The Problem With Obamacare Is Obamacare

[lustylad]

Chucky Schumer continues to extort the country and the GOP as he seeks to raid the fisc by demanding a one-year extension of those ridiculously generous enhanced ACA subsidies that the Democrats originally assured everyone were supposed to be a "temporary" covid-relief measure that they wanted to expire by year-end.

In Washington DC you are allowed to "fail up". If a government program turns into a giant clusterfuck, you don't shut it down or replace it or even reform it. You just reward failure by throwing MORE taxpayer money at it! That's the Dem philosophy. Along with "never let a good crisis go to waste" - in this case, Covid-19 was the crisis. Pretend your bailout is only TEMPORARY, but then when it's due to expire you hold the federal government hostage to making it PERMANENT.

Here's some good background reading:

https://cei.org/blog/the-problem-wit...-is-obamacare/

[Precious_b]

...is that republican voters blocked it being repealed by their own party members wishes.

Bigger problem is that maggie law makers refuse to help write new ACA.

So, until one of their own offers up something better...

[txdot-guy]

The only problem with the ACA is the fact that it didn’t go far enough. Removing the insurance from the system and replacing it with a national health plan for everyone would be the fix we need.

[farmstud60]

Originally Posted by txdot-guy

The only problem with the ACA is the fact that it didn’t go far enough. Removing the insurance from the system and replacing it with a national health plan for everyone would be the fix we need.

nope, just a bigger failer

[Unique_Carpenter]

Originally Posted by txdot-guy

The only problem with the ACA is the fact that it didn’t go far enough. Removing the insurance from the system and replacing it with a national health plan for everyone would be the fix we need.

Correct.
The amount of revenue the insurance companies collect for "processing" is huge and that comes out of premiums paid.
A single payor system does work, but some complain that patients get limited care.

[Why_Yes_I_Do]

Let's check in on the UK via the AI:

In England, the NHS has established maximum waiting times for non-urgent consultant-led treatments, which is 18 weeks from the day the appointment is booked via the NHS e-Referral Service or when the hospital receives the referral letter. However, this 18-week standard is not always met, with some hospital departments experiencing average waiting times exceeding 18 weeks, and in some cases, exceeding 30 weeks.

For urgent cancer referrals, the Faster Diagnosis Standard (FDS) aims to confirm or rule out cancer within 28 days of referral. Despite this target, performance has been inconsistent. As of August 2025, only 74.6% of patients were told whether they had cancer or it was definitely excluded within 28 days, below the 75% operational target. NHS England has set a new interim target to improve this to 80% by March 2026.

In emergency departments, waiting times remain a significant concern. In September 2025, 38.9% of patients waited more than four hours in A&E, down from a record high of 50.4% in December 2022. The number of patients waiting over 12 hours for admission after a decision to admit has increased substantially since mid-2021. Patients presenting with psychosocial or behavioural problems experience the longest waits in A&E, averaging over 11 hours if admitted...

The more ya know...

[adav8s28]

Originally Posted by lustylad

Chucky Schumer continues to extort the country and the GOP as he seeks to raid the fisc by demanding a one-year extension of those ridiculously generous enhanced ACA subsidies that the Democrats originally assured everyone were supposed to be a "temporary" covid-relief measure that they wanted to expire by year-end.

In Washington DC you are allowed to "fail up". If a government program turns into a giant clusterfuck, you don't shut it down or replace it or even reform it. You just reward failure by throwing MORE taxpayer money at it! That's the Dem philosophy. Along with "never let a good crisis go to waste" - in this case, Covid-19 was the crisis. Pretend your bailout is only TEMPORARY, but then when it's due to expire you hold the federal government hostage to making it PERMANENT.

Here's some good background reading:

https://cei.org/blog/the-problem-wit...-is-obamacare/

This paragraph is from your link:

However, once Obamacare went into effect, premiums increased substantially. Now, around half of people at the income cutoff wouldn’t be able to afford insurance, according to the ACA’s affordability standard, and would deserve subsidies under the original Obamacare framework. The increase in premiums between 2009 and 2025 is most evident for people older than 50, which is why Democrats’ examples of unaffordability frequently include these individuals.

The author of the link fails to mention that the ACA law has changed a little from 2009. The individual mandate to purchase health insurance was removed. By removing the individual mandate, some healthy people stopped buying health insurance on the government exchanges (HealthCare.Gov). This leads to an unbalanced risk pool. When you don't have a balanced risk pool the health insurance company won't be able to make a profit (too many sick people submitting claims). The health insurance company will ask for a premium rate increase for the states that they lost money in. Rate increases have to be approved by the Commissioner of Insurance of each state.

In 2009, a family of 4 that made less than $125,000 got a tax credit to help pay the premium. What Biden did in 2021 was increase the maximum number so that a family of 4 that made more than $125,000 would be eligible for a tax credit to help pay for the premium. The tax credits for higher income people were suppose to expire 12/31/2025. Senator Chuck is trying to get these tax credits extended for at least another year. This is the latest compromise that he has offered.

Republican Congresswoman MTG has relatives that are on Obamacare. She claims to not be a fan of Obamacare but supports having the Biden tax credits extended.

Bottom line by removing the individual mandate the law has had problems that the original designers of the legislation could not anticipate.

Group Health Insurance thru the employer does not have this problem. The risk pool is always balanced. You have mostly younger healthy employees in the risk pool. This tends to be the case especially for a company that has more than 10,000 employees.

HRC had proposed a solution that never went anywhere. That was once you hit age 55 you are eligible for Medicare. Medicare is a true single payer system. Current law you have be age 65 before you are eligible.

[Precious_b]

Originally Posted by txdot-guy

The only problem with the ACA is the fact that it didn’t go far enough. Removing the insurance from the system and replacing it with a national health plan for everyone would be the fix we need.

Originally Posted by farmstud60

nope, just a bigger failer

The biggest fail was that is was implemented by one side.
This was due to the operating mindset by the Party of No.

If that party who was intractable with their mantra of Just One Term would have done a 180 on their principles in serving their constituents, things would be a helluvalot better.

But go ahead. Refuse to deal with anyone except what Fearless Leader tells you to do.

[farmstud60]

Originally Posted by Precious_b

The biggest fail was that is was implemented by one side.
This was due to the operating mindset by the Party of No.

If that party who was intractable with their mantra of Just One Term would have done a 180 on their principles in serving their constituents, things would be a helluvalot better.

But go ahead. Refuse to deal with anyone except what Fearless Leader tells you to do.

The party of Federal Government mandates for everything is the party of destruction.


The party of no was really only saying that history showed the only ideas the other side were presenting were the ideas of failure.

[CG2014]

Democrats made an offer to end the shutdown that was just the same of the same thing that has caused the impasse in the past 15 votes: it included another 1 year of the same Obamacare for illegals.

[Michael8219]

If you expand or completely broaden Obamacare to a national socialist type healthcare system, this is what the evidence shows based on our neighbors to the north:

A recent poll found that 42% of Canadians said they would personally pay to go to the U.S. for routine healthcare if needed; and 38% said they would travel to the U.S. for emergency care.
Kindersley Clarion +3
Canadian Medical Association +3
Quartz Mountain +3

There is growing “medical tourism” among Canadians seeking treatments abroad for access reasons (e.g., long wait-lists in Canada), especially to countries like Mexico, India, Germany. One article estimates ~432,000 Canadians may seek treatment abroad in 2025 (all destinations) due to delays at home.

[adav8s28]

Originally Posted by Michael8219

If you expand or completely broaden Obamacare to a national socialist type healthcare system, this is what the evidence shows based on our neighbors to the north:

Hopefully, Obamacare is not expanded for everyone. Group Health Insurance thru the employer is a good system. The only problem with it is only 2/3 of the USA population is on it. The other 1/3 of the population (approximately 100 million plus people) are on either:

OBAMACARE (Affordable Care Act for individuals who can't get health insurance from an employer)
A. HealthCare.Gov
B. Expanded Medicaid

Original Medicaid (Signed into law by LBJ in 1965, only for very poor people under age 65)

Medicare (Government Run Single Payer System for people age 65 and above).

[adav8s28]

Originally Posted by CG2014

Democrats made an offer to end the shutdown that was just the same of the same thing that has caused the impasse in the past 15 votes: it included another 1 year of the same Obamacare for illegals.

One cannot get a health insurance policy at HealthCare.Gov if you don't have a social security number. Unless the illegal somehow got a social security number he is not getting an Obamacare health insurance policy. The last part of your statement is incorrect.

[Precious_b]

Originally Posted by farmstud60

The party of Federal Government mandates for everything is the party of destruction.


The party of no was really only saying that history showed the only ideas the other side were presenting were the ideas of failure.

Party of the Federal Government? Don't see that listed. Closest to it is the Federalist Party and they ain't been around for couple hundred years.

Please be a little more current.

Originally Posted by Michael8219

If you expand or completely broaden Obamacare to a national socialist type healthcare system, this is what the evidence shows based on our neighbors to the north:

A recent poll found that 42% of Canadians said they would personally pay to go to the U.S. for routine healthcare if needed; and 38% said they would travel to the U.S. for emergency care.
Kindersley Clarion +3
Canadian Medical Association +3
Quartz Mountain +3

There is growing “medical tourism” among Canadians seeking treatments abroad for access reasons (e.g., long wait-lists in Canada), especially to countries like Mexico, India, Germany. One article estimates ~432,000 Canadians may seek treatment abroad in 2025 (all destinations) due to delays at home.

Hmmm. Think this is another way to get people out of this country by barring their re-entry?

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by Precious_b

The biggest fail was that is was implemented by one side.

Absolutely. If we'd had a bipartisan solution for unaffordable health care maybe we wouldn't be in this mess.