All obama care did was allow people with broke bodies who couldnt ever get coverage before be able to actually get covered. Which is a good thing. Its pretty cheap for them since pre-existing conditions can no longer be factored into the premium.

Also it created an entire market of people getting regular coverage without having to pay anything because they can't afford anything. These people would have been on some other 2nd rate program before.

Those are the 2 demographics that obama care is good for. (other than the insurance companies they win big because everyone MUST purchase their product now, enforced by law)

For everyone else, insurance premiums just about doubled, because the insurance companies would have been hemorrhaging money otherwise. The govt wins out also because they get the fines from people who still don't want to pay up.

Quite the cluster fuck we got going here in the USA

Nationalize Big Pharma. Free healthcare for you and me my friend.

Single payer healthcare will be on the ballot for Colorado in November 2016...

Hell yea, do you live there? Get out and vote :) keep the faith brutha

This is a lot less crazy of an idea than it might sound to some people since the cost of something like 60% of the research Big Pharma uses is already paid for with public funds. It would be very easy to achieve and would probably save taxpayers money.

It is a scam. Obama care for family of 5 is a product worth $250, but he makes you pay $750 for it to be "ACA Compliant". But if you just get temporary insurance, it's only $250 for essentially the same coverage, and you can renew it indefinitely. To be in the group insurance at my previous job, they wanted $1800 a month, for what is really a $250 product.

So did you go to a private insurance company and buy a plan yourself?

I'm 25 so still on my parent's insurance for now, but I'm gonna have to jump into this health coverage marketplace sooner than later. Trying to figure out my best move that will provide genuinely decent coverage.

I'm in the same position though I am not on my parents insurance. I had temp insurance but it ran out, so I am debating enrolling for Obamacare or finding private insurance for 2016. I need to compare prices/plans to see what the best option is.

So don't get healthcare, and when you show up in the emergency make sure to forget who you are, where you came from, and have your friends slip quietly out the back. They are obligated to help you. Break the system my friend, and it will be fixed.

They patched that hole with the same fix applied to force the hospitals to provide care at ERs instead of dying outside of them like back in the day or within them.

Which still can happen at certain less than reputable places. Which generally sees them being closed or their management fired for the stupidity of leaving someone to die in their lobby without so much as properly triaging them.

The state has to pay for your care, so said system will not break anytime soon; this is because people have been doing exactly what you just suggested for decades where I live and the hospital just bills the state.

So it is not going to break that way, everyone helps everyone out via taxes, which is something I promote as far as their usage since we have no Universal Healthcare.

Everyone gets sick at some point, and to ignore that fact is insane when it comes to ensuring that everyone can get treatment without going bankrupt.

How do we break it faster?

Become a hypochondriac and stop short only of morgellons.

Have you ever seen a coupon? You may have noticed that most coupons don't actually save you money; they merely give you a discount for an item with a marked up price. In essence, you usually pay the standard retail price for an item with a coupon.

You sound like someone who doesn't actually buy much; like someone who watches from a distance while other people spend money. Still in junior high or high school? Still living at home, letting mom and dad pay all the bills? Because here's a hint: If a couple gives you a dollar off, you should use it. You'll save $1. Really. It's true.

Health insurance used to be very affordable, but in recent years prices have steadily risen.

Ah hahahaha! You're a young one, aren't you? No one above the age of 16 or with anything even remotely resembling experience in the real world has ever said "health insurance used to be very affordable." You come straight out of the Fox New information-free bubble, where all the "facts" are made up.

Here's reality: Health care costs and insurance premiums have been astronomical for decades, and they increased dramatically every single year long before Obamacare. I've worked for the same company since 1994 and have been paying for health insurance out of my paycheck every week for the last 21 years. I know what I'm talking about.

It's a scam designed to guarantee that insurance companies get your money.

Yes, well, that's what you get when you vote for Republicans and conservative Democrats. Americans could have any system they want, but they have chosen a system dominated by the ultra-rich, religious fundamentalists, and ultra-conservative wackos.

We wanted free and universal health care, instead we got a marketplace to "compare competitive options,"

I don't know who you think you are speaking for with that "we" stuff, but no, most Americans have been brainwashed into thinking "free and universal health care" is socialism and a reward to lazy minorities and illegal immigrants. Because that's what Rush Limbaugh and Ron Paul told them to think. We don't have free and universal health care because our politicians are conservative and our citizens have been brainwashed to support policies that only help the rich and powerful.

Don't tell me, let me guess, you're going to vote for Donald Trump.

Its niave to make your rant about either Republican or Democrat, both have been equally complicit. The money in politics is the issue.

I'm British and only recently discovered what Obamacare was all about.

Here's me thinking it was an NHS style healthcare system, treatment for all, free at the point of delivery. This would help the poor.

I didn't actually realise that it's just a system of somewhat helping the poor pay for extortionate private treatment.

Yeah. There was a long, bitter fight in Congress that lasted well over a year. What we got was the absolute best that we could possibly achieve, and even that was only accomplished barely, by the skin of our teeth. The combination of Republicans -- opposed totally to any kind of real reform -- and conservative Democrats made true national / universal health care impossible. In order to pass, Obamacare required the votes of several "blue dog" Democrats, i.e., conservative Democrats, like Sen. Ben Nelson (Nebraska) and Rep. Bart Stupak (Michigan). And these guys would only agree to a market-based solution based on private insurance.

This plan was originally tried by Mitt Romney when he was the Republican governor of Massachusetts. The plan was devised by the ultraconservative Heritage Foundation.

That said, it has done a lot of good. There are almost 20,000,000 previously uninsured people who now have access to health care. There are millions more who have access to expanded Medicaid. (But not in red states, because red states would rather let their poor go without health care, because they are barbarians and moral degenerates.)

Still, despite Republican intransigence in red states, Obamacare is going to save a lot of lives - people who would have died with untreated conditions can now get health care.

But no, we're still a long way from the kind of systems you have in the UK, or Canada, or the rest of the civilized world.

You have to remember: Americans hate the poor. I mean, really fucking hate the poor and love to see them suffer. That's one of the main things that propels the Republican Party forward. Look at Donald Trump and his overwhelming support by conservatives. His whole message is based on hatred for the weak and powerless. And conservatives can't get enough.

Wrong sub.

when exactly was healthcare "very" affordable? even a few years ago, to COBRA health ins for a family was like $2,000 A MONTH.

I worked in health insurance from 2005-2012. It did not "used to be very affordable" and has not only just "steadily risen" in "recent years."

I got out of the health insurance world a few years back, but I still have friends who are in it and I still keep myself very informed on what is happening. You clearly have no grasp of the issues and don't understand how the system works.

That being said, you're not completely wrong on every point, but you should still learn how the system works before you go spouting things you've seen in pictures reposted on facebook by other ignorant people who know nothing about how the industry operates.

Get an nhs (English redditor)

The left wing position on healthcare is a single payer "medicare for all" system; the center position is the public option where citizens have the right to choose between the private and public systems; the right wing position is a completely privatized system.

Obamacare actually was more right wing that what was the status quo as it expanded the role of private insurance. It pisses me off when I hear liberals laud Obamacare when it is a right wing system that was written by the Heritage Foundation and first introduced in Mass. by Mitt Romney.

Well I'd rather get the coupon than nothing at all.

When was health insurance very affordable?

Obamacare is a scam because health insurance is still involved.

Canadian here. I once had to pay for an Rx because I forgot my insurance.

Lifetime costs of healthcare = <$100.

It was a ruse to fool the old whites into eventually conceding to single payer medicare. And it will be inevitable as people won't go back to the old way.

But if Republicans are stupid and they do go back to the insurance market, then they have a darker agenda. Because that will coerce middle to poor class people into non-insurance by even higher premiums they already can't afford (after all, insurance companies passed the switching costs onto the consumer and they'll do that again).

Then people will get sick and not get care they need and will start dying at a remarkably higher rate since stress and administrative alienation are factors contributing to poor health outcomes. This will be a direct result of bad policy and bankrupted leadership.

ERs will be flooded by uninsured white people, not just latins and they have to treat you, but that will cause hospitals to choose to close or give up their policies of the treatment of the uninsured.

This leads to moral panic, widespread demoralization and more chaos as people begin to distrust the system deeply--it spirals out of control and america is finally ultimately lost.

We wanted free and universal health care

No we didn't.

Okay, people who aren't selfish wanted free and universal health care.

Obamacare was carefully designed to suck the last remaining disposable income from the so-called middle class. Can't afford it? No tax refund... for the rest of your life.

There are plenty of hardship waivers to avoid the penalty.

So did you go to a private insurance company and buy a plan yourself?

I'm 25 so still on my parent's insurance for now, but I'm gonna have to jump into this health coverage marketplace sooner than later. Trying to figure out my best move that will provide genuinely decent coverage.