Obamacare

I'm a bit surprised that no ones talked about this here before.

What is your opinion on Obamacare? Do you support it? Why or why not?

Personally, I hate the idea. For a couple reasons that are personal to me.

See, I am currently on MNCare, which is a low income form of Healthcare from my state. It's basically welfare healthcare. The reason I'm on it is because I could not get healthcare from my work since I only worked 32 hours a week and only full time employees could get the work healthcare, which I didn't want anyways because my company's healthcare is insane. That was how it worked, if you could not get insurance from your employer and made less than a certain amount you qualified, which I did.

I recently was able to take a full time position, and once I did that, I lost my current state provided healthcare, since I now qualified for my work's. Luckily, the government health market was online and I could shop for cheaper, aaaand then the site went down and I never got a chance to get back on it. Literally I just could not get on, I even had multiple people trying for me.

See, normally, or before I could say sod healthcare, which I've done before and gone uninsured, but now I have to have healthcare or I get fined. So now I have to have my works, which, now that I'm full time I make less money than I did at part time, thanks Obamacare. And I didn't even make enough money to really live by before.

Honestly, I don't know much about it at all, but that's how it's effected me so far.

From my experience so far, I can say I do not like it. It sounds, from what I've experienced, like not a bad idea, but if I don't want insurance, why should I be forced to have it?

I'm no lawyer, but depending on your income, there are subsidies to help you pay for the coverage. In addition, if the insurance would cost too much for you in proportion to your income, you can be exempted from the annual fine.

Out of curiosity, why don't you want insurance?

sovram said:

Out of curiosity, why don't you want insurance?

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Some people don't want this insurance because they're Republican.

Remember, this is the government we're talking about, they probably haven't even figured out how the AOLs worked. Jokes aside, Blizzard and EA can't get their own servers to handle absurd amount of people, and they do that for a living. From what I've heard on a bunch of shows, the problem is, besides getting on the website, that there isn't much competition in rural areas.

I support it. This is the closest the US has gotten to Canada's health care insurance system (they still have a long way to go).

I've also heard of single payer healthcare, and people say that would be better, but that means taxes go up since the government would be footing the bill, and I guess that in the US (or anywhere, really) there isn't much tolerance for more taxes.

There is a lot of ignorance here as to what taxes are actually for.

The ACA did some much-needed changes to the US health care system, and if you're angry about anything, be angry that it's still not single-payer. rEquiring people to buy health insurance is pretty much the only way they could get the insurance companies to agree to this, unfortunately, and while it might cost you more now, you now aren't completely and utterly fucked if anything happens.

One of the things about insurance is that if you don't have it, you're probably not going to go to the doctor for check-ups, and then if there's a major problem, you don't find out until you're in the hospital. Then you're spending way more money trying to treat something after the fact, and the hospital has to spend more time on things that were completely avoidable, and also hospitals are legally required to take people in even if they can't pay. So hospitals charge people who can probably pay for it through the roof, to make up for all the people who couldn't. ... Which means that you quite likely would have to file for bankruptcy. So that's part of why they're making sure everyone is insured: so you find out what's a problem when it's still a small problem that you can actually treat, rather than when you're half-dead.

The big changes Obamacare did were require that insurance companies 1. accept you as a customer regardless of 'pre-existing conditions', which previously made you uninsureable if you, say, were diagnosed as autistic, (so you're completely and utterly screwed if anything happens to you at all), 2. cover adult children until the age of 26 (previously it was 22 and you had to be a full-time student, while now it's until you're 26 without any other qualifications), and 3. spend at least 80% of money taken in through premiums on health care, rather than making insurance companies rich.


Single-payer would make people pay less than they do already on health care. The sort of line-item billing that insurance companies require raises prices, as does how each insurance company works slightly differently re: claims. You can see this in action with veterinary care right now, actually. Insurance companies demand that they say where all of the money is going towards, and often specifies where they're supposed to buy their supplies, so they hit you coming and going: you pay insurance premiums, you pay co-pays, you pay for prescriptions (which are if possible patented; most medications stop being produced the moment they fall out of patent and then you have to switch to a slightly different version of it, to keep it expensive), and then the doctors who are theoretically being paid by the insurance company have to pay massive markup on absolutely everything, which they then pass onto you.

Like, when I was going through physical therapy, the nurse explained to me that I could either buy the strap online for about $10, or from them for $70, and they are not allowed to get it from any other supplier for cheaper, because insurance. If you go to the hospital and they give you over the counter Tylenol, expect to be charged at least $50 for it and likely more, even though a bottle of it's $5, because insurance. This is pretty standard.


I think the ACA also did a few things like require that there be no fee for some medications to treat diabetes, also. It changed a lot of things! Not nearly as much as I wish it did, but it really genuinely should make people's lives better. People actually die from this shit, you know?

If you're still for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, I really don't know what the hell to say to you. This should really not be controversial; it's pretty much the most capitalist™ way they could've changed the way health care works in the US and it's complete and utter bullshit that the rEpublican Party is against it. Honestly we really should just have nationalised health care, but that's too Socialist™ for the US, I guess, even if it would save people money, from having less overhead and removing a lot of the incentives to screw people over, and I'm not sure if you're aware how the current system for Medicare works but let me tell you it is bullshit. I can explain some of that to you, too, if you'd like, but I'd rather not if this post is sufficient.


Oh: one of the big failings about the ACA, though, is that if your dental insurance is optional, like it's not packaged with your general health insurance, it doesn't Count™ for the 'it lasts until you're 26' thing. Dental insurance doesn't count as health insurance in general, really. Probably to keep it so that people join the military because at least the military will remove the teeth rotting in their skulls for them. The ACA is pretty flawed; it's just a really important baby step forward.

surskitty said:

If you're still for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, I really don't know what the hell to say to you. This should really not be controversial; it's pretty much the most capitalist™ way they could've changed the way health care works in the US and it's complete and utter bullshit that the rEpublican Party is against it.

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To be fair it still kind of screws over people working wage jobs. Like, you know, the companies that put their employees on part-time so as to avoid having to provide health insurance because it only applies to full-time employees. Though I'd say that's more a failing of a) selfish businesses and b) an inadequate minimum wage than it is ACA...

Altissimo said:

To be fair it still kind of screws over people working wage jobs. Like, you know, the companies that put their employees on part-time so as to avoid having to provide health insurance because it only applies to full-time employees. Though I'd say that's more a failing of a) selfish businesses and b) an inadequate minimum wage than it is ACA...

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Yeah, it really does, but given that you're supposed to be able to have the fee waived if it's a financial hardship, and you're supposed to be able to get cheaper plans on the exchanges, and there's supposed to be a medicaid expansion .... I'm not sure this is really a failing of the ACA so much as a lot of republican-led states throwing hissy fits about anything even remotely resembling socialism or that might improve the lives of anyone not rich white men.

Even so, though, I'm pretty sure you're less fucked with the ACA in place than you'd be if anything happened at all health-wise (even things like 'breaking an arm') prior to it, so, uh. Yeah.

surskitty said:

I'm not sure this is really a failing of the ACA so much as a lot of republican-led states throwing hissy fits about anything even remotely resembling socialism or that might improve the lives of anyone not rich white men.

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My blood boils anytime I see someone so much as indicate that non-rich white people don't deserve to have decent lives in this country. (Which is frustratingly often.)

Yeah, I know in Virginia our new (Democrat) governor is trying to expand Medicaid after our old (Republican) governor refused to, but the General Assembly is still largely controlled by Republicans so *shrugs*

I'm lucky enough that the ACA doesn't really effect me - my dad still qualifies for Tricare and if he decided again to go off of military health insurance he still can get packages from his job. Of course, my dad is an executive and thus we can get and afford much better health insurance than most of the American population. And that is really Not Okay.

Insurance is the difference between life and death in so many ways. There's the obvious disease and injury that people often think of when it comes to general physical health and dentistry, but coverage for eye care and mental health services also save lives literally and in the sense that they allow people to live productive lives.

Not to mention that there is no reason why a state-run insurance would be so awful - I'm on Tricare which, being a military benefit, is state-run and works quite well.

Of course, the Pentagon is thinking of cutting programs and coverage for dependents ends younger than ACA standard (21, 23 if a student). Ha. Haha.

Honestly, one of the most terrifying things about america is that you guys just don't have affordable healthcare, and is probably the single thing (of many) that prevents me from ever wanting to live there. I feel like anything that makes your healthcare less ridiculously expensive is a good thing, but it seems more and more that this is one of many in a giant spiderweb of factors here. :|

ultraviolet said:

Honestly, one of the most terrifying things about america is that you guys just don't have affordable healthcare, and is probably the single thing (of many) that prevents me from ever wanting to live there. I feel like anything that makes your healthcare less ridiculously expensive is a good thing, but it seems more and more that this is one of many in a giant spiderweb of factors here. :|

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Just an idea of how bad, uv, my rate per month I paid while on the 'welfare' insurance was based on my income, meaning it ended up being about eighty dollars. When I am forced, at the end of next month, to leave the 'welfare' insurance to my company's it then turns into about 300 each month. Which is taking an average of 150 each check.

I only make 700 dollars each check, 100 more than my part time position at the same account. Which would have meant I would have made a bit more pocket money, but only a bit, had I been able to stay on the 'welfare' insurance. Now I'm forced to take the company's or get a fine, so that means that I am making less money total in a full time position than I was in a part time. (I was also sort of forced into the full time position too, which sucked. )

My company and the company's insurance provider refuse to work with me on anything that would help me out, they refuse to return calls or voicemails/emails.

EDIT: About me not wanting insurance. As it was I do not go to the doctor, ever. I had no insurance for years and I survived. Call it irresponsible, but I don't find it a necessity. If I get in a car accident, it's not my health insurance that covers it, it's my car insurance, which is the only thing that's happened to me in five years. Hell I haven't even had the flu. The only thing is my tonsil issue, which I know how to treat myself an nothing can be done for.

I cannot afford insurance. That eighty dollars could be a tank and a half of gas, and how 300? If I could not have it at all, it would be better than what I'm forced with, having the option to not have it, should be an option, in my opinion and for my situation. Yes I could, and will, use the marketplace when I can to find something cheaper, but even then it will be more than what I was barely paying for the plan I was forced out of.

Phantom said:

My company and the company's insurance provider refuse to work with me on anything that would help me out, they refuse to return calls or voicemails/emails.

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but that seems like the root of the problem here, and that's not obamacare's fault