Love the title…(thanx to Newser)…….
I am sorry but I could no longer resist jumping on the bash Obamacare bandwagon……..it is just too easy……..
Have you heard anything about Obamacare lately? (That is sarcasm and a rhetorical question)…..while I was reading the other day I cam across a opinion piece on Obamacare……
(Newser) – There are many reasons the Affordable Care Act’s rollout has been such a disaster, and sure, some of them have (R)s next to their names. “But a large part of the problem was the underlying ideological outlook that shaped the original proposal,” Princeton professor Julian Zelizer argues in a CNN op-ed. “The ACA was a product of … half-baked liberalism.” Since the 1990s, Democrats have been peddling “jerry-built proposals” that rely on nudging market-based actors in the right direction without spending much money.
That’s politically wise, but “it has come at a huge long-term cost to the strength of the programs.” Unlike, say, Social Security—simple, government-run, and highly popular—these public-private Frankensteins tend to be hard to implement, hard to understand, and easy to demonize. They often fail to address the central issue, while “giving private industry a chance to reap profits off the policy.” That’s all true of the ACA, and it should “be a wake-up call for liberals that it might be worth fighting for something.” Click for his full column.
I know there are those out there that will try and make hay out of the debacle that is the Obamacare rollout….it has become the hot point issue for political pundits….and they talk incessantly about the ACA…..they talk and they talk….and they bitch and moan…..they point and speak….when few give a crap what their opinion is of the law…….but Hell there are radio folk making a fortunate out of bitching about Obamacare while selling you on the idea of gold……so the opinion, in my opinion is a breath of fresh perspective……
Make no mistake…..I have NEVER been a fan of the ACA……..not because of some talking point fed to me by the media but rather because I see it as a conduit for insurance companies to rape the people……but it is better than the options……since there are NO other options it is better than NOTHING which by the way is the solution that the GOP has offered…….I would rather see a single payer system…….
It’s going to be fun when, one day, we notice that Red Shirts have stopped referring to it as ObamaCare™ and start calling it the ACA. That’s how we’ll know it’s been successful.
It’s going to be more fun when the right starts accusing the left of being disingenuous when we call it ObamaCare since that’s not it’s real name. Then they’ll start pointing out the law’s conservative origins and try to take credit for it themselves.
And boy will I laugh..
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As for single payer..
I don’t know. I think I like it. It works well in Canada / UK..
My main concern about it is this: if the government has total control over the ONLY viable source of healthcare, then what happens when the anti-science (*cough* Republican *cough*) and anti-women’s-rights (*cough* also Republican *cough*) folks start tinkering with things as a political platform. In other words, what happens with the government decides all benefits and the Red-Shirts decide to ban abortions (murder!), birth control (sluts!), or live-vaccines (autism, dontchaknow?!)? What happens when they mandate that medically inaccurate scripts be read to patients (they’ve already done this elsewhere) to scare and manipulate them? What happens when marijuana is legal everywhere, but you can’t get it covered as part of your cancer treatment because the Red Shirts say so? What happens when doctors are barred from providing advice regarding safe-sex to homosexuals (god hates fags!)? What happens when the Red Shirts mandate medically unnecessary and physically invasive internal ultrasounds (they’ve done this, too) as a way of manipulating and discouraging women from exercising control over their bodies? What happens when they decide that a vasectomy is against God’s Plan™? Or a tube tying? Or when they decide that certain treatments (HPV vaccine – yup, this one happened too) shouldn’t be given to young girls because young girls just shouldn’t be having sex? What happens when they completely gut any sort of mental health care just because?
That’s what’s keeping me on the fence. I don’t want my healthcare options to be a political football when one of the teams is a nihilist maniac beholden to young-earth anti-evolution anti-science anti-vax wingnuts. The inmates are running the asylum and I don’t want them in charge of my medical care.
Morning Mathius…..I like to use the VA as an example of single payer…..it is run well, at least when the douches in Congress give them an adequate budget…..they control costs and care is excellent and it is a government program…..
Yes, but that’s for vets.
It’s very dangerous to play politics with them. There’s no up-side for the red-shirt there.
But that’s not the case for single payer. They’re going to hit it like a feeding frenzy. Watch..
Right, but it would be a good template for single payer…..this Obamacare does little but make insurance companies more powerful then they were….
Obamacare does little but make insurance companies more powerful then they were….
Yes and no.
Yes, it forces everyone into the pool, and so amounts to a massive inflow of customers to the insurance companies. (side note: dear god, can the media please learn the difference between “insure” and “ensure”?)
And no, because the policies now have a lot of (good) new controls such as requiring them to cover preexisting conditions, mental health, reproductive health, et cetera.
… but that’s not really the value.
Today, tomorrow, next year, there WILL be a government option in the pool. It will happen.
And it will slowly, but surely, eat all the competitors. For profit cannot win on an even playing field. So it’s just a matter of time.
5 years? 10 years? 20 years? Sooner or later, it will have killed off all the competetors and we will have de facto single payer.
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Whether that’s a good thing or not remains to be seen.
The insurance companies will have more people at their mercy…..equals more cash. I hope you are right….but I am more pessimistic….
lobotero said: “But I am more pessimistic….”
I always hated that flipping song….LOL