So UHC would be better than ObamaCare?



Compared to what?



Families of four with household incomes of/under 94k will receive tax credits. And this isn't going to put currently existing PPOs out of business.

My wife and I are a DINK household with a gross income of ~$150k. She has full coverage with nothing taken out of her check, office visits are $15, prescriptions cap at $15. I have my coverage through work with similar out of pocket but with a $48 premium because entering a family plan would cost $400/mo out of one of our checks. Mine will go up to $54/mo, but she now doesn't have to pay out of pocket for birth control and preventative care visits. Our costs are going down by about $90/yr.

People like us have great coverage through work and total annual costs are going down, not up.

We also don't know how costs will be affected when we have kids, but with less uninsured families deadbeating emergency care, wouldn't our inflation-adjusted costs go down over 15-, 25-year spans? Isn't the status quo currently insured people covering the costs of the uninsured who don't (because they can't)? And won't higher demand for prescriptions that people need but currently can't afford create lower costs with the increased market demand for generics?

Yes your costs are going down. But what you have to look at is if you have to have any kind of surgery. What would that cost be last year verses this year and next. My guess is that will be considerably higher due to higher deductibles. People only look at the money they pay for doc visits and the cost of their pills. The major problem with healthcare costs are not these but rather serious illnesses and surgeries. This has been going on for a lot longer than 2010. It is not specific to The ACA.

are there any other industries that get publicly threatened price increases due to a 30 million increase of customers?



"OMG! Apple sold 30 million more iphones then expected....this could put them out of business!"

Depends on how you define poor.

People getting Medicaid earned <$12,000/yr. People earning between $12,000 and $15,000 (who I would call poor) will now be eligible for Medicaid in states that expanded medicaid coverage. The Governor of Kentucky (in today's NY Times Op Ed piece) estimates that this will account for 308,000 out of the 640,000 now currently without healthcare in his state.

Furthermore the ACA will provide subsidies for "most" of the other 332,000 uninsured according to the Governor.

Your logic is deeply flawed. After this is fully enacted not everyone is going to be covered. That is true.

So it wasn't about making sure everyone gets healthcare. This is also true.

Your conclusion that this is and always was about wealth redistribution masked as health care, is just an opinion and a false one IMO.

There were several goals IMO none of which are what you state above. The primary goal was to enroll enough healthy people in the program such that people with existing conditions or care that exceeded $1,000,000 wouldn't make rates prohibitive. I think a secondary goal was not to kill the Insurance industry during the middle of the financial crisis. A third goal was to ensure that insurance companies were meeting their obligations to customers by not excising them from the rolls when sick and paying at least 80% of premiums towards actual healthcare. And finally to try to attract bipartisan support by choosing a plan that was designed and developed by conservative Rebublicans.

The people who end up uninsured will do so out of choice (that paying a $2,000 fine/tax is better for them than enrolling in health care), they are in a state that did not accept medicaid expansion and the earn less than $15,000 but don't qualify for existing Medicaid, or they are eligible to enroll for free or with discounts but don't realize it.

If you are concerned that money will be redirected from extremely wealthy individuals to poorer people as a result of the ACA you are 100% correct. If you think that the ACA will force wealthy companies to fund healthcare where they previously weren't and think this is part of the "redistribution" well then I think you ought to look at how clever corporations are at passing costs on to customers and/or employees...

As someone who will be affected by rising taxes I can only say I am grateful to have an opportunity to be part of a healthcare expansion that will likely save tens of thousands of my fellow US citizens lives every year.

Oil

Well said, Mr Rick.

spank,

I don't think you understand. The lower middle class dude with cancer and no insurance shouldn't get treatment in raraland, and he spends nothing. Big win. Now, he's going to have insurance, get cured of that cancer, and then have something like a $6k deductible. See how expensive Obamacare is? This is a travesty!

The fire department seems to work pretty well. So does that thing where when you're in trouble you dial 911 and someone comes to rescue you.

I was reading through the healthcare.gov website and came across this:

https://www.healthcare.gov/exemptions/


Alright boys, looks like I found myself a route for exemption.

Which fire department is run by the federal government?

Wealth redistributed to who? Don't think healthy, poor ppl will have more money in their pockets.

Nice goal post shift.

Washington DC fire department?

The Forest Service has a large fire department obviously.

Speaking of emergency services, I still find it pretty lol that conservatives are fine with the notion of having paramedics and ambulances coming to save people in emergency situations on the government's dime, but as soon as the ambulance drops them off at the door of the hospital they're on their own.

I wonder if in the neg/Jim/Rara conservative utopia the service even goes that far? Like why even use the jaws of life or defibrillator? Instead it would be, "sorry mr. Johnson, but we just ran your credit and it looks like its better if we just leave you in that burning car. Good luck and we'll pray for you."

Person in the burning car can choose to opt out of expensive life-saving jaws of life procedure.

Rara wasn't freeloading when he declined to get insurance because he obviously had zero chance of getting into an accident ever.

I do think with some of the implementation issues we've seen, the chances of ACA getting delayed a year are still somewhere above zero. The small business exchanges are a still a bit of a mess, hopefully the individual exchanges are in better shape come 10/1

Let the private charities use the jaws of life on poor people.

The fact that we don't let apartment complexes in the projects just burn to the ground is nothing but wealth redistribution.

To be fair it is pretty clear he has spent his entire career only selling insurance to well off and wealthy clients. How any of this effects people who could not afford of get access to health insurance before is totally outside his sphere of knowledge.

His rich clients are pissed they might have to spend 500 dollars more a year. That people who could not get any insurance at all now can certainly does not offset that inconvenience for his clientele.

It is almost like the ACA has become the perfect "Selfish Ahole" detection device.

It is going to be some thrilling election campaigning.

"While Plumber Tommy was still able to keep his primary doctor, ten other doctors were no longer available to him if he ever decided to change. This has taken a huge toll on Tommy, his family and most importantly his plumbing business."

Currently have like a $10 co-pay for doctor visits, but they waive it for lots of reasons and I don't think I've actually had to pay it for awhile. Will update and be sure to yell at Obama next month when it EXPLOOOOOODES and I have to fork over a hundo just to talk to my doctor for five minutes

I'm totally confused on the Affordable Care Act debate. Someone help...

1) It's primarily Republican ideas.
2) It's worked in Massachusetts.
3) There's already a system in place to cover the uninsured and it's more costly and inefficient.
4) If it doesn't work after implemented, we can repeal or revise it.

In all seriousness, what am I missing?

The current dysfunctional political climate in the US.