I'm afraid that whether Obamacare is repealed, kept, or tinkered with, the system is broken. But it was broken before Obama came along, just in different ways for different people. Like it or not (and I don't), all roads from here probably lead to some form of single-payer.

A Facebook friend had some musings that I thought were interesting. He noted that lots of people recently go letters about their Obamacare insurance next year and how much it was going up. A friend of the guy musing (name not given) is having his rates go up by nearly 25%. It was suggested that people getting these letters may have turned the tide,

I don't think we can easily go back. And I am sure not all of the price increase is do to Obamacare.

Surprisingly my employer is picking up the increase cost for me...well, the non-preferred provider coverage is significantly cut and the medicine coverage is being totally changed (still unknown)...but hey.

All they need to do is repeal the mandated coverages of Obamacare, and allow companies to sell policies across state lines.
I have a lot of faith that the market will take care of the rest if it is given a chance.

Your local Toyota dealer doesnt try and sell its baseline car for 100k for a reason. The only way they would stay in business is if the government mandated that *all cars* sold in America had to cost 100k or more. That is effectively what Obamacare did.

When the mandate comes off, the prices will come down.

Really, with most productive middle class Americans not being able to afford individual health insurance, and fewer people insured now in this country than in 2007, how much worse do you think things can get?

Health insurance should be catastrophic. It should not cover routine tests and doctors visits.

Insurance is designed to protect your assets in case of a catastrophic illness or loss. If it costs too much relative to the risk, or you dont have assets that won't be shielded by bankruptcy laws, why have it at all?

It is like paying 500 bucks a month for collision insurance on a 3000 dollar car.

You're just scared because you think your health insurance is what is standing between you and death.

Guess what? You are going to die anyway, some day, from something.

While you are waiting, do some math.

> all roads from here probably
> lead to some form of single-payer.

I just don't understand this thinking.

How could this work?

And why are so many blog commenters describing it as inevitable?

Has there ever-ever-ever been a society where everyone decided to pay (money!) for the well-being of everyone else, including the people —strangers— who they've never met? Including the strangers who may not have been taking good care of themselves and considering the risks of their own behavior?

Even if the money + taxation for such a scheme existed —and it doesn't, but even if it did— what would stop every scam artist and charlatan on the planet from standing between the payers and the receivers of the money? What kind of doctors do you think will work for the money, and deliver these most personal kinds of care, for the money which actually arrives?

I just don't understand how you could live a life in modern America... How you could work in its corporations or walk through its offices or visit its shops or deal with its governments or read anything about it at all and still be so cavalier about this.

Oh yeah... Socialized medicine... That's totally on the horizon, man....

Why are you so glib?

"And I am sure not all of the price increase is do to Obamacare."

99% of it is Banker. As Isab pointed out the minimum coverage mandated by Obamacare regulators is what is driving the cost up so quickly. It affects the individual as well as the group markets.

I prefer complete repeal to any sort of replace. Health care is not something the federal government needs to worry about. Especially with their 'success' with the VA. But either way it will take years for things to settle down.

They've got single payer in China. Be a real shame if you're a thorn in the side of the government and you need medical care and a nameless faceless bureaucrat denies you care.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1229412000463870&set=a.582759455129131.1073741825.100001852464778&type=3&theater

And why are so many blog commenters describing it as inevitable?

Historically, the progressive agenda works like a ratchet: only to tighten. A little bit here, a little bit there, a dash of "think of the children!" or "are you racist, bigot, homophobe?"

What is forgotten is that it took them 100+ years to get to this point. It won't be turned back by one president.

Repealing Obamacare would be a good start. Another is allowing insurance to be sold across state lines. Doesn't seem to be a problem with auto insurance. Then decouple health insurance from your employer.

While you are waiting, do some math.

I was told there would be no math on this blog. I wanna refund!

Health insurance should be catastrophic. It should not cover routine tests and doctors visits.

Ding. Imagine how much your auto insurance would cost if it covered routine maintenance?

What Isab said. Squared.

What works well is a system like they have in France, a mixed-market system of public and private providers and public and private health insurance. The base-level coverage for everyone is covered out of payroll taxes, and then you can mix-and-match your way to whatever level of treatment and coverage you desire in a free-market system.

Of course, they also take a free ride on the US drug and medical-device development train, routinely enjoying the benefits of US developments without having to pay for them. So there's that.

The best way to make this work in the US would be the system that John McCain suggested in the 2008 campaign - a system of non-refundable tax credits that everyone gets, that are earmarked for health insurance coverage.

Break the calcified link between health insurance and employment, that dates back to 75-year-old wartime wage controls. You don't rely on your employer for car insurance, why do you rely on your employer for health insurance?

Scrap the crazy patchwork quilt of state-by-state insurance markets and state-by-state Medicaid coverages and the Byzantine madness that is Medicare. There's no systemic difference between older people and younger people, so why continue to operate a special system just for old folk?

Everyone files a basic tax return, even if they have no income and no Federal taxes to pay. Everyone gets a Federal tax credit that covers base-level catastrophic and major-medical-type services, based on a sliding scale of costs by age, dependents, region, etc. If you paid no Federal taxes, or less than the healthcare tax credit, you get the credit or the difference, but it is only applicable to health insurance premiums - not refundable.

Beyond that, let people buy, and insurance companies sell, whatever insurance they want, however they want it. All health insurance premiums are tax-deductible.

The free market would quickly shake out a varied system of insurances that individuals can tailor to changing needs.

And still - there will be challenges. The US system is still stuffed with millions of people who have become used to gold-plated healthcare at no cost, and who now consume healthcare as a lifestyle instead of a necessity. Obamacare should have killed this portion of the market but would not do so (because so much of it consists of union employees and retirees and/or Medicare recipients). There needs to be a culture change as well as a system change.

llater,

llamas

"What's been done to our healthcare probably can't be undone."

Well, that explains why you essentially voted to keep it.

"I don't think we can easily go back. And I am sure not all of the price increase is do to Obamacare. Surprisingly my employer is picking up the increase cost for me..."

"Going back" is all you can think about? It's just not practical. Why the hell do you want to pay for something you do not get? Why do you think someone else should pay for all or part of what you get, all the time?
Your employer is picking up something? Wow, you think that is "free" or something?

It's so easy to be confused about this. "Insurance" was invented to pay doctors. IT still has to do that, first, or you can't be treated.

The solution is here.

Fortunately dismantling Obamacare is on Trump's First-100-Days to-do list.

Maybe he'll turn out okay after all.

http://www.npr.org/2016/11/09/501451368/here-is-what-donald-trump-wants-to-do-in-his-first-100-days

Gog: Trump actually has a lot of good stuff on that list. I don't agree with all of it, but I wish we'd seen more of that side of him during the campaign and debates.

Gog: Trump actually has a lot of good stuff on that list. I don't agree with all of it, but I wish we'd seen more of that side of him during the campaign and debates.

Fayd at November 10, 2016 11:43 AM

You would have, if the media and others hadnt decided that the *narrative* for this election was going to be experienced caring sane adult vs. unhinged racist loose cannon man child.

They had a vested interest in scrubbing anything substantive out of the election because it might hurt Hillary.

They almost made it.

If the Democrats had bothered to include even a handful of Republicans in crafting ObamaCare, they'd have a handful of Republicans willing to defend it. Instead they shut the Republicans out completely and are now left to whine ineffectively that the Republicans are threatening to overturning their pet law and it's not fair. They have no one to blame but themselves.

"And I am sure not all of the price increase is do to Obamacare."

Sure it is, after all if I as a nearly 40 year old single man with no children now have to buy a plan that covers prenatal care and pediatric dentistry it is obviously going to be more expensive than the one that didnt have any of that stuff.

After all its sexist to charge a single woman with 7 kids more for her family's insurance than a single guy with no kids costs

How many insurance companies are going to want to set up provider networks in a different state or deal with a difference set of regulations?

Will we be going back to lifetime caps? Pre-existing conditions exclusions? Repeal the Medicaid expansion?

I predict a lot of pissed-off voters if that happens.

How many insurance companies are going to want to set up provider networks in a different state or deal with a difference set of regulations?

Will we be going back to lifetime caps? Pre-existing conditions exclusions? Repeal the Medicaid expansion?

I predict a lot of pissed-off voters if that happens.

JoJo at November 11, 2016 9:54 AM

Do you know anything about the insurance industry? BC/BS and all other nation wide insurance companies operate over several different states and different sets of regulations already.

What problem is a lifetime cap or a pre existing condition if you can't afford an insurance policy without one? Or the deductible?

Someone is always going to be pissed off about something, but voters? Most of them don't even know what is in their policy until they try to use it. Bet you don't know either.