Why this renewed assault? “Obamacare Sucks!!!” declared the former and possibly future president. For those offended by the language, these are Trump’s own words, and I think I owe it to my readers to report what he actually said, not sanitize it. Trump also promised to provide “MUCH BETTER HEALTHCARE” without offering any specifics.
So let’s discuss substance here. Does Obamacare, in fact, suck? And can we believe Trump’s promise to offer something much better?
Republicans have very successfully poisoned the discussion on this topic. Maybe it will help if I start by saying I don’t think private healthcare should exist in any way, shape, or form; I think all healthcare should be public including vision and dental.
Yes, Obamacare is pretty bad. Just like Romneycare in which the ACA is modeled after, it fucks over every single person in poverty. Studies also show that it caused premiums and OOP costs to rise significantly for people that already had coverage when it passed. The fallout of the ACA passing did also have a lot of short term problems, most of them caused by republicans that supported the bill right up until Obama signed it.
Edit: updated to make it clear when and who was affected by rising costs.
Sources, please? Everything I’ve seen says that Obamacare successfully reduced the rise of premiums and costs. The double digit yearly increases in premiums from before the act have disappeared.
I’ve seen the same kind of analysis, IIRC. That ACA effectively held down costs.
Premiums have risen about $7000 yearly since the ACA, the same rate in the 10 years prior
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Here’s an article from NPR where they mention it. I’ll edit my post to make it clear that not everyone saw costs rise
In other words, it has flaws that need to be addressed but we’ve been too busy defending it to have the political capital to do it. We knew there would be some losers, but not nearly as many as before and ten years later costs are actually lower than the CBO projected.
It’s undeniable that it did help people. I’m never going to object to that fact. The reason I don’t think it’s good is because it didn’t do much for the poorest people in the country, the people the bill was meant to help
It was also meant to help people with “pre-existing conditions.” Which it has, immensely. Prior to ACA one could not leave, or it was prohibitively expensive to leave the health insurer one had when first diagnosed with a chronic condition, and therefore could also be unable to leave an employer if said employer provided health insurance. Further, one could hit a payment cap and then be uninsurable, and if a payment was missed one would get dropped and then became uninsurable. I’m guessing millions if not tens of millions now have insurance who otherwise would not. Plans are subsidized based on income which is helpful.
And I’m not disagreeing with you. I will however point out there is Medicaid for the poorest.
… and some of the most needy who were missed, were a few Republican states refusing money to expand their Medicaid programs