Comments

1
Sadly, the Medicare-for-all approach didn't have a ghost of a chance. Health care in this country is such a joke.
2
Reagan signed into law the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act requiring emergency rooms to treat people regardless of their ability to pay- this was the real socialization of American health care. The Afforable Care Act could have been called the Patient Responsibility Act as people are required to pay for the coverage that hospitals are required to provide. IF the GOP does away with the insurance mandate and does not find some way to compensate hospitals for this care they are essentially taxing sick people who will have to pay more for health care in a hospital to cover the cost of this 1980s mandate.
3
Well written.
4
@1 Many polls show that an overwhelming majority of Americans wants Medicare for all. If Medicare for all had been introduced and turned down by congress before November 2010, the mid-term elections would have turned out very differently and today would be very different as well. If you don't give something for people to vote for, they won't show up at the booth. Won't Democrats ever learn or is it willful ignorance?
6
My prediction is this: The republicans will change a few bits and pieces of the ACA, removing some bad and strengthening some of the good. They'll expand medicare by calling it something else. They'll re-label it "Trumpcare" and for the rest of time, they'll say that republicans created it, republicans championed it, and democrats fought it.

If/when universal health care becomes enacted, the republicans will say they are the ones who have always supported it and the democrats are the ones who have always opposed it.

Their followers will believe it, the democrats will mount weak to no resistance, citing "bipartisanship" and "working together," and it will become fact.

Happens all the time. The democrat's greatest strengths and the republican's greatest weaknesses get turned around by the perpetuation of lies that are not addressed. Just look at fiscal responsibility. The democrats are the responsible ones, the republicans are not, yet somehow, everyone believes the opposite.
7
Affordable Care Act: Imploding And Beyond Repair
by
John Geyman Professor Emeritus of Family Medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine
8
@6 The Republicans want to replace Medicare with private insurance. They just re-elected Ryan Speaker of the House. That's his plan.

http://tinyurl.com/h84o6n9
9
Self-inflicted wound. The Democrats wanted to reach across the aisle and work with sociopaths who have no interest in consensus or governance. Now we all suffer. I pray that the next leader of the DNC & 2020 nominee will have no illusions about the enemy we are dealing with.
10
Casper is in central Wyoming. Cheyenne, the capital, is in the southeastern corner, about an hour from Laramie.
11
It was stupid to have each state spin up their exchange. Have a consortium of tech companies run the exchange for the entire country, open it up to interstate competition, reign-in excessive micromanaging of doctors and hospitals, and other refreshing ideas.
13
@12: No, I understand what my own gay personal physician in Seattle has told me, regarding the micromanagement. The NYT article is conjecture because it has not been tried. Better software is always an improvement.

I've had my own miserable experience with the ACA and I know what I'm talking about. And even if I didn't, it does't mean that what I'm saying isn't true.

15
@14: Again, it's not policy to open up interstate competition and that article is a preview of the complexities that could be overcome. Perhaps. Or else what? Just six or so choices in providers?

Have you used the portal? Not all browsers work well with it. It should be as seamless as buying a toaster on Amazon.
16
Golob is wrong about the politics. He says Democrats had control of the government and they failed to pass the public option because of an intra-party fight, but Republicans and Independent Senator Lieberman promised to filibuster it, and the Democrats only had 58 Senators plus Sanders. Without a single Republican's or Lieberman's support, there was no way to get 60 votes to break the Republican-and-Lieberman filibuster, even if the Democrats had rounded up every single red-state Democratic Senator.

Want to prevent more President Trumps? The Stranger and the media will have to do a better job of reporting the facts.
17
I too have become the victim of the down falls of ACA. I am part of the 7 million who has an individual insurance policy. In 2017, I will pay $1,750.00 per month for a $6500 deductible plan for my wife an I. I make over the threshold to receive any subsidies. The very same industry that I have spent 40 years of my life recommending to clients is killing me. The gentleman from MIT that is the architect of this program is trying to defend his program by saying that ACA is working is mind less! Are there parts of it working ? Some say yes. I say not at all. To me something is working when it operates under its own. Therr are over 1400 companies exempt from the ACA system that I have been thrown into and millions who receive some form of subsidies They have done nothing but cost shift the entire program.
18
I grew up in Casper and nobody who lived there would ever confuse it with Cheyenne. Had you actually lived there you would have known that. Credit goes to #10 for noticing this first.
19
@17 What state do you live in? I pay $600 a month for my wife and me, with a $5200 deductible. I get no credits. I think that's a lot, but $1750 is absurd.

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