So why have 16 of the original 23 failed? Doesn't is bode poorly for the people when four of them fail when the year is barely half-out, forcing them into new coverage where there deductibles start all over again? How could these co-ops, under such expert care of Obamacare architects, not thrive when they do not even have to make a profit?
http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/289847-frustration-mounts-over-obamacare-co-op-failures
Right. Say something new?
President Barack Obama railed against Republicans during an event in Los Angeles Wednesday night, saying the GOP’s willingness “to say no to everything” makes the upcoming midterm elections especially important.
“Their willingness to say no to everything — the fact that since 2007, they have filibustered about 500 pieces of legislation that would help the middle class just gives you a sense of how opposed they are to any progress — has actually led to an increase in cynicism and discouragement among the people who were counting on us to fight for them,” Obama said.
“The conclusion is, well, nothing works,” Obama continued. “And the problem is, is that for the folks worth fighting for — for the person who’s cleaning up that house or hotel, for the guy who used to work on construction but now has been laid off — they need us. Not because they want a handout, but because they know that government can serve an important function in unleashing the power of our private sector.”
Obama said a strong showing by Democrats in the midterm elections could help Washington “break out” of a vicious cycle.
“We’re not going to make good choices unless we break out of this cycle in which dysfunction breeds cynicism, and cynicism then breeds more dysfunction,” Obama said. “We’ve got to break out of it. And that happens during midterms.”
What most people don't understand is that "Obamacare" was DESIGNED to fail...thereby becoming the foremost argument for the controller class to implement a single payer system. The objective from the outset was to wrest control of Americans' healthcare out of their own hands and into the hands of government. In the mad dash for profits, the insurance industrial complex fell for it hook, line and sinker. So, for that matter, did the American people.
Get ready for it, folks. Once the government has a monopoly grip on your life, everything else you regard as precious (in terms of rights) is done. And you will have done this to YOURSELVES.
Hello More:
Obamacare is a patchwork. It's NOT very efficient... It needs to be fixed, but all I hear from your side is you're gonna repeal it - which, of course, will NEVER happen..
I dunno what you don't get.. The BENEFITS of Obamacare are CEMENTED into our system.. You think you're gonna let insurers REFUSE to insure somebody because they have a pre-existing condition??? That'll NEVER happen.. You think you're gonna take young people OFF their parents insurance?? That'll NEVER happen... You think you're gonna TAKE away MILLIONS of poor peoples insurance coverage??? That'll NEVER happen.
The only thing that needs doing is PAYING for it, and you're BEREFT of ideas.
excon
So, what's your alternative solution?
There are three basic workable models for providing health care:
1) Fee for service -- In which case, if you are poor and/or old and/or unlukcy...F**K YOU!
2) Socialization via insurance pool -- In which case, young/healthy/lucky people HAVE to be forced into the insurance pool to cross-subsidize the old/unhealthy/unlucky people.
3) Socialization via public utility -- In which case, everyone pays into the "insurance pool" and everyone receives benefits, just like your fire department, your police department, your roads, your parks, your libraries, your courts, your air traffic control system, etc., etc., etc.
Obamacare was a "best that could be done under the circumstances" stab at solution 2). Do you have a better one?
Finally, a meaty question!
1) I'd have preferred to beef up Medicaid/Medicare (as well as local health departments). Funding could (have) come from a wide variety of sources which wouldn't have pitted group A against group B as socialized healthcare schemes normally do.
2) The alternative to such a Ponzi scheme would be private insurance pools. I believe there's one for Christians (and, now that I think about it, one for the LGBT community).
3) On a local/opt-in level, I'd be amenable to such a system. It's the FORCED participation to which I and many others object.
4) Yes. We could have ended America's self-inflicted healthcare 'crisis' with the passage of one law: make it illegal for healthcare providers to inquire of patients as to their METHOD(S) of payment. Get the insurance industry middle man out of the relationship between provider and consumer and the problem will solve itself. The problem is that, currently, the consumer of healthcare services is not the patient. Any market who's principle source(s) of revenue is/are separate from the ones actually consuming the services is destined to fail.
Ask any person who works or ever has worked in healthcare what the problem is, and they'll be nearly unanimous in their response: "INSURANCE."
@Nimitiz -- I'm sorry, but your incoherent reply boils down to "Things suck as they are"
Well, thank you Captain Obvious.
But instead of picking from options 1), 2) or 3), you tried to have your cake, eat it, give it to a neighbor, and send it back to the kitchen because it was lousy all at the same time.
So, try again. You can even combine 2) and 3) into a single question about socialization because unless the young/healthy/lucky ARE compelled to participate in the pool, no socialization scheme will work. It would be like having a car insurance pool where only people who got into lots of accidents were covered.
Are you in favor of socialization of health care or are you willing to say "F**k you!" to the poor/old/unlucky?
@SKOS -- No, I'm sorry. I thought you wished to have intelligent discourse free of the typical "no, YOU" crap. Thanks for the heads-up. Being new here it's hard to tell the genuine conversationalists from the trolls. With respect to you, the latter, I won't make this mistake again.
That was a great part of that movie!
Scarier even now in context of question!
;)
First, let's be sure we draw a distinction here. Healthcare and healthcare insurance coverage are two different animals. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act which formed those co-ops, has absolutely nothing to do with actually protecting patients or making actual healthcare affordable; making sure that people actually have access to healthcare. If someone can point to places in that almost 1,000 pages of legislative malfeasance where it does I'd love to see it.
What it does do is send a double windfall profit to the health insurance carriers in the form of them being able to collect premiums in exchange for . . . basically, nothing. Monthly premiums are now as much as a house payment (or more) for most families. And with the oppressively high deductibles there's very little risk on the part of the insurance carriers of having to make an actual significant payout.
The second windfall comes from the sharp pencils of the bean-counters at the several health insurance carriers (and with the recent mergers that number is shrinking, so much for that hoped-for competition). Those insurance carriers have come up with ways to show losses on healthcare insurance underwriting, BIG losses. But guess who's on the hook to cover those losses? The US taxpayer.
Yes, the American people have had a "bill of goods" forced down their collective throats. And because of that I fear that the healthcare system in the USA is well on its way to total destruction thanks to that rotten piece of "legislation". Makes me worry about my kids who will be depending on that system to pay salaries high enough to allow them to actually pay back their educational loans. (Getting an MD isn't a small financial undertaking these days.) I'm starting to have serious doubts that they will be able to do that now.
And I see that the leading consensus among those still foolish enough to try and defend it is "well, we think it was broken before so the only way to fix it was to make it worse!". So much for their good intentions.
As PJ O'Rourke once said “If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free.” That iceberg is now starting to roll over and surface already.
@Nimitz -- If you offer up an incoherent reply where you simultaneously advocate for...
A) Beefed up Medicare/Medicade
B) Private insurance pools (which only work if healthy people cross-subsidize the sick)
C) Insist that participation cannot be forced
D) An end to differential pricing of health care (a restriction which, as a libertarian, you would NOT tolerate in any other market)
...I'm going to point it out.
You can accept that and try to develop some greater coherence to your answers...or you can go the route you choose, which is to start the ad hominems instead of admitting you might possibly have uttered something that was not well thought-out. I'm have experience in either route.
Exactly! In a kleptocracy only the government is allowed to extort people, and since health 'care' in the U.S. is increasingly a function of government...
