Wait, wait.... Senators Harry Reid and Patty Murray have already explained that all the people supposedly having trouble with Obamacare are liars.

These stories are being made up by Fox news. So you can ignore any thing you see read or hear about this efficient, inexpensive and easy to use system that provides cheap inclusive madical care to all of the nation's patseys(OOPS, I mean citizens).

I was uninsurable at any price before the ACA. Now I have a plan I can afford and access to basic health care for the first time in 6 years.

The goddess is correct that the employer model should be scrapped. we NEED a single-payer system in this country (and don't get me started on that or we'll be here all night).

The goddess is correct that the employer model should be scrapped. we NEED a single-payer system in this country (and don't get me started on that or we'll be here all night). -- sexandweed at March 1, 2014 3:57 PM

Let's see -- four years and hundreds of of millions of dollars and the [un]ACA website was a failure for essentially the first month. Let alone that you are commenting on the failure of the California's health insurance exchange that lost 14.5K partial records.

Then the federal government has been so efficient that it loses billions every year through so many programs that the GAO has all but thrown up their hands.

So please tell me how a single payers system would be so great and efficient that is run by the federal government?

oh, it's even worse, Amy... if you MOVE to another county, you can lose this insurance.

sexandweed:"I was uninsurable at any price before the ACA. Now I have a plan I can afford and access to basic health care for the first time in 6 years."

Did you wait until you needed expensive medical care (i.e. were uninsurable) before you tried to buy insurance? Many healthy, responsible young people who had medical insurance that was affordable because they didn't wait until they were uninsurable before deciding to buy it will now unjustly be forced to pay a lot more to subsidize yours. Sort of a "good health" or "responsible choice" penalty.

we NEED a single-payer system in this country

If by single-payer you mean the individual seeking health care, then yeah, I'm good with that.

If you mean the government, well, no. That's not the camel's nose sticking under the tent, that's the whole freakin' beast under the tent.

Because at that point, they can regulate your behaviour and activities. Because that allows them to bend the cost curve down. They'll treat you like a resource, because you'll be a serf, not a citizen.

And when they deny you coverage or treatment, whom are you going to sue?

Jim P.:

By any measure you care to use, the USA pays more for less care than any other industrial nation. That's a cold hard fact.

You cannot tell me that the present system is efficient, can you?

Medicare works pretty well (not perfect, but better than private insurance) and that's a federal program.

goddess and Ken R:

Birth, actually, but I fail to see your point. Are you suggesting that if I got prostate cancer in my 50s then it's my own fault and I deserve to die?

goddess:

I am sincerely sorry to read your insurance horror story. Shit like that happened every day before the ACA but by any reasonable yardstick, the present system is broken.

To make my own long story short: I have a pre-existing condition and when I lost my employer-based insurance I had to go on the open market. My initial premium was $500/mo. When I got sick my premium shot up to $1200/mo, until my coverage was cancelled.

I was forced to pay for treatment out of pocket, and as a direct result I had to declare bankruptcy (1.5 million Americans go belly up due to medical bills every year, so I'm not alone).

Thanks to ACA I have a good plan that costs me $300/mo and I cannot be denied coverage because of my illness. I hope that you can find a similar plan that works for your individual circumstance.

Blaming sick people for their illness is a little bit like "slut shaming," wouldn't you agree?

Last point, then I'll shut up.

Health care reform is a huge and complicated problem that will require a huge and complicated effort to fix. The sooner we start the better.

There is a huuuuuuuge amount of confusion, misinformation, and flat-out lies about the ACA out there. I have spent a lot of hours doing my research and I'm still confused. But a few irrefutable facts are clear:

* Nations with a single payer system spend less per capita and are healthier than Americans.

* 1.5 million Americans went bankrupt last year because of medical bills. The number in Germany was zero. In France, zero. In Canada, zero.

* 46 million Americans have no access to affordable health care at all.

* 49,000 Americans die every year from lack of insurance.

Is the ACA perfect? Not by a long shot. Has the roll-out been a giant clusterfuck? Absolutely. But the present system is so bad, so expensive, and so unhealthy that even the ACA is a step in the right direction.

goddess:

We agree that the present employer-based system doesn't work. The best possible solution---the system that has been tried and tested in every other Western industrial nation---is a single-payer.

We disagree on where to place the blame. You blame sick people which I find both incomprehensible and reprehensible. I think the problem is systemic, not individual.

If you'd lived in Canada you could have afforded health care AND a bed. Don't you think that would have been preferable?

goddess:

That 46,000 people represents .0013% of health care users in the Great White North. I'm sure you'll agree that that's not a lot.

There are three yardsticks you use to judge a medical system---cost, accessibility, and results---and America lags behind the entire Western world on all three. That's just an undeniable fact.

There are three yardsticks you use to judge a medical system---cost, accessibility, and results---and America lags behind the entire Western world on all three. That's just an undeniable fact.

Posted by: sexandweed at March 3, 2014 7:18 AM

This is BS. Results, and accessability are currently better in the US than anywhere else.

It will be interesting to see what happens when you actually need to find a Doctor that accepts your Obamacare plan. (And after you start paying the co pays and the deductibles)

Medicare has been a vampire on the healthcare system for years now. It hasn't paid enough to cover the expenses, forcing doctors and hospitals to overcharge everyone else to cover the losses.

A lot of people are going to find out that having "insurance" isn't the same thing as getting treatment.especially in places like California where the reimbursement rates for the Obamacare plans are the same as Medicaid.

Doctors and hospitals can't operate at a loss indefinitely, which is why so few of them are accepting any of these new Obamacare plans.

Oh, and Obamacare wont cover quite a few medications either. So if you need something expensive, you will be paying for those out of pocket also.

Maybe a little better than Europe, where many expensive drugs, simply are not available at all because of cost controls in socialized medicine.

I don't know where you get your ideas about health care and the ACA, goddess, but I can assure you that you've been woefully misinformed.

The World Health Organization rates the US health care system 37th in the world, the worst in the industrialized West. We do, however, lead the world in preventable deaths and infant mortality, so hey---we're Number One!

Your premises about healthcare costs, medications in Europe, hospital profitability, and Medicare are factually incorrect. As Tip O'Neil famously said "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts."

I can only speak for my own Obamacare plan but I've had no trouble at all finding doctors or pharmacies to accept it. Indeed, I have access to a lot more alternatives than before. Not fewer, more.

My I suggest the book "Health Care and Public Policy for the Confused, Concerned and Curious" by Mark Robinson? It's quite concise (about 100 pages). It lays out some interesting facts and figures, as well as pinpoint both the problems and the advantages of the ACA.

OOPS!!!!

I meant to direct my comments to Isab, not Amy. I apologize for the confusion (mine).

As a Canadian, I can tell you about our own single-payer system.

It's great for emergencies -- accidents, sudden illnesses, etc. You'll see a competent doctor right away, and won't come out broke.

It's not so great for chronic illnesses or minor issues. Yes, you will wait years for minor surgeries. Yes, if you go to the ER and you're not bleeding on the floor, you're likely to wait up to 24-28 hrs.

It's expensive, but you don't see it. It's hidden in your taxes, and you don't see the bill. I'm middle-class, and once you add up all the levels of government I need to pay off, and all the fees (you need to self-insure for medication -- did you know that?), I'm left with half of my salary. Half.

There's no such thing as a perfect system.

"* Nations with a single payer system spend less per capita and are healthier than Americans.

* 1.5 million Americans went bankrupt last year because of medical bills. The number in Germany was zero. In France, zero. In Canada, zero.

* 46 million Americans have no access to affordable health care at all.

* 49,000 Americans die every year from lack of insurance."

Not one of these claims is supported by a speck of data. They are all govenrment/media fabricatsions. Complete and total lies. If there are really 46 million uninsured, why aren't they rushing to get Obamacare? Answer: they don't exist and never did. Last I saw, the total number of signups was about 2 million nationwide, although it's hard to really tell because the system is incapable of providing accurate statistics. One thing is for sure, though: nearly everyone who is signing up is getting subsidies.

As for those nationalized Europeans being "healthier", it's only because their governments have redefined the word "healthy". For instance, there is much media handwringing about how American's infant mortality rate is so much worse than Europe's. Excpet when you start digging into the stats, and you find that European countries count preemie deaths and deaths within 24 hours of birth as "stillborn".

The problem with socialized medicine is that the people who aren't served by it aren't around to tell their stories. Y'know, being dead and all.

Cousin Dave:

Are you a climate change denier too? I only ask because you seem to have the ability to ignore a mountain of data when it disproves your conclusions.

Are you a climate change denier too? I only ask because you seem to have the ability to ignore a mountain of data when it disproves your conclusions. -- sexandweed at March 3, 2014 3:15 PM

<OT>Global Warming theory has failed all tests, so alarmists return to the ‘97% consensus’ hoax</OT>

I won't ignore a mountain of data. Please show it to us. Yes, you put up a bunch of bullet points in you earlier post. But not a single link or reference to where that bullet point came from.

Note that Amy's blog software will eat multiple web link posts. But even if you were to do a bullet point as:

* 1.5 million Americans went bankrupt last year because of medical bills. The number in Germany was zero. In France, zero. In Canada, zero. (www.somesite.com/WTF/SomeStory.HTML)

It would make it through.

So please deluge us with your "facts".

OOPS!!!!

I meant to direct my comments to Isab, not Amy. I apologize for the confusion (mine).

Posted by: sexandweed at March 3, 2014 1:29 PM

Well I have actually lived in Europe, and Japan, and seen their healthcare in operation.

As for WHO, their numbers are cooked, and everyone capable of analyzing their data, knows it.

They are a bunch of political ass kissers, a wholly owned subsidiary of the thieves at the UN.

This is one of those things where, as Bill Whittle says, you should get out of the freakin map room, and take a look at which way the boats are heading.

It is certainly not toward that socialist and medical paradise of Cuba, which WHO thinks has such wonderful health care.

I'm laid out sick for a week and miss all the fun.

The World Health Organization rates the US health care system 37th in the world, the worst in the industrialized West. We do, however, lead the world in preventable deaths and infant mortality, so hey---we're Number One!

The WHO simply takes self reported data and cross references them.

Want to know WHY the US has the worst infant mortality rate in the world? Cause were honest about it. A lot of first world countries dont count premies as 'a live birth' unless they survive past their original due date. So in the US a premie born at 6 months who dies 4 minutes later is counted as a live birth and and infant death, in many EU member nations a premie born at 6 months who dies 2 months later is counted as still born.

Kinda skews the numbers

Oh, the stupidity continues

Are you a climate change denier too? I only ask because you seem to have the ability to ignore a mountain of data when it disproves your conclusions.

According to the latest paper to come out, it is predicted that if global warming continues at it current trends then by the end of this cetury the oceans will be a whole 1 degree warmer, the same temperature it was 500 years ago in the 1600's.

Oh the horror. Meanwhile back here in reality, we are still in an Ice Age, and FYI the last intergalcial period before the one we currently live in was warm enough for hippos to move to Norway.

But by all means continue to panic, that'll solve everything