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Originally Posted by GoRedSox!
In the original ACA, everyone had to have insurance. There was an individual mandate. If everyone was insured, the burden of those who can't or don't pay for care would have been eliminated. One way or another, we all pay for those who don't have insurance, and in 2010, there was 50 million uninsured Americans.
The individual mandate was thrown out, that took many healthy young people out of the pool and increased costs dramatically.
I can't tell you how many people I have heard complaining about the ACA, while their own kids got to stay on their parents health insurance until they were 26 years old. The number of uninsured Americans has dropped by more than 20 million since 2010.
The biggest reason that it is costly is because there is no pre-existing condition limitation and the people who need care the most are the most likely people to sign up for it. And it required all insurance policies to include certain essential benefits so that insurance companies weren't selling plans to people which were so skinnied down that they didn't pay for much of the care that people needed.
The United States remains the only industrialized democracy in the entire world where health care is a privilege and not a right. We are the only country that ties health insurance to employment. We also spend far more than any other country per capita on health care and our outcomes are not superior.
Saying all of this does not make me a communist or a socialist. The US is the only outlier. Millions of Americans routinely travel to other countries to receive care, the nickname for this is medical tourism.
Many folks think that a government health care system is socialism. But we already have tens of millions of people in a government health care system who are on Medicare and Medicaid, and generally, the folks who are covered are ok with their coverage and don't see themselves as participating in a socialist system. There is no reason that Medicare can't be expanded to cover everyone.
For those who would not want everyone to be covered by Medicare, do you think it's better run by a handful of gigantic for-profit health insurance companies, big pharma advertising all over TV, and conglomerate health care systems buying up individual practices?
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Your complaint that "children" could stay on their parent's plan was and integral part of the ACA by design. It was a bone thrown to help it get passed.
My 2 younger kids could stay on my plan (until age 26), but neither one had to. They were both covered by their employers. Employers found it cheaper to offer health insurance rather than higher pay.
My oldest had to pay her own way.
Your other claim that we spend more with no better results is an outcome of our legal system.
No other industrial country has the medical malpractice industry that is seen in the US.
Docs here MUST practice defensive medicine, and order too many tests or risk being sued.