In response to your comment on my last blog, it is interesting that in your allegations you focus on the supposed millions of people who lost their health insurance. But if that were truly the case, the % of people that the Gallup poll found to be without health insurance, should have gone up. Instead, the rate of the uninsured was 18% sometime in September or October 2013. Now, in April 2014, it was 13.4%. How is Obamacare not a success if the rate of the uninsured is coming down? And that is with 24 states, some of which have the highest rates of uninsured, refusing to expand Medicaid. Imagine how much the decline in uninsured would be if all 50 states had expanded Medicaid.
Since roughly, 5.45 mm people, who signed up on the heath insurance exchange, did not have health insurance, and 8 mm people signed up on the exchange, this means that the exchanges alone are responsible for only 1.6% of the 4.6% decline in the uninsured. You allege that 80% of the newly insured are getting a subsidy when only 35% of the decline in uninsured came through the exchanges where you get a subsidy. Your math does not work. Also, the health insurance industry said over 80% of the newly insured were paying premiums. (I frankly would think that is higher, but what do I know).
Clearly, those who lost their old health insurance plan found a new health insurance plan. Yes, they may have had to switch Dr's, but you know what, that happened to me 20 years ago when I changed companies. My 1st Dr wasn't part of the health insurance plan provided by my 2nd employer, so I changed Dr's. The way health insurance companies and employers have been working to control health care costs, people were already losing access to Dr's, specific drug formulations before Obamacare ever became effective. HMO's have been limiting access to specialists for 20 years. So there is nothing in ObamaCare that changes that trend. In fact, that was the entire point of the Heritage Foundation/Romneycare design? Make people realize that there is a cost to consuming healthcare and make rational judgments about what they consume. This is the key to controlling costs and the key argument refuting a single payer plan from the conservative side.
In fact, Obamacare is being successful at bending the cost curve downward. So successful, that when the 1st quarter GDP report came out in detail last week, analysts cited the 0.2% decline (previously it was +1.0%) in healthcare spending as a big part of the surprise negative revision. Isn't health care spending out of control when it is 16.7% of the economy? I know I don't want it to be 16.7% of my budget. It is already 12.1% including Dental and that is quite enough. If I didn't have a full cost Obamacare premium (in other words, I was still in the old individual market), as a nonworking person too young for Medicare, it would be more then 18% of my budget and reducing my wine purchases severely.
As for your other complaints, the website was fixed and the non-functioning Oregon website is now sign up for the Federal one. Delaying implementation, as bugs are figured out, is a tried and true part of the private sector's method for maintaining customer service during rollouts. Why should the government not use it?
So, the rate of uninsured is coming down (and would come down even more if all 50 states expanded Medicaid), the aggregate cost curve is bending, and the private sector health insurance companies are working with all the points of delivery to retail to find new ways to make the system more efficient (and it definitely was not efficient before). What is there not love for a Republican in that? If I were the Heritage Foundation I would be pumping out the press releases illustrating how successful their design is at allowing the private sector to operate to be more efficient.
I frankly, don't understand how the GOP got on the wrong side of this after Romenycare was the 1st successful implementation of this and it was negotiation with the moderate GOP Senators that led to Obamacare being a copy of Romneycare. Most Democrats, including myself, would have preferred a single payer plan called Universal Medicare.
Instead of touting accusations, you should be celebrating the success of a conservative policy design, even if President Obama's name is on it. But then, it could also be called the ACA, so you wouldn't have to say the word Obama in a positive sentence.
And if you haven't read enough about how Obamacare is working, you can read this Forbes column by John Mauldin.
The New Normal of Heath Care Spending
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