An alternative look at the Health Care "crisis"

I agree 100%. But I think we should take our punishment now and do it anyway. It is not a problem that is going to shrink all by itself. Do some serious tort reforms and hack away.

Denninger's been banging this drum for about a decade. And I think he's spot on, neither party seems to have any interest in "fixing" health care, just rewarding their preferred powerful lobbying interests.

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I'm confused, is he proposing that this become a law or something?

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No, but under the ACA, what he describes isn't insurance - or, it doesn't meet the requirements to avoid the mandated tax...err, penalty.

Why shouldn't a healthy person be allowed to purchase a catastrophic insurance policy for low-probability events like cancer or automobile accidents (what they used to call "major medical" coverage) and just pay out of pocket for any other medical needs?

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-- if you think "health insurance" costs too much you're being misled. The problem isn't health insurance it's the cost of health care. The solution to the problem is to first require firms to offer true insurance (that is, does not cover events where p = 1.0) then require all providers to post prices and charge everyone the same amount

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Why do you want the government to insert itself into what should be governed by free market dynamics. Regardless of the intention every governmental move results in winners and losers.

The Affordable Care Act was nothing more than a huge transference of wealth. It is amazing that a benefit which was previously provided by employers on a voluntary basis has now been placed under governmental control, forcing certain employers to provide the benefits or be fined, while telling them how the benefits are to be paid, how much they must pay, what is covered and deciding which of their employees lifestyles are to be subsidized by other employees.

In addition we were also being forced to subsidize health insurers through reimbursement corridors and subsidies when they were required to discard actuarial prognostications to assume any all risks with the knowledge that if their profits dropped accordingly the taxpayers would make up the difference. Now the courts have finally reigned in this assault on our constitution by this administration by ruling these subsidies can only be paid when authorized by Congress. Congress has refused to allocate the funding and the carriers have elected to abandon this sinking vessel.

Yes, the " uninsured rate " may have dropped . Much of this is due to the mandate to purchase ( the first time in the history of this country the populace is forced to purchase a product just for existing) and those who would have been eligible for Medicaid even without the Affordable Care Act. Yet, the new insureds really are no better off as they must absorb large deductibles and co-payments to access their coverage. This is prohibitive for many. When the Democrats were passing the ACA we were told, depending on the audience that there were 30,000,000 to 50,000,000 uninsured people in the country who would benefit from passing the ACA. Lets split it and call it 40 million uninsured. If those numbers were true then there should have been a stampede to sign up for coverage last year and this year.

The Health and Human Services claims the number of signups last year is 9.4 million Remember, though we were not told the truth about 2015 signups. It was eventually exposed and finally admitted by the administration that they had lied and the number of signups was actually 6.3 million and not the 8.7 million they touted until they were exposed. There was no confirmation of how many of the current 9.1 million were previously insured and lost their coverage due to the ACA. In reality there may have been only 5 million newly insured. The total insured may have been well below 8 million by the end of last year.

My premiums have increased 64% since 2013 with higher deductibles and co-payments while I am also forced to subsidize the insurance of others. The president claimed premiums would be reduced $2,500 per family by the Affordable Care Act. The president knew this was not true and deliberately lied to the American people to push for the passage of the act.

The Democrats can be proud of themselves. They gave Obama his signature accomplishment and now the Democrats own it. It has already cost them the Congress and it was a significant factor in costing them the Presidency.

It would have been better for Congress to have allocated an assigned risk pool of funds to assist those who were shut out of the standard insurance markets by pre-existing conditions instead of this giant exercise in absurdity and lunacy. The Democrats had to resort to unconstitutional deception and bribery of reluctant Congresspersons from Nebraska, Louisiana and Michigan to get the law passed. We were lied to again and again and again by this administration.

Jonathan Gruber, one of the plan's major architects confirmed the level of deceit by the Democrats. Hard working tax paying citizens are being forced to subsidize health care for others, meanwhile many have lost their own coverage and are being forced to purchase insurance with higher premiums and higher deductibles and co-payments. Despite Obama's claim it would reduce premiums an average of $2,500.00 per family this year's true numbers of participants will continue to drop, primarily due to the cost. A recent report stated more and more Obamacare recipients cancelled their policies even after being afforded great leniency by the very liberal rules set by this administration.

So we had to totally disrupt health coverage that many were happy with, had to endure a total revision of the healthcare system all for less than 3% of the population of this country. This continues to prove how incompetent this administration is and so ill prepared to govern. This is yet another example of how liberals operate. They will take what they can get at first. Then having gotten their foot in the door they return to press for the rest at a later date in the guise of fairness. Then anyone who objects is waging a war on those beneficiaries, a meme which their media minions is always willing to trumpet. Look no further than this current push for single payer option and the recent movement in California to cover illegal immigrants.

The Democrat Congress and President Obama passed a defective bill and will continue to pay the price for it. The Democrat Congress had to assure Obama got his signature accomplishment. You Democrats now own it lock, stock and barrel.