Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop
(1) I posted something about Medicare, not the ACA.
(2) Your second sentence is wrong.
(3) I agree that the Democrats fucked up the politics of healthcare. To put it simply, and this goes beyond healthcare, I think Obama stopped investing in the political struggle, focused on governing, and thought that good results would speak for themselves. Either they didn't, or they did (the Dems picked up House and Senate seats in the last election) but HRC was a bad candidate.
(4) With regard to the ACA, people don't distinguish very well between what is happening in the healthcare market generally and what the government is doing. So they hold things like price increases against the ACA, even though prices would have gone up anyway.
(5) Because of (4), once Trump and the GOP start messing with the ACA, the Pottery Barn rule will apply, and people will blame them for the mess that is our healthcare system.
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The reason that people don't distinguish between ACA and the healthcare market generally is that ACA failed to provide an affordable means for lower income people to obtain health care. They should have set up a public option. They failed to do so. As a result, too many people are left in the unfortunate position of being forced to pay either a premium they can't afford for coverage that is illusory, or paying a penalty they can't afford for failing to obtain a policy that doesn't provide any actual benefits.
The ACA was a good bill in the limited sense that it did way with lifetime caps and pre-existing conditions. Other than that, it's about as useful as tits on a bull.
