While we hear partisan for and against, often ridiculous and misleading, from both sides -- most on the left either do not realize or conveniently ignore that this plan further marginalizes single-payer advocates, reduces the possibility of single-payer in the future, and further entrenches the for-profit monopolies on health insurance --- all with little regulation, riddled with loopholes and waivers for Big Insurance, and often presenting very real problems to a vast number of middle and lower income Americans (both the formerly insured and the formerly uninsured). The article goes into depth as to why assertions made from the Democratic left, praising the law, fall seriously short and are deliberately misleading. :::: The health care crisis had grown to such proportions that by the 2008 election it could not be ignored. It was a major topic of the presidential campaigns. The health industries knew this and invested heavily in the candidates. Candidate Barack Obama overwhelmingly received more in donations from health care-related industries than any of the other candidates. [...] In the case of the ACA, the foundation began with the health law passed by Massachusetts in 2006. The template was created by Stephen Butler of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. The law was passed under a Republican governor, Mitt Romney. The next task was to sell this idea to Democrats. [...] Democratic leadership in the Senate actively worked to keep the public option from being included in the Senate health bill. [Americans for Prosperity and the Tea Party] called [the ACA] government-run and opposed its fictional Death Panels. This served to energize the progressive groups to rally around the president and come out strongly in favor of the law. [...] The public option was whittled down to nothing, [and] support for the law became a partisan statement of support for President Obama. [...] The fundamental flaw of the ACA is that it entrenches a market-based system that treats health care as a commodity and profit center for Wall Street. The big drivers of the rising cost of health care - insurance, pharmaceuticals and for-profit hospitals - continue.
Posted on: Wed, 30 Oct 2013 19:43:06 +0000
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