It's exhausting.
It never stops.
The unceasing nattering over "Obamacare".
The website has glitches. Wow. That's never happened before. Glitches in tech roll outs are legion and legendary. Do you throw out your iPhone rather than take the umpteenth update to fix glitches from the other umpteenth updates? Do I wish the website was flawless? OMG, you don't know how much! One more excuse for the ceaseless nattering! But it's a troubled access point, not the program itself.
Some people may "lose" their plans. Yeah, their piece of junk substandard plans that won't be there when they need them, and will either lead to bankruptcy or YOU AND I footing the bill! A lot of hub bub so people can keep worthless JUNK.
Please understand. Conservative Republicans and blue dog Democrats wanted us to keep private insurers. I don't know if you've gotten the memo, but private insures don't operate in YOUR best interest, they operate in THEIR best interest. They are the ones cancelling the plans, not the President of the Untied States. And you know what? They do it EVERY year. And under the old system, they would do it if you cost them too much. Or if they found out about a pre-existing condition. Or if you failed to fill out the trick paper work to their satisfaction. Do the natterers want us to go back to THAT?
Right now, many private insurers are sending letters to those who hold individual policies stating that they are cancelling their plans. And then they offer a new, more expensive plan to take it's place. It is a TRICK and a SCAM. They want their policyholders acting instinctively, without checking the exchanges. Virtually all the time, there is a better deal than what their insurance company is offering them.
Are some people's health insurance costs going up? Maybe. You can't reform things without changing things. As things get set, some younger people over 26 and earning MASSIVE amounts of money and therefore not entitled to subsidies, may have to pay more. As people get improved policies their premiums may go up, but their protections, out of pocket caps, preventative care, etc,, will improve. If they look at what they're getting holistically rather than in chunks, there are very, very few people in the country who will be worse off.
I keep getting told...why don't you liberals and progressives compromise?
Why?
BECAUSE WE ALREADY DID. This is THE compromise. This is the Republican congressional plan of the 90s, the Heritage Foundation proposal, and Romneycare. This is what Republicans were proposing until their all-consuming hatred of the President of the United States turned them into TeaZombies.
The alternatives?
Universe health care, single payer, medicare for all. Increased payroll tax, and tax on unearned income, covers everybody. No more private insurers skimming all the blood they can.
OR, we can return to the Dickensian nightmare from which we came.
Your call, natterers. Your call.
The problem is almost no one understands the workings of insurance. I would have REALLY liked to see much more information regarding the ACA prior to the rollout. Repeated soundbites would have been nice. People absorb that kind of information. I have been involved in technology rollouts for many years. I must admit that this is extremely larger than anything I was involved in, but it had way too many problems to even convince me that it was tested appropriately. Knowing that this would be my legacy, as the POTUS, I would have had round the clock testing for months prior to the rollout, not after. Ammunition, ammunition, ammunition. Another fail is the "keeping your insurance, period" issue. All that had to be added was "as long as it meets standards" and then explain it. This whole fail comes down to no one explaining anything. People need to be spoon fed. They do not research, investigate, or query anything. We are a society of believing almost everything we hear. This whole rollout should have played to that weakness.
ReplyDeleteDon't get me wrong, I am ALL for the ACA. Unfortunately, this has become a negative for the President right now.
I agree. The computer glitches are driving me crazy, and I am very upset that it was not more thoroughly tested. The big failure is in not anticipating early on that every Republican controlled state would behave badly and not cooperate, and therefore overburden the federal exchanges, which technically, if everyone cooperated with the best interests of their states in mind, should NEVER have been necessary.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what to say on the keep your insurance line. I've seen footage of Hilary Clinton in 2007 and 2008 using that to describe her plan, which also focused on an individual mandate.Again, they should have anticipated that private insurers would do everything they could to squirrel around the law and do whatever it took to enrich themselves.