I've said it before and I will say it again. If your goal is to provide affordable health care to all Americans, the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare) is the most Conservative, right-wing plan that has any chance of working. There really isn't anything to the right of it. If Republicans are ripping it to pieces, they either don't know what they are doing or are on board with poor, sick people dying.
It's both. America's health care plan works for the wealthy, and that's all that matters to them.
ACA was never a reasonable solution to the problem - it does nothing at all to even address the problem. Sure, it uses taxpayer money to subsidize some people's premiums... but there's absolutely nothing at all in the law that address the *cost* of care in the US. It's actually made things worse. I approve of wanting more people to have access to care and protection against financial ruin if something goes wrong... but seriously - how many people do you know who can just shell out $20K a year for their family if someone's really injured or sick? Mostly, it serves to hide the actual costs from the consumers, and it's partly responsible for significant consolidation and integration of provider groups, rife with venture capital investments, all seeking massive profit margins. ACA squeezes the middleman, and that's fine - insurance companies shouldn't be making huge profits either. But it does nothing to address hospitals charging $20 for a tylenol or doctors charging $150 for a 15 minute block of time. And because of how ACA is structured, and how broadly "essential health benefits" are defined, most patients are never actually exposed to how much the care itself actually costs.
I dunno. We could follow Switzerland's lead. That seems to be working out pretty well.
I don't know much about the Swiss healthcare system other than what I just saw on wikipedia. Is there some aspect of it you think is more Conservative than Obamacare?
It could be argued that the Swiss plan is more conservative because everything goes through private insurance companies.
Not sure why there are private health insurance companies if there are government-set prices for medical care. Providing a shared risk pool is the easiest part for the government to take over.
People with pre-existing conditions have always been able to get health care. They haven't always been able to buy low-cost individual health insurance.
ACA hasn't slowed the COST of health care. Literally nothing at all in ACA addresses the cost side of the issue. Not a single thing. It has spread that increasing cost to other people to help foot the bill - including spreading it to taxpayers. But the underlying cost of services provided was unaffected by ACA, and has continued to rise at rates higher than general inflation.
For the same reason that Medicare Advantage is far more popular than Original Fee-for-service (FFS) Medicare: It lets people select the suite of benefits that best suits their needs.
One or maybe two audience members clapping as if they were paid to do so, which they actually may have been, and Maher is not happy.
