The Affordable Care Act is both bad and good. If you begin with the idea that the current system is broken, with over billing, denial of coverage, pre-existing conditions, so many people left out, long ER waiting times, and the fact that we end up paying for all those sick folks anyway… if you begin there, then some kind of bill was needed. Okay, so what does that look like? Youve basically got two choices… single payer or something that is going to resemble the ACA. No one seems to have any other ideas. My crystal ball says that In a month or so, the numbers of people benefitting from the law will insure that any other problems associated with it will need to be solved, piece by piece. Once access is given, they wont be able to take it away. For example, if it is underfunded because not enough young people sign up… well, the funding will be found elsewhere. If a republican president replaces Obama, he or she will not repeal the ACA, even if they run on that issue. Well all get used to living under the new paradigm. Some parts of it will be an improvement, some of it will suck. Something many people arent aware of… Vermont has adopted single payer as a state. They could become the model for other states, and eventually that could lead to a situation where people in those states are seen as having an advantage, and at that point a federal law may finally give single payer to everyone. I hope to see that in my lifetime. One more point. If you make $50k a year, you pay about $8k in income taxes. Almost half of that is subsidies to profitable companies. Corporations like Exxon who post obscene profits, and yet receive tax breaks from the government, which we have to borrow to pay. Hundreds of billions of dollars could be raised by ending these subsidies. That could be applied to health care, education, shoring up social security, etc… The people in congress who oppose the ACA, are the same people who vote to keep these subsidies in place, or prevent any votes that may threaten them. When they say we cant afford something like healthcare because of the deficit, just remember that same person is giving away HALF of everything you pay, and borrowing to do it. Even military spending doesnt come close to the amount we spend on this.
Posted on: Sat, 23 Nov 2013 11:41:24 +0000
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