Overall, isn't Obamacare a plus?

I don’t know the answer to your question but how can you call Republicans loudmouths? Democrats are so loud, aggressive and out of control .

It is better than nothing. That is the best that can be said about it.

Anything that helps more citizens is better than something that takes care away from citizens.
I’m in favor of single-payer, much to the dismay of some of my robustly healthy, wealthy family members.

@Aster ok democrats have loudmouths as well. But now after years of LOUDmouthing evil Obamacare, the Republicans find themselves stuck with the red hot potato. The Democrats took a lot of heat for Obamacare, but it’s nothing compared to what the GOP faces in rescinding it. Our Republican friends face the prospect of snatching healthcare away from SOMEONE. And to add insult to injury, they actually believe they can add the standard benefit accompanying all Republican legislation, the requisite and never excluded tax cut for the rich.

@Espiritu Corvus It is better than nothing. But we should all be grateful, simply because despite all of our prejudices, the very fact of Obamacare forces Republicans to attempt to do better. If they succeed we’re better off. Now, how would you say they’re doin so far?

Actually, @Espiritus_Corvus, “better than nothing” is pretty damned fucking marvelous. I had nothing, after cancer. I was priced out of coverage (not “dropped”, but my rates rose to about ⅔ of my income) so I opted to give it up in favor of stuff like living and eating. The ACA allowed me to be covered again. My chances of recurrence are somewhere in the 20–25% range, and rising as I age.

Generally speaking, yes. But it had faults from the get-go. High costs of insurance, medical care, and drugs were sure to be a big problem with it, and I saw that from the start.

@stanleybmanly I’ll eventually decide if the Trumpsters can do better by asking my daughter who was priced out of Obamacare. She loved it at first but soon she couldn’t afford the premiums or deductibles. I’ll keep hoping.

@Aster People have to understand that just as with everything else in this society and to a MUCH greater extent, healthcare is another issue where the rich pull ahead, while a proportion (those with medicare) are sheltered, and the rest of us are LOSERS. THAT is what this is about. Your daughter, my daughter, people who haven’t achieved the magic age of 65 or salaries in excess of 100 grand. There are other folks sheltered from the hail. A Federal job is like a winning lottery ticket, and nobody has better health insurance than the people in DC who decide on just how many losers are going to be hit and how hard. It’s maddeningly unjust and people suffer and die needlessly. Healthcare must be a right.

Nope

While under construction, Obamacare was discussed for at least a year in over 100 public, open forums, with input from insurance companies and state governments (both of which made pledges that, if honored, would’ve helped toward its success, then made little or no effort to honor half of them).

Conversely, this Republican thing has been built almost completely behind closed doors, with only promises to the public that “It’s going to be GREAT !!” (Yeah….great for the tax-cuts it will enable for the wealthy, but terrible for many low-income people on Medicaid).

Obamacare struggles because it had to be watered-down to get enough Republicans to vote for it in the first place.

Now, with shameless mendacity, they insist that it must be replaced with this thing.

Fasten your seat belts…..

@stanleybmanly & @canidmajor Easy, guys. Jesus. After being a medical worker for 23 years, I too became a victim of this shitty system. I had a heart attack. I was offered corporate insurance on every succeeding job, but none of the policies would cover my one defect, a damaged heart. Nothing related to cardiac.

We’re on the same side here. I lived in a country for a decade, a democracy with a thriving economy, that admitted all their citizens—and immigrant non-citizens—into their national Single Payer universal health plan, so I know it works and doesn’t destroy the state economy. In return, the country gets a healthy, productive workforce that hangs in there so long that they’ve had to lower the retirement age to let the new generations in.

Once you’ve esperienced something like that, anything but Single Payer looks like a scam. And Single Payer is the last thing the present majority of our national lawmakers will consider.

So, yes. In my eyes, it is barely better than nothing, which is what we had. Nothing. But still a scam. This thing about fining people who don’t pay in is the most ridiculous part of it. Just take it out of our taxes like they do elsewhere. And give full coverage, no questions asked, from any available doctor.

The present admin wants to bring back pre-existing conditions. Fuck that. It’s a scam.

ACA is a heavily fettered, watered down compromise in the right direction. After experiencing Medicare, I am firmly convinced that the eligibility age should be reduced from 65 to 0.

The tragedy is that the benefits are so blindingly obvious contrasted against the exciudes for putting it off. Taxes might indeed increase, but consider the advantages of a system where health care is no longer a concern for any small business employer, and people no longer have to live in terror of losing or switching jobs because the specter of being uninsured hangs over their heads. The man hours saved in paperwork alone for doctors, patients, everybody involved would be considerable. The current health insurance nightmare is actually so dire that it not only distorts the economy, your insurance situation is rapidly becoming the primary consideration in gauging your position on the economic spectrum in this country. And just notice how the country deals with this situation. For example, it is no coincidence that the banking lobby managed to severely restrict the average Joe from access to and utilization of the bankruptcy laws the instant it was acknowledged that the primary cause of destitution in the country is now a medical diagnosis.

^^Don’t forget the advantages of to small busnesses and individuals of living in a world without ambulance chasers, slip-and-fall scam artists and accident crews that drive up costs and endanger the lives of innocent people on the road everyday.

And the savings in eliminating the insurance corporation between you and the doctor.

Roger that. Insuring others in your auto insurance policy is no longer necessary with Single Payer. The money you save there will more than cover any tax increase you experience, unless the governent is scamming you. I had a spotless record in 1982 and paid over $350 a year, which was significant money then. That year I moved to Sweden, a country with Single Payer. My auto insurance was never more than $28 per year for the ten years I lived there.

And, @Espiritus_Corvus, my first post states that I am all for single payer. However, we don’t have that…yet. So yeah, my second post stands. The ACA is a LOT better than nothing.

Like I said, the great benefit of the ACA is that it forced the Republicans off the dime. There is no way out for them short of depriving millions of people of their current benefits, and make no mistake, those most likely to fall under the axe are red folks, and Trump supporters. It’s would be laughable if not so tragic that the poor souls are prepared to suffer and die in preference to the opportunity to allow the blue places with the money to prop them up as is currently the practice. California and Massachusetts are well on the way to providing universal care to cover our own ignorant rednecks, and when we do, we can probably anticipate a mass exodus of folks from the Redlands with medical problems.