Can Obamacare survive Obama's presidency?

2016-10-21T07:14:37-04:00

The end of Barack Obama's presidency is near, and his most important domestic policy accomplishment is teetering and threatening to fall and smash to pieces. Obamacare, or at least the most-touted part of it, is failing. It will fall to the next president to ignore President Obama's calls to throw more money at a program that doesn't work. Comments please.

Response by CSM Michael J. Uhlig made Oct 21 at 2016 7:27 AM

2016-10-21T07:27:27-04:00

T minus 90 days my friend!

Response by Sgt Aaron Kennedy, MS made Oct 21 at 2016 7:29 AM

2016-10-21T07:29:49-04:00

The issue with the PPACA is that it is "bad law" as in badly crafted law. Poorly designed law. Ignore all philosophical arguments for just a moment and look at construction of the program.

The law itself "shifts risk" from groups to balance cost (like all insurance does). Men on average have less health risk than women. The young have less health risk than the old. However, the law mandates that those conditions cannot be a deciding factor for payment (affordable care act). Therefore men are supplementing women's health care cost, and the young are supplementing the old's health care cost.

There are problems with this however. The young do not generally need "health care." They need Catastrophic or Emergency Services (get hit by a bus) level Insurance, which we already have mechanisms in place for.

Additionally, a key component of the PPACA was the ability to place people under 26 on their parents Insurance.... this means they weren't paying for Insurance anyways. This removed the first thread.

Second was that the law was unenforceable. Sure you could fine someone for not having Insurance. But the people who would choose not to have it don't make squat anyway. They're the young and the poor. The same people who we need supplementing the rest for the system to work.

Third, the system mandates increased "cost" on the women's side of things. This is not really a bad thing from a Preventive Medicine standpoint, however, it runs counter to two things. It INCREASES COST and it REDUCES LIBERTY.

Fourth, any law that has more than 25% (honestly I think 15%) of the population balking at it, shouldn't be a law. That's not democracy, that tyranny of the majority.

Response by SPC Kevin Ford made Oct 21 at 2016 7:35 AM

2016-10-21T07:35:06-04:00

Yes, bad policy but not as bad as what we had before. It needs to be fixed, but one party wants nothing to do with that and wants it to fail so the legislation doesn't get the tweaking it needs.

Response by LTC Kevin B. made Oct 21 at 2016 7:45 AM

2016-10-21T07:45:02-04:00

Overall, I think it will survive, but it will be altered. It may even be replaced by something very similar, but called by some other name, just so that politicians can say they "repealed Obamacare". The law has too many parts that are very popular (no denial of pre-existing conditions, guaranteed issuance, kids covered until 26, establishment of insurance exchanges, elimination of coverage caps, etc.). Trying to completely repeal it brings about far too many political issues that politicians won't want to deal with (because they'll face the wrath of voters). That's why most of the repeal/replace ideas (although admittedly none have ever been turned into actual legislation) contain many of the same provisions as the PPACA. Plus, repealing the law without replacing it blows up the budget, so deficit hawks would have to either resist repealing it, or completely turn their backs on their own top priority.

Response by Col Joseph Lenertz made Oct 21 at 2016 7:46 AM

2016-10-21T07:46:30-04:00

Yes, it will survive; not due to any success or even viability, but due to our government process and precedent. Once in place, failing government programs like Obamacare are kept alive with ever-increasing taxpayer funds. The program might be a known failure but it's still much more difficult to get a bill through Congress killing it than it is to just give it more "other people's money".

Response by SSG Private RallyPoint Member made Oct 21 at 2016 7:46 AM

2016-10-21T07:46:42-04:00

I rather have the choice to pick my health care like I pick my care insurance. Tricare is not the best health care but I am happy I have it. I would like to see the govt out of health care

Response by MCPO Roger Collins made Oct 21 at 2016 8:12 AM

2016-10-21T08:12:10-04:00

But, not with our significant modification or subsidies to insurance companies and recipients of insured. Just as predicted. When Bill Clinton says it is "crazy", there isn't much to add.

Response by 1SG Al Brown made Oct 21 at 2016 8:53 AM

2016-10-21T08:53:23-04:00

The law is imploding through non-sustainable payment input (Not enough of your money). The POTUS will never convince the party that didn't vote for the Affordable Care Act to vote to save it via additional emergency funding. The best he can do is pack his bags and write a letter to his library that makes it not his fault. Polarized legislation never works out, as the other side will never forget the slight.

Response by 1SG Dennis Hicks made Oct 21 at 2016 8:55 AM

2016-10-21T08:55:57-04:00

It will die a quick death, it was poorly written, full of mistakes and is self destructing as I write this. The exchanges are popping smoke as fast as they can. While the idea at first may sound good, in reality it is a curse. Just another failed policy in an administration of amateurs.

Response by Capt Walter Miller made Oct 21 at 2016 10:25 AM

2016-10-21T10:25:19-04:00

One thing is for sure; without the AMA working properly to save Americans money on their health insurance, Obama's administration was a TOTAL dud.

Response by LTC Stephen F. made Oct 21 at 2016 11:17 AM

2016-10-21T11:17:26-04:00

My short answer is no SP5 Mark Kuzinski
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act [PPACA] was hurried to passage before anybody really had a chance to read through and analyze it. The Department of Health and Human Service [HHS] was charged with oversight and mushroomed in terms of staff-size and budget in part to get Federal government-worker buy-in. A world-class development-team was brought in to design a system of Federal-oversight with state modules/applications that were focused on each state and territory in accordance with Federal and State laws. The states were given a carrot or stick option in the hopes that all states would buy in. A number of states such as Texas did not buy in.
Health Insurance companies were brought to the table with an expectation of influence. power and lots of money flowing in.
Like many top-down highest-priority projects the Obamacare software did not meet expectations.
The number of uninsured didn't change much because while many were picked up - others were dropped by employers after cost-benefit analysis. My wife and I were in that group along with a number of our friends who were terminated in teh summer of 2013.
The Insurers who thought they would make lots of money ended up realizing in the short run they were experiencing up to $1B annual losses. A number of insurers backed out.
While there were some good aspects of Obamacare including insuring healthy children up to age 26, the larger issues such as enabling people to purchase insurance in other states were never realized. States balked against this and the government is not in favor of competition since they were moving to a single payer system.
I expect the PPACA will collapse by early next year. Hopefully the few good aspects will be saved and the significant regulatory increases will be scaled back dramatically.
I concur with Sgt Aaron Kennedy, MS's response.
I thought you might be interested in this discussion: COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC Stephen C. Maj William W. 'Bill' Price Capt Christopher Mueller Capt Seid Waddell CW5 Private RallyPoint Member SMSgt Minister Gerald A. Thomas SGM David W. Carr LOM, DMSM MP SGT SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL SSG James J. Palmer IV aka "JP4" SSgt Private RallyPoint Member SGT Private RallyPoint Member SGT Forrest Stewart SGT John " Mac " McConnell SGT Robert Hawks SPC Private RallyPoint Member SrA Christopher Wright Kim Bolen RN CCM ACM

Response by Capt Seid Waddell made Oct 21 at 2016 11:39 AM

2016-10-21T11:39:09-04:00

Only if Hillary is elected.

Response by CDR Michael Goldschmidt made Oct 21 at 2016 11:42 AM

2016-10-21T11:42:49-04:00

As a result of Obamacare and subsequent rulings by the SCOTUS, the federal government can now force you to purchase ANY PRODUCT it wants you to purchase...ANYTHING. That's a massive loss of freedom. The damage is done.

Response by SSG Private RallyPoint Member made Oct 21 at 2016 3:45 PM

2016-10-21T15:45:18-04:00

Yes, however... it needs to be fine tuned and improved. Policies would need to be standardized across the nation and taken out of the hands of the States who have (sometimes intentionally) created a mess.

Just because it can be saved doesn't mean it should be saved though... we should ditch the Insurance companies entirely and rely on a national Health care system which covers the basics for everyone. Health care needs to be about caring for people, not maximizing profits.

Response by MSgt James Mullis made Oct 21 at 2016 3:52 PM

2016-10-21T15:52:18-04:00

It was designed to fail all along while damaging the old system beyond repair. It's purpose was to force "Americans" into a form of single payer system that "Americans" did not want.

Response by MSgt Private RallyPoint Member made Oct 21 at 2016 3:58 PM

2016-10-21T15:58:06-04:00

The answer would be yes and no.
Actually I think he knew it would fail all along. The sole purpose is to get to a single payer system. If the Affordable Care Act fails to provide what was promised (which it is) then the next step is to propose how good the single payer system would be to the populous. The left would much more prefer a system like Canada. I don't think the best course of action by conservatives is to get rid of the ACA. We really need to reorganize and restructure it to make it more useful and more cohesive to work in conjunction with private insurance.

Response by SFC James Asbill made Oct 21 at 2016 11:35 PM

2016-10-21T23:35:18-04:00

I certainly hope NOT !!!!!!!!

Response by SFC George Smith made Oct 22 at 2016 12:22 AM

2016-10-22T00:22:47-04:00

it is already collapsing in on it self... 2 providers are out and 2 more have increased policy payments to the point folks have to decide whether to Pau house Payments ot Insurance...

Response by PO1 John Meyer, CPC made Oct 22 at 2016 5:12 PM

2016-10-22T17:12:35-04:00

I actually work on the financial side of medicine as a medical biller/coder.

Aetna has left the exchanges. United Healthcare will leave at the end of the year. Few medical providers accept plans under the Unaffordable Healthcare Act (UHA). Premiums have risen and continue to rise. Deductibles have risen and continue to rise and I've seen them and they're stupid high. The cost of heath care overall has risen, which wasn't supposed to happen at all; just like we were supposed to be able to keep our doctor and our insurance if we liked them, period.

Yet government will do as it always does; throw money at the problem in a vain attempt to fix the problem versus actually fixing what's wrong. The political side that supports the UHA will try and strike fear into us all as they usually do saying doing anything less will cause our health care system to collapse; the other side will roll over saying there's nothing they can do out of fear for their own political lives thanks to the media that is more concerned with flowing with the political winds versus actual, factual reporting.

Obama bet the farm and lost big time. He naively assumed that young, healthy people would flock to the UHA plans because they had no insurance, would pay for them, but hardly use them so that those who really needed health care coverage would be covered by their premium payments. What he didn't account for is the fact that a lot of those young people can't afford the stupid high premiums and a good number of them don't want heath insurance anyway saying that it's a waste of money because they're healthy and they need that money for things like bills!

This isn't going to be an easy fix, peeps. The damage is done and it will be equally painful to undo it. Of course, this will also depend on who is POTUS after this election... or will it.

Those of us who are old enough remember Hillarycare. Will the Donald cave when confronted with the UHA?

Response by SGT Michael Boothby made Oct 27 at 2016 2:13 PM

2016-10-27T14:13:11-04:00

No but if it does it will die out soon after

Response by SCPO Morris Ramsey made Jul 26 at 2017 10:31 PM

2017-07-26T22:31:32-04:00

SP5 Mark Kuzinski,LTC Stephen F.,SMSgt Minister Gerald A. "Doc" Thomas,SGT David A. 'Cowboy' Groth,MCPO Roger Collins
What Article in the Constitution gives congress the authority to create and fund a healthcare system. Including Medicare and Medicaid

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Jul 27 at 2017 10:09 AM

2017-07-27T10:09:40-04:00

Apparently it survived his presidency and then some.