Which Healthcare System Do You Choose Saturday Political Soap Box 80

Which health care system do you choose?

Here are the three choices:

1) Single payer.

2) Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act)

3) the Scroogian/Randian/Darwinian system that existed before the ACA.

My best guess is that the majority that answer this, if they answer at all, would say NONE OF THE ABOVE, or some mysteriously vague fourth way.

Well, you don't have that choice.  And you are fooling yourself if you think that you do. None of the above, for the most part, is the default answer leading to number three.

The Republicans have no coherent alternative.  That is partly because there is no incentive to them to offer one.  They get more mileage out of being vague.  But the biggest reason they have no coherent plan is because.......OBAMACARE IS THE REPUBLICAN ALTERNATIVE.

Forged from ideas first proposed by Republicans in the mid-nineties, refined in the fires of the highly conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, successfully put into practice by Governor Romney in Massachusetts, this is in large part a Republican plan.  It preserves the private health insurance industry, creates private marketplace exchanges, and insists on individual responsibility.

The only alternatives are inadequate and nonsensical.  Tort reform?  Been there, done that in over half the states and it has made no difference to health care costs.  Interstate selling of health insurance?  All that creates is a race to the bottom towards the least regulated state and the crappiest plans with the biggest hole and gaps and exclusions in coverage.  If there are any other ideas coming from the right wing, I have not heard them.

Myself?  Single payer, no question about it.  Private insurance companies are the PROBLEM, not the cure.  The profit motive has no place in health care, especially when it comes to middle men.  And single payer is not reinventing the wheel.  It is by far the most common and successfully deployed system in the industrialized world.

As for the third choice, I cannot believe any rational person would want to return to a system where any one can be denied health insurance any time for any flimsy reason that the private insurers can come up with. Where families can go bankrupt because their loved ones coverage gets capped or procedures denied.  Where you have to fear that if you lose your job you lose complete access to the insurance market, or are priced out of being able to handle it.  Where you pay for the flood of people who come into the emergency care system without insurance or the ability to pay. Where you spend hours and days fighting health insurance companies over paper work and whether they're going to cover anything at all.  Where you have to raise money just so sick children can get basic care instead of concentrating your resources on fighting for a cure.  I could go on and on and on and on.

I guess it may come down to what's most important to you.

Is it your OWN policy and its cost?

Is it the tens of millions that are uninsured that you want to get access?

Is it having a policy that will be there when you need it?

What is it that you value?

I prefer single payer, but I am willing to compromise on the Affordable Care Act.  It is a significant step in the right direction, and for whatever flaws it has, has the potential to get better over time IF our politicians work together to improve it.

Please.  I really want your input!  Which of the three do you choose?

I also want to mention the passing of a great local Democrat and wonderful human being, Dave Leach.  I did not know him well, but everything I knew was completely positive.  My condolences to Carolyn Greer, and all those that were close to him.  Even though eventually our bodies fail us, the brightness of our spirit, and the love we have shared with others, lives on.

UPDATE:  After some initial difficulty with the website launch, the Affordable Care Act has been a greater success than even I imagined.  Enrollees exceeding projections, insurance costs have NOT skyrocketed, millions upon millions have gained affordable access, people are not being booted for preconditions, and more children and young adults are being covered than ever before.

Kentucky, home of Rand Paul, Mitch McConnell, and a state full of people who have decisively voted against Obama twice, the Affordable Care Act has been through the roof successful.  The uninsured rate in Kentucky has been cut 40%!!!  And yet, OBAMACARE continues to be wildly unpopular.  They call their VERY popular system KYNECT , which is their state exchange, WHICH IS OBAMACARE.  C'mon, Kentuckians... you can't possibly be that dumb!  MOST CURRENT UPDATE:  I don't know any way else t oexplain this, but yes, Kentuckians were that dumb.  They voted to return Mitch McConnell to the Senate, as he vowed to repaeal Obamacare, and never connected the dots to Kynect.  But I also blame a cowardly Democratic candidate Allison Lunden Grimes for no coming to the defense of Obamacare, and not emphasizing the Kynect WAS Obamacare.

Since I posted this over six months ago, I have as yet received NO Republican/conservative responses to this question.  If you have any plan or idea as to how to cover everyone, please....let's hear it.

I'm waiting.