Oddbean new post about login | logout If the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is so great, why does our health insurance system still absolutely suck ass?
Obamacare essentially just mandated everyone to get private insurance. There are a bunch of levels to the health care system which are deeply corrupted.
if you pretend it doesn't suck it's not so bad
Its actually more expensive now.
Because the slimeballs never designed it for affordable healthcare -- it is a wealth transfer gimmick.
Every law does the opposite of its name. The affordable care act is unaffordable. The patriot act is unpatriotic. The inflation reduction act. . .
The purpose of the Affordable Care Act (Newspeak in action) was not to ensure everyone has healthcare, or even to make healthcare affordable. It was to weaken or even destroy private health insurance, making the government the only provider. It went a long way toward achieving its goal, but private insurance is still ticking. Unfortunately there’s no going back given today’s political climate. Too many politicians and insiders believe full control by the government is worth some widespread, long term suffering.
I had great insurance - first through work, then I got smart and got a slightly better one, private for 1/3 less. Now I get ‘compliant’ insurance that covers nothing, and acts more like a discount card. But all the boxes are checked. Process over results - go team America.
I’m pretty happy with crowd health. Haven’t used it but that’s sorta the idea. I’d rather pay for real people with real needs than some bureaucratic blob.
Per a college friend of mine that is a GP. The bureaucratic red tape involved made filing for reimbursements even more costly and time consuming for offices. He also mentioned price fixing on certain procedures and billing coding nightmares. I believe his practice ended up opting out of it. He is a small private practice in rural Indiana town (~50-60k pop) that doesn't have a ton of physicians as it is.
You Americans spend more public funds on "healthcare" than any fully-socialist healthcare system in the world, and yet somehow rank 40-something in the world for outcomes. Your healthcare isn't capitalist. It isn't socialist either. Its some sort of monstrous chimaera combining the worst of both into a giant bureaucratic self-licking icecream cone of ill-health and regulated margins.
fiat
Political Doublespeak The is no health and nobody cares "Political language . . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." (George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946)