The stories they tell themselves

by | Jul 24, 2017 | Editor's Blog, Obamacare | 5 comments

Nowhere is the GOP bubble more obvious than in the current debate over whether or not to repeal Obamacare. According the Republicans, the ACA broke a system where, as one person told me on twitter, “88% liked their healthcare before Obamacare.” Now, according to twitter folks, premiums are increasing at “an average of 40% per year” and “the system is crashing.”

That’s the story Republicans are telling themselves. It’s being reinforced by Fox News and conservative web sites, but it’s not true. The ACA certainly has some problems but it’s not killing the economy, leaving more people without insurance or threatening to “crash” our health care system.

Back in 2005 and 2006, health care was the country’s number one domestic concern. Premiums were doubling every five years. More than 15% of the population lacked health insurance. Emergency rooms had become extremely expensive primary care centers for millions of uninsured Americans. The number of families going bankrupt because of medical bills was increasing. The amount the country spent on health care was rising rapidly. Americans were demanding changes.

Since the Affordable Care Act, premiums are still increasing, but at a considerably slower pace. Fewer Americans lack health insurance than at any time in recent history.  The number of families declaring bankruptcy due to medical bills is down considerably. Growth in the cost of health care has slowed dramatically. None of that, though, gets through the GOP talking points.

Republicans spent seven years telling Americans that Obamacare would ruin the country despite little evidence to back up their claims. Their partisans bought the arguments hook, line and sinker and are demanding the evil law be repealed. Now, Republicans are caught between their rhetoric and reality.

They now control the entire federal government and half of the states. Beyond the GOP base, people see that the ACA has made a difference in health care and they’re no longer scared of it. They want it improved, but they don’t want to go through another seven years of uncertainty, especially when most experts predict GOP alternatives will lower the number of people with insurance and increase premiums.

So, Republicans are stuck with a bunch of bad political choices. They can repeal the bill and really cause heartache to millions of people. They can institute their so-called free-market replace options, which would still leave millions of people without coverage. They can do nothing. Or they can work with Democrats to try to make the law better by reducing costs, insuring more people and figuring out how to pay for the fixes.

Republicans in Congress are stuck between middle America, which just wants better health care, and their base which wants to stick it to Democrats and unravel Obama’s legacy. They can’t satisfy both. They can do what’s best for the most people or they can feed the red meat to their base and see what happens.

5 Comments

  1. The analyst

    All modern nations that are not authoritarian crapholes are Capitalist-oriented with Socialist components. The US just does it the worst. One could even argue China, which IS an authoritorian craphole, is Capitalist-oriented and takes care of its people in terms of health care anyway, better than the US. And the reason the US fails is purely the greed of those already blessed by wealth to some degree, enough wealth to consider oneself “better”. A review of Health Insurance company stocks reveals that their value grows at a significantly faster rate than the average. Our inability to promote ourselves to a 21st Century nation with Health Care as a Service, instead of Health Insurance and sickness as a profit center, is due purely to the top 5 or 10% income / wealth wise of our own citizens. Remember, we ALREADY pay for Universal Care. It’s written in our laws that no one can be turned away from the emergency room. It’s ironic that not only do the wealthy profit from the most profitable stocks, but also the intentional diversion of the most vulnerable in our society to a health care portal which costs 5 -10 times or more than conventional care, a portal whose method of operation is not designed to provide long term quality of care. The cost of emergency services is more often than not reflected on to those of us who have insurance plans, ensuring that the normal Progressive taxing model where those that could afford to pay more, i.e. the upper income / wealth stratum, are relieved of that responsibility. For these three reasons purely based on the greed of those with More it will be extremely difficult to institute single payer Health Care.
    A strange sort of brainwashing has been played upon the Red State conservatives, sometimes referred to as the Deplorables, who I see as living in “The Bubble”, the Echo Chamber of Right Wing lies, lies picked up and repeated from one Alt Right / Teaparty reinforcing media outlet to another, and in like fashion from one low information victim to another. Along with Obama the Kenyan or Crooked Hillary or “CNN/CBS/ABC/AP/NBC etc is Fake News” is the 180 degree switch from the gratitude of the Nouveau Riche to the Ayn Randian “I don’t need to support the society I live in and neither should the wealthy” pablum I hear from people who are definitely not in the pink. No man is an island, all wealth is built on the backs of others; wealth built exploiting workers, roads, resources, or other aspects of our society well beyond ordinary levels of wealth should at least be taxed at a greater percentage than the incomes of those who can barely pay for the essentials. Around most of the advanced world, this dictum is accepted without question, an alternative to living and probably then dying by the sword. Only in America has the flinty tight-fisted grasp of lucre by those most able to pay replaced on a practical level religion and any concepts of societal advancement.

  2. D B

    What do you think the average person should pay for health care? Give me a number.
    Last year my family of four spent $20,000 out of pocket for heath care. My spouse is a state employee, so the state paid $450 or $500 a month for her insurance. I do not think the average family of 4 spent $25,000 for health insurance and medical care. So what is the answer?

    • FishOutofWater aka George

      DB, you don’t seem to understand health care or insurance. One case of cancer can cost a million dollars to treat. Twin preemies in the NICU may cost another million dollars. I’ve made it to 65 without ever paying huge hospital bills. There’s no doubt that I’ve paid in far more than insurance has paid out. That’s good news. No cancer. No heart attacks. No nasty chronic diseases.

      The way to get health care costs down is to keep people healthy and to keep people with chronic conditions out of the hospital. Of course, we need to stop rip offs like huge price increases on existing drugs, but we can’t just pretend that cancer care isn’t expensive.

    • Andrew D Reed

      Well, DB, I don’t think “the average person” should pay any particular dollar amount, because we are all different, have different circumstances, different incomes, and different needs. As the other responder said, he’s fortunate to have never faced calamitous medical issues, though he’s paid more into the system than he’s ever gotten out of it. THAT is the way insurance works. How much your family should spend will depend on your income and your needs. However, it would be based solely on income in what follows:

      Here, for your consideration, is my Healthcare platform for a progressive Democratic party:

      HEALTHCARE
      Medicare Part E (Medicare for Everyone) – Every American is fully covered for all needed medical, mental health, and dental procedures, check-ups, health maintenance, etc., with no deductions or copayments; elective procedures (face lifts, tummy tucks, etc.) would not be covered unless medically necessary. Government shall negotiate and set prices for all procedures, drugs, and treatments.

      Annual premium cost based on income – Premiums will be paid through tax withholding (like Social Security and Medicare) or by individual payment; everyone with any income will pay something. (One approximation of rates could be by income group quintiles: the 20% with the lowest income pays 2% of Adjusted Gross Income; next quintile 4%; middle quintile 6%; next quintile 8%; top quintile 10%.)*

      Choice – No restriction will be placed on any woman’s right to choose whether or not to bear a child, by the Congress or any state or other jurisdiction in the United States; nor shall any insurance program (including Medicare for Everyone) restrict coverage or refuse to cover any medical procedure chosen by a woman in consultation with her doctor.

      *Medical costs in the U.S. are over $10K per person per year, compared to other industrialized nations’ range from $4,500 to $6,500. For the most part that’s due to the unconscionable profits taken by insurers, pharmaceutical companies, and physicians. If costs were controlled as they are throughout the civilized world, our expenses would drop to a normal amount — a maximum of 10% of income.

  3. Smartysmom

    It’s all very well to demonize corporate America, but doing that very neatly shifts blame off a political party whose goal is power and achieves its goal by appealing to fear with lies. I believe this is called the Gingrich plan? Or something like that. Somewhere politics became purely about power and not about making the country work. It also shifts responsibility off the electorate who respond to these tactics. So “Disgusted’, in my opinion, your rant is just another enabling tactic.

    A discussion about the viability of capitalism is another subject altogether, and one about which I’d probably agree.

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