Obamacare and you

[merithyn]

I don't know that it is worse and I guess people being forced to have it might gear us up for a more sensible system. I think I said before though that I don't know enough to say whether or not it is an okay basis.

I accept that I may have a very skewed view of all of this since I work in the health/healthcare insurance field. On top of that, I went 18 months without insurance, and I'm still paying off the $10,000 that cost me. (I couldn't get private insurance since I have a history of high blood pressure.) Making healthcare available to everyone has been very important to me for a lot of reasons.

I would think probably Obama's legacy was why it was suddenly important.

Yeah, I'd go along with that. I'm not sure what the crisis was either, but I thought it was pretty important, so I'm willing to accept what came from the "crisis."

[alfred russel]

I think the crisis was well known and long term....we spend far more than almost every other countries on healthcare, seem to lack better outcomes than other industrialized countries, and fail to provide a large segment of our population access to healthcare.

The urgency of working on it right away was that Republicans were going to be dead set against significant reform, and Obama needed to take advantage of majorities in both houses (and at least for a while a supermajority in the senate) plus his post election popularity. Even with those factors it barely passed.

[garbon]

I think the crisis was well known and long term....we spend far more than almost every other countries on healthcare, seem to lack better outcomes than other industrialized countries, and fail to provide a large segment of our population access to healthcare.

Yeah but that wasn't something new or suddenly pressing.

The urgency of working on it right away was that Republicans were going to be dead set against significant reform, and Obama needed to take advantage of majorities in both houses (and at least for a while a supermajority in the senate) plus his post election popularity. Even with those factors it barely passed.

I don't. I almost wonder if Obama was one of our least auspicious presidents to have work on such an important venture.

[Valmy]

The urgency of working on it right away was that Republicans were going to be dead set against significant reform, and Obama needed to take advantage of majorities in both houses (and at least for a while a supermajority in the senate) plus his post election popularity. Even with those factors it barely passed.

Yeah.  He had a mandate to do something and he was handed a majority to do it.  And it was a complete failure.

[Razgovory]

Yeah, I never understood that either.  The whole healthcare 'crisis' thing seemed to come out of nowhere.  First the economy was a big crisis (which I think was entirely accurate to say), but then out of left field it was all OMG HEALTHCARE IS BROKEN WE NEED TO FIX IT NOWNOWNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Before like 2008 nobody really talked about healthcare being so broken since Bill and Hillary's first term when they had tried to fix it.

except the system has been recognized as a failure for a long time.  Before the economy fell apart Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton were debating how to fix it during their primary.  The deficiencies of the current system caused George W. Bush to try patch it with Medicare part D.

[Razgovory]

I think the crisis was well known and long term....we spend far more than almost every other countries on healthcare, seem to lack better outcomes than other industrialized countries, and fail to provide a large segment of our population access to healthcare.

Yeah but that wasn't something new or suddenly pressing.

The urgency of working on it right away was that Republicans were going to be dead set against significant reform, and Obama needed to take advantage of majorities in both houses (and at least for a while a supermajority in the senate) plus his post election popularity. Even with those factors it barely passed.

I don't. I almost wonder if Obama was one of our least auspicious presidents to have work on such an important venture.

What would make it pressing in your book garbon?

[Valmy]

Yeah, I never understood that either.  The whole healthcare 'crisis' thing seemed to come out of nowhere.  First the economy was a big crisis (which I think was entirely accurate to say), but then out of left field it was all OMG HEALTHCARE IS BROKEN WE NEED TO FIX IT NOWNOWNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Before like 2008 nobody really talked about healthcare being so broken since Bill and Hillary's first term when they had tried to fix it.

except the system has been recognized as a failure for a long time.  Before the economy fell apart Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton were debating how to fix it during their primary.  The deficiencies of the current system caused George W. Bush to try patch it with Medicare part D.

Yeah I am not sure where Cal got that from.  The system is dangerously broken and could tank the entire economy and ruin the Federal budget.  It needed reform.

[Valmy]

They're mad because their boyz signature legislation is a clusterfuck. Oh, and they have no arguement for his lies to the American people.

It was a clusterfuck the minute it was past.  If the clusterfuck is the website thing...well I am not sure how that is a big deal big rollouts like this are almost always minor disasters.  Something huge like this was going to have a rough start no matter what, even if it was genius legislation.

As for the lies...well I guess I am somewhat happy people actually care about that.  The guy lied his ass off in 2008 and nobody really gave a flip.  Obama is pretty worthless as a President.  I am shocked about how badly he has done, not even in my wildest 2009 nightmares did I think he would be this putrid. 

[citizen k]

The system is dangerously broken and could tank the entire economy and ruin the Federal budget.  It needed reform.

And instead we got the ACA which does next to nothing in slowing down the upward trajectory of healthcare costs.

[Valmy]

The system is dangerously broken and could tank the entire economy and ruin the Federal budget.  It needed reform.

And instead we got the ACA which does next to nothing in slowing down the upward trajectory of healthcare costs.

To say the Democrats fucked that up would be a massive understatement.  They could have done anything they wanted.  It just boggles the mind. 

[Berkut]

It's disgusting how so many Americans are cheering for failure, and hoping for changes that they know would make Obamacare more likely to fail.  Who needs external enemies with patriots like that?

Indeed. It is as bad as some of the Dems trying to sabotage the Iraq War, with threats to pull funding, trying to pass resolutions forcing withdrawal, etc., etc.

Of course, the difference is that the crazies in the Dem Party never managed to actually get the rest of the party to go along with it, for the most part (at least in any actual practical sense). But the disgust is still just as disgusting, even if they were not as successful.

[Valmy]

The Democrats are more moderate and less vulnerable to populist crusades....for now anyway.  Radicalism seems to be growing in strength on both sides.  Probably not unexplected given the failures of the establishment.

[Razgovory]

The system is dangerously broken and could tank the entire economy and ruin the Federal budget.  It needed reform.

And instead we got the ACA which does next to nothing in slowing down the upward trajectory of healthcare costs.

To say the Democrats fucked that up would be a massive understatement.  They could have done anything they wanted.  It just boggles the mind.

Except in reality they could not.  To get any bill passed they needed get pass obstuctionists in the house and Senate and the sheer hatred that Republicans had for the President and all his works took them by surprise so a lot of Dems were afraid to vote for any bill.  Not that it helped them much, the Dems that opposed it tended to get beaten in 2010 if they voted for ACA or not.

[grumbler]

They're mad because their boyz signature legislation is a clusterfuck. Oh, and they have no arguement for his lies to the American people.

It is so cute to see you repeat, over and over again, the fact that a politician lied, as though your boyz aren't liars as well.  Doesn't matter which party they are in, if they are a politician or an officer in the NRA, they are a liar.  The sooner you stopped being shocked by that fact, the sooner you will stop sounding like a repetitive drone.

And, yes, Obamacare is as fucked up as Bushcare was, though for different reasons.  The difference is that Bushcare offered no hope of improvement, while Obamacare offers a small hope of improvement.

[Caliga]

Yeah I am not sure where Cal got that from.  The system is dangerously broken and could tank the entire economy and ruin the Federal budget.  It needed reform.

I'm not disputing that.  What I am saying is that prior to ~2008 I don't recall politicians and the media bleating on about healthcare being broken and needing fixing, but all the sudden there was a firestorm of that around the time of the election and then immediately afterward, especially after the focus on the economy/banking crisis started to subside.