Is the new universal healthcare in America going to be good? Are people happy about it?

I think many of us are unhappy that it is not true single payer universal health care and many others are unhappy that “socialism” is running rampant so I don’t think anyone is really happy. And no-one really knows yet how it is all going to work since it seems to be a horse put together by a dysfunctional committee so I don’t think there is great glee throughout the land.. But I do think it is an important first step.

See, that’s the problem. Too many people know little or nothing about the Patient Protection and the Affordable Care Act and so are afraid of it.

The Administration is partly to blame for not doing better education, but I believe we citizens need to do our own research, too, rather simply believe the naysayers. There’s plenty of great info out there if we’re interested enough to look for it. Here is a place to start.

Et ça commence…

I am very lucky that I have good health insurance through my graduate school. In part, I entered graduate school because I needed that guarantee. I could not just drift from job to job without benefits. I would be spending $600 a month easily if I paid out of pocket for all of my live-saving medicine. (And I would die in about a week without it.) When I was a child and diagnosed with my disease, my dad had to stay at his job to keep our health insurance. It limited the whole course of his career because he could not afford to change jobs.

Let me tell you about a friend of mine. He is hard working and brilliant, but had to drop out of college to work to help support his parents. As a result of that, he is working long hours but never-quite-full-time in retail, so his employer does not have to give him benefits. He has asthma and epilepsy. Both conditions are getting worse because he cannot afford medicine or doctor’s visits. He borrows friends’ inhalers sometimes, but it is not enough. He knows that the epilepsy could kill him any day, and lives a very precarious and fatalistic life. Far too many people in the U.S. are in his position for us to call ourselves a First World country.

I agree with @janbb. No one seems to know how the health care reform will work out. But in my opinion, the Americans who disdain it simply because it is “socialist” or because it was created under a Democratic and slightly dark-skinned president, and who have never had to choose between medicine and food, or lost their house because of an unforeseen medical crisis, need to get their heads out of their asses and learn some empathy.

What’s wrong with somebody else paying your bills? Sounds like a sweet deal to me.

Plus, part of the administering of the plan will be done by the IRS.
That means the most powerful and intimidating (and now possibly corrupt) agency in the Federal Government, will also know if you ever had an STD, or a pregnancy you never told your parents or spouse about.

How could anybody be unhappy?

What universal healthcare?

Before this charade started, the US was ranked at the very bottom of the developed world in healthcare outcomes, and at the very top of the developed world in cost per capita of healthcare. Compared to all the other developed nations, we spent nearly 2 times as much of our GDP on healthcare. In other words, our previous system stunk like rotten fish.

The Affordable Healthcare Act fixed a little of what was wrong with the world’s most expensive and largely dysfunctional healthcare system. It did not go nearly far enough. And the comedy of it is the Owners of America have propagandized all their right-wing minions into high-gear hate, leaving them determined to undo what little good the AHA did and go back to spiraling insurance premiums, insurance that only counts as long as you stay healthy, exclusions for all preexisting conditions, loss of healthcare when you lose a job. In other words, business as usual for your Owners. They get richer and you get screwed to ensure they do. But until there is a cure for stupid, I am sure we will repeal and replace till we get back to what was best for our Owners—you know, the Creators.

It’s too soon to say whether or not it will do as much good as we hope, but in general, I’m with @janbb. I’d much rather have true universal healthcare with a single payer, but this is the best we’re going to get at the moment.

According to some articles I read, more than 90% of the people haven´t been informed, and don´t know that they´ll have to pay more taxes if they opt out of the health insurance, for example. Most people I talk to in government offices admit they don´t really know for sure how it will play out, either. :o