"There are working health care systems that do rely solely on the private sector (i.e. Switzerland)" Lol.
Define working.. It has pros and cons, but generally speaking in CH everyone still gets what they need.
Relatively good for those with high cost policies with low deductibles and high limits. However insurance companies often pay more or less depending on where you go for treatment and some erect hurdles if not jumped over in the right order at the right time will result in lowered reimbursement. Twenty percent of a 100K bill is till 20K. And there are a lot of lower middle class families that struggle to pay their share. And there are many, because of preexisting conditions, who can not afford good insurance, if they can obtain it at all. If you lose your job and don't qualify for either medicare or medicaid try to afford private health insurance. For a single person with no dependents medicaid is next to impossible to qualify for unless you are disabled. You will be dependent of welfare clinics, and they are not free. And , in general, the care offered is mediocre, at best. You will sit a long, long, time in most welfare clinics' waiting rooms to get a prescription for routine medication. (Medication that could have been easily dispensed to you by a pharmacist if we had prescribing pharmacists as in virtually all other countries of the world.) Medical costs is the number one cause of personal bankruptcy in the U.S. Insurance companies siphon off the young and healthy and leave the old, poor, and sick to the government.
Well we don't really know yet. We have to be very cautious not to accept all this political stuff hook line and sinker. Let's look at it again 18 months down the road. If it is worse, on average, that may be the catalyst we need to fix things. My concern is that it will be better than what we have now, but not much better, and we will limp along with our lame health care for many years yet. That would be, in my mind, the worse outcome. Medical and defense costs are way too high compared with what they should be... The effect on society is insidious and, if not corrected, will result result ultimately in an illogical and damaging transfer of wealth from many sectors to a few. We need to invest the excess dollars we are wasting in medical care and defense in education and infrastructure.
Exactly right and Obamacare does nothing, was never intended to do to anything, and will accomplish nothing in the way of addressing the real issue. That being skyrocketing healthcare costs. The plan is, and always was about collecting more taxes. Wait 18 months? We all know that no tax is temporary. Once it's in, it's in for good.
says who that medical and defense costs are too high? And where in the Constitution that you were using to defend the dems just the other day, does the federal gov have the authority to spend on education and infrastructure? The 18 months thing is also funny, like the cap'n said, once a new tax is implemented, it ain't going away. The ACA is shit policy, and i'm not a conspiracy theorist type, but I really think this bill is designed to make things worse in order to get single payer. The dems are gonna blame the insurers for rate hikes, and businesses for dropping their employees coverage. typical dishonest behavior of the communist party of the USA.
How's that? Premiums are already rising dramatically and those formally insured are losing coverage. I'm at a loss to figure out how some of you keep trying to insist the jury is still out.
It is funny (in a fucked up way) how far people are willing to go to defend this garbage. Check out this graph from npr of all places: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/05/14/152671813/50-years-of-government-spending-in-1-graph does anyone really believe that illegitimate social program/entitlement spending is going to result in anything but disaster? these programs already account for >55% of the budget and now obamacare is going to be lumped into this pile of shit. But defense (a TRUE federal obligation) is what costs too much according to libs.. get real.