally, I'm arguing that it's simply not fair to be. First, the number one control of many citizens -- 47 million lacked insurance prior to the ACA -- was simply being insured. We should all be familiar by now with the fundamental problems of unregulated, runaway pricing. Similarly, we should also know that the ACA's principle objective was to get people insured. This is why it's built around the individual mandate, Medicaid expansion, and guaranteeing a fundamental level of coverage regardless of gender identity, preexisting conditions, etc.

 

Take *any* system and you will find it's also complicated: education, taxes, you name it. There will be structural, maybe serious flaws that nobody has a silver bullet for. If incremental policy or programs in any of these areas are to be defined solely by those flaws, then the result is that all such programs are going to be savaged as bad bills. There will never, ever be an ideal perfect solution and there never has been.

 

This is the very definition of letting the perfect get in the way of the good, and I don't think I'm off the mark in saying indulging in this kind of disenchantment leads to outcomes like Betsy DeVos and Sam Brownback.

 

Discussing shortcomings and how to address them has always been on the table. The question we are debating here, it appears to me, is whether we require everyone to get on the "ACA IS A BAD BILL" train in order to be considered reasonable.

[BigRedBuster]

You are trying really hard to pick a fight.

 

The cost of healthcare in this country is astronomical compared to many other developed countries. There are many costs in the US that aren't even in the realm of reality.

 

LINK

 

 

 

This is not a made up problem. It's real. Just stop and think about how much more healthcare we could provide to everyone if our cost was somewhere close to everyone else.

 

Great....more people are on health insurance. Fantastic. I have said that for a long time. But, if they can't afford their premiums or deductibles...what good is it?

 

Those examples I gave on cost of medication or a procedure was NOT exaggerated. Those are real costs we are all paying. If that doesn't change, the system will collapse.

 

NEITHER proposal (ACA nor AHCA) addresses this problem.

 

I'm sorry if I'm a little frustrated at this. My company spent over $2,750,000 in health care for our employees last year. I didn't mistype that. That is just plain ridiculous when I could provide healthcare for employees in another country for one hell of a lot less and nobody seems to think the cost of providing healthcare matters.

 

Let's just stick our heads in the sand and barricade ourselves behind party lines.

[BigRedBuster]

Read the article that graph came from. We are all paying out the nose for healthcare and we aren't getting our money's worth.

[BigRedBuster]

LINK

 

How much is good health care worth to you? $8,233 per year? That’s how much the U.S. spends per person.

Worth it?

That figure is more than two-and-a-half times more than most developed nations in the world, including relatively rich European countries like France, Sweden and the United Kingdom. On a more global scale, it means U.S. health care costs now eat up 17.6 percent of GDP.

 

[JJ Husker]

The ACA has accomplished insuring more people, helped people with pre-existing conditions....etc. With that, it has accomplished something important. I never have said the ACA is 100% bad or horrible or close to blowing up like the Republicans are trying to say.

 

However, the ACA didn't even try to accomplish the biggest problem in American healthcare. Controlling costs.

 

At this point, neither side is even touching the subject. Sure, both will mention it. ACA people claim having more people pay in, reduces the cost for the majority of Americans. ACHA people claim allowing people to purchase across state lines will allow more competition which could lower rates.

 

However, what NEITHER one does is attack the costs at the provider level. THAT is where the problem is and neither providers nor insurance companies have a real motivation to change that with any system we have seriously heard discussed from either side.

 

So....the comment in the above post I responded to was...."The ACA being on track to work well" [/size]It's not....without major changes.[/size]

 

Americans still pay way too much for health care and that keeps going up. OK....premiums aren't going up as fast as before....whoopteee doooo..... I was with a group of friends on Friday. We know a family that claimed when they quoted insurance through the exchange, it was $2400 per month (2 parents and 3 college age kids). We didn't believe it...so, we went and got a quote.....they were correct.[/size]

 

THAT is way out of line.[/size]

/end of discussion on this topic with this post right here. +1

 

The ACA got more people insured and fixed some access problems. But it ignored and did/does nothing to fix the major problem of escalating costs. It doesn't need to be repealed. It needs to be fixed or added to.

[BigRedBuster]

So, let's take that figure of $8,233 and divide that by 2.5. That means Europe spends $3,293.20 per person. Or....a difference of $4,940. You want to give people raises and increase minimum wage??? That right there is almost $5,000 PER PERSON that could drop right in their pockets instead of going to insurance companies and providers.