Every single president since Kennedy has tried to implement some sort of health care reform bill and this is the one that passed with bi-partisan support.
That is so not true. There was not 1 republican vote, in the House or Senate, for the ACA. In fact, the ACA is the ONLY entitlement program that exists in America that was passed without bi-partisan support. Not Social Security, Not Medicare, Not Medicare Part D. That is why it is hated by 1/2 of our country.
I personally believe that no legislation should be passed in this country without at least 10% minority support. Otherwise you get what we got with the ACA - 1/2 the country happy, and 1/2 pissed off. The minority should always have some say - with the majority calling most of the shots of course. But nothing ever should be rammed through like the ACA was, with no minority support at all.
I believe you personally know better that if we had universally free health care in this nation that it could ultimately be implemented and executed at a far cheaper cost to the average tax payer than they are currently paying in health care costs.
Nobody/country has "free" health care. Somebody pays for it - and it is usually a small segment of the population via taxes - when it should be an equal tax on everyone if all are going to use it. The primary reason other countries health care costs are so much lower has very little to do with insurance companies - Doctors/Hospitals/Pharma get much less in other countries. In fact, the USA subsidizes pharma costs for the world - we pay more so other countries can pay less. The R's asked to add an amendment to the ACA to allow re-importation of drugs, so our citizens could buy them more cheaply. Obama personally ensured this did not pass, by reaching out to Dem senators - because Obama made a backroom deal with Pharma (Billy Tauzin) to get them to support the ACA and promised them he wouldn't allow the re-importation amendment to go through - ensuring high profits for Pharma. Of course, then Pharma also committed millions of dollars in advertising to support the bill.
And no, a government run system would not be cheaper. Any large government program has significant bloat and fraud involved with it. The government basically does not care about these issues and is unwilling to investigate. Rest assured, private insurers are on top of these issues. You might say, well, health claims are cheaper under Medicare. Sure they are - because the government mandates that their pay rate is 60% (or less) than private insurance pays docs and providers. So, let's say the gov't said all doctors and hospitals, etc must take 60% going forward to reduce costs in the private market. How do you think that would work with docs and hospitals? Also, another reminder of how Pharma has the gov't in it's pocket - while Docs and Hospitals get paid a fraction of their "normal" charge by Medicare - guess who doesn't have to reduce their prices at all for the gov't? Yep, Pharma again.
I stated that the President, which is what was inferred by someone else, does not determine premium rates.
True, not directly. But the plan he pushed through created rule changes that by themselves caused premium rates to go up. Without the regulation and taxes, premium rates would have still gone up - but not by the large jump that occurred in the Individual market in 2014 (45% average, 80% max in some states). He, and the Dems, have to take responsibility for that. Ignoring the Medicaid expansion (which could have been done without all the other crap in the ACA bill), only approximately 5M people gained coverage (11M in the exchanges minus the 5-6M that had coverage cancelled and had to re-buy exchange coverage so they are not "new" insureds). That is only about 1.5% of the population. That is the definition of a special interest - and catering to the small minority instead of the majority. The majority of the expansion of coverage was due to the Medicaid expansion - which should have been the only change made, and COULD have had some bi-partisan support without blowing up the whole market.
Most of the people that had Individual coverage prior to 2014 were paying the premiums themselves. They had a high enough average income that they wouldn't be getting subsidies in 2014 (they had to, as insurance is expensive as we all know). Many of these folks are members of the middle class. Now, they saw an average of 45% increase for the same plan (based on actuarial value - the whole rhetoric about "crap plans" prior to 2014 is just crap - yes, there were some, but the vast majority of them are similar to what is on the Exchange today - but the ones prior to 2014 had lower deductibles on average, and lower out of pocket limits).
Your argument that the ACA didn't raise prices is silly. Here is a parallel example that should help: imagine if a law was passed that said "auto insurers cannot charge different premiums for any motorist. Doesn't matter if they are a good driver or bad driver, whether they have 0 DUI's or 10 DUI's, or how many tickets they have". As you probably know, many bad drivers cannot get auto insurance after 1 or more DUI's. Now, mandate that they can - and can pay no more than the best driver. Of course, the average rate would go up a lot. That is exactly what happened in health care. Now, you will argue that healthcare is different - which I agree - but charging everyone the same, and accepting everyone, certainly puts price pressure on the upside. And a lot more pressure - an auto accident, you might total a $70K car - but health insurance, you can easily have $1M in claims for a transplant, etc. Heck, even the recent Hep C drug that just came out costs $84K for the series of treatment. Why? Pharma of course - they can charge whatever they want......
Oh yea, one more thing. Premiums are not "lowered" if someone is getting a subsidy (having other taxpayers pay their premium). Sure, to the individual person, the amount they pay each month is a lot less. The premium is still the premium, and a tax subsidy is applied to the premium to lower their individual cost. In many cases, substantially. But the full premium still needs to be paid to cover the cost of claims. The only difference is, taxpayers are paying way more of that premium than they should be.
I probably provided much more education than you really wanted. Oh well, sometimes it is fun to be on the soapbox.
Have a great holiday weekend FDC.
