Obamacare Guarantees Higher Insurance Premiums

[Zoraptor]

 

Not trying to be argumentative, but could you please define what you mean by "large proportion" because last time I checked over 85% of all Americans had health care coverage. 

(48 million is a lot of people, yes.  And ~15% is fairly high so if that's what you meant we're good)

 

That's essentially what I meant, yes, with the addition below. It's certainly a matter of perspective as to whether the ~15% is 'large' or not, from my perspective it's more than 10x our total population and we do have pretty much 100%/ universal health care here, so it certainly looks large.

 

The other part of it is that as I understand it there are also problems with underinsurance/ exclusions and cutting of insurance to high risk/ high cost people which results in extra costs and extra unnecessary use of emergency systems.

 

I guess in effect what I'm saying is that it appears that the US system is inefficient as it does not provide enough incentive for cheaper prevention over expensive treatment. Since there's no money to be made here from people getting sick and indeed it's always an economic cost to everyone involved there's a lot more emphasis on preventative tests and the like, which minimises costs in the longer term. In contrast, the US's more capitalist approach has various groups wanting to make money at every step, inevitably including groups who will make more money if someone actually gets sick than if they don't. 

[Tsuga C]

Edit 3:  That 70% figure might be from the 19-25 yo group.   

Details regarding the 70% figure.

[kgambit]

 

 

Not trying to be argumentative, but could you please define what you mean by "large proportion" because last time I checked over 85% of all Americans had health care coverage. 

(48 million is a lot of people, yes.  And ~15% is fairly high so if that's what you meant we're good)

 

That's essentially what I meant, yes, with the addition below. It's certainly a matter of perspective as to whether the ~15% is 'large' or not, from my perspective it's more than 10x our total population and we do have pretty much 100%/ universal health care here, so it certainly looks large.

 

The other part of it is that as I understand it there are also problems with underinsurance/ exclusions and cutting of insurance to high risk/ high cost people which results in extra costs and extra unnecessary use of emergency systems.

 

I guess in effect what I'm saying is that it appears that the US system is inefficient as it does not provide enough incentive for cheaper prevention over expensive treatment. Since there's no money to be made here from people getting sick and indeed it's always an economic cost to everyone involved there's a lot more emphasis on preventative tests and the like, which minimises costs in the longer term. In contrast, the US's more capitalist approach has various groups wanting to make money at every step, inevitably including groups who will make more money if someone actually gets sick than if they don't. 

 

 

I thought that's where you were coming from on the %  - so fair enough.  48 million is a LOT of people. 

 

Hurlshot's video hits the nail on the head.  It's a total overrun on costs that makes our healthcare per capita costs the highest in the world.  So yes, it's totally inefficient.  And Obama's law really does **** all to fix that.   Heck it doesn't even achieve universal care.  The ONLY decent thing that the law provided was to prevent insurance companies from denying coverage on pre-existing conditions.  That was a significant accomplishment. 

 

Honestly I don't know if our system can be fixed or how it should be fixed. 

 

 

 

Edit 3:  That 70% figure might be from the 19-25 yo group.   

Details regarding the 70% figure.

 

 

No.  Hurlshot and I were discussing what % of US Population is currently covered by health care, not what public opinion thinks of it. 

[Guard Dog]

Well it seems we can all agree that the main problem in the US is costs. Now, just thinking in terms of economics 101 if you have a fixed quantity of a commodity, then force everyone by law to purchase that commodity what happens to the price of that commodity? Obamacare does not provide single payer service. All it does is require everyone to buy insurance and subsidise the cost for some by increasing the cost for others. How could this not drive up costs?

 

The most insidious thing about it though is that is compels under legal penalty as a condition of citizenship that everyone must enter into a private contract with a third party. Am I the only one that sees how that is a terrible precedent?

Edited October 2, 2013 by Guard Dog

[Rostere]

I guess in effect what I'm saying is that it appears that the US system is inefficient as it does not provide enough incentive for cheaper prevention over expensive treatment. Since there's no money to be made here from people getting sick and indeed it's always an economic cost to everyone involved there's a lot more emphasis on preventative tests and the like, which minimises costs in the longer term. In contrast, the US's more capitalist approach has various groups wanting to make money at every step, inevitably including groups who will make more money if someone actually gets sick than if they don't. 

 

This seems to be exactly the problem. There is a free market whose main source of income relies on people actually being sick. The end result of that is bound to be that everybody pays for "emergency" healthcare (people usually are willing to pay in order to not die), but seeking preventive care before a disaster happens becomes more expensive, since more people opt out of it.

 

You get to hear a lot of bull**** about stuff like "drugs are more expensive in the US". Of course they are not intrinsically more expensive. If you're a traveled person you will know that the US is generally a very cheap place compared to, say, Norway (as mentioned before). Yet the costs for drugs are generally cheaper or equally expensive over there. The only difference is the bureaucracy you will have to go through in order to obtain your medicine. Obviously, as has been shown by anecdotes in this thread, it's not impossible to find fairly-priced drugs in the US. It's just that a lot of people end up buying expensive drugs (I take the "Lipitor" mentioned before as an example). Why is that? I can only assume that it is because of an imperfect free market - customers are unable to survey the market and make informed decisions of their own.

 

What about requiring doctors by law to prescribe the cheapest alternative by default, unless the patient insists otherwise? Considering how someone must be making insane amounts of money from the current system, I think such a law would never pass Congress, but you can always speculate.

 

Well it seems we can all agree that the main problem in the US is costs. Now, just thinking in terms of economics 101 if you have a fixed quantity of a commodity, then force everyone by law to purchase that commodity what happens to the price of that commodity? Obamacare does not provide single payer service. All it does is require everyone to buy insurance and subsidise the cost for some by increasing the cost for others. How could this not drive up costs?

 

The most insidious thing about it though is that is compels under legal penalty as a condition of citizenship that everyone must enter into a private contract with a third party. Am I the only one that sees how that is a terrible precedent?

 

I was positive about Obamacare at first, but after learning more about (in the last few months or so) it I'm deeply sceptical. It might very well end up doing more harm than good. The best thing would be to throw out the entire system and start over from scratch. As you say, the laws of economics dictate that waste will increase significantly. Yet nothing has been done to fundamentally change how the system works.

 

But I've really not seen you argue why the US should not just copy/paste the healthcare system in, say, Australia or New Zealand? Things seem to be better in every measurable way over there. And if you disagree (and let's put utopias aside for a minute), which country would you choose as a blueprint for a healthcare system? As long as there is a template to follow, I'm sure reform in the US could be very swift.

[ShadySands]

Ideology aside the usual argument against copy and pasting the health care system from some other country is that none of the countries have anything close to the numbers that we are dealing with. We have cities with more people than some of these countries. 

 

Personally, I would love if we could get some kind of UHC here but I don't think its ever going to happen in my life time unless the US breaks up into smaller countries

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I don't think UHC is impossible due to population size, I think it is impossible due to organizational problems in federal, state, and local government and a certain political groups. Now, if the government became more consolidated(more uniform rules between states) and that certain group falls out of favor, then maybe it could happen assuming insurance companies couldn't successfully lobby against it.

[kgambit]

This seems to be exactly the problem. There is a free market whose main source of income relies on people actually being sick. The end result of that is bound to be that everybody pays for "emergency" healthcare (people usually are willing to pay in order to not die), but seeking preventive care before a disaster happens becomes more expensive, since more people opt out of it.

 

You get to hear a lot of bull**** about stuff like "drugs are more expensive in the US". Of course they are not intrinsically more expensive. If you're a traveled person you will know that the US is generally a very cheap place compared to, say, Norway (as mentioned before). Yet the costs for drugs are generally cheaper or equally expensive over there. The only difference is the bureaucracy you will have to go through in order to obtain your medicine. Obviously, as has been shown by anecdotes in this thread, it's not impossible to find fairly-priced drugs in the US. It's just that a lot of people end up buying expensive drugs (I take the "Lipitor" mentioned before as an example). Why is that? I can only assume that it is because of an imperfect free market - customers are unable to survey the market and make informed decisions of their own.

 

What about requiring doctors by law to prescribe the cheapest alternative by default, unless the patient insists otherwise? Considering how someone must be making insane amounts of money from the current system, I think such a law would never pass Congress, but you can always speculate.

 

I think you grossly overestimate the amount of emergency room usage and the effect it has on health care costs.  Estimates for the amount of un-reimbursed emergency room health care (the amount the feds pay the hospitals for treating people with no insurance) ranges between 1 and 4 billion dollars a year.  Given that total US health care expenditures amounted to 2.7 Trillion dollars, those costs are a drop in the bucket.    Even if the estimates are off by a factor of 10, that's still less than 1% of the total.  

 

The free market comment is valid however and it certainly does add a premium to costs across the board - by about 17% which is the net ROI that most pharmaceutical companies earn. 

 

Drug pricing differentials are not bull**** in the least.  The problem is that this typically applies to brand name drugs and generics are not always available.  The Lipitor example stood out for me because the quoted price of 124$ is actually higher than Pfizer's retail price for the drug (76$).  Here's a link which talks about some of the pricing.

 

   http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/10/us-usa-health-drugs-analysis-idUSBRE9490MH20130510

 

Most drug prescriptions in the US are written as generics.  e.g.  Coumadin is a brand name blood thinner.  If a Rx is written for Coumadin, the pharmacists can automatically substitute a generic (Warfarin) unless the prescription is written solely for the brand name version or the patient demands the brand name.   A couple of reasons I can think of why a doctor would not allow generics is if specific drug interactions could take place OR there was a specific side effect from a generic he wanted to avoid.  

 

Some of the problem in drug pricing is that some consumers do not have the benefit of price leveraging that is available thru mail order services like Caremark.   

Edited October 3, 2013 by kgambit

[Rostere]

Ideology aside the usual argument against copy and pasting the health care system from some other country is that none of the countries have anything close to the numbers that we are dealing with. We have cities with more people than some of these countries. 

 

Personally, I would love if we could get some kind of UHC here but I don't think its ever going to happen in my life time unless the US breaks up into smaller countries

 

The point of UHC is efficiency due to collectively ordering and bargaining for everything that the healthcare system needs. The theoretical maximum efficiency of it gets higher the higher population you've got. You are direly mistaken if you think population size is a real problem here. So if size would be a problem, just split UHC up so that each state has a separate system, and combine the programs as you go forward. If Japan has a functioning health care system, having a functioning system in the US is no harder than having a functioning system in two-three Japans, which obviously is no harder than having one of them. Although you must of course note that you must scale up the bureaucracy according to population.

 

I don't think the fact that the US does not have UHC is necessarily the worst problem though.

 

I don't think UHC is impossible due to population size, I think it is impossible due to organizational problems in federal, state, and local government and a certain political groups. Now, if the government became more consolidated(more uniform rules between states) and that certain group falls out of favor, then maybe it could happen assuming insurance companies couldn't successfully lobby against it.

 

Exactly... Combine a bicameral parliament with a separately elected president, and states which are governed in such a separate fashion and you can be sure you likely won't ever be able to organize a major political reform of any kind, ever. I guess that's what's meant by "checks and balances".

 

I think you grossly overestimate the amount of emergency room usage and the effect it has on health care costs.  Estimates for the amount of un-reimbursed emergency room health care (the amount the feds pay the hospitals for treating people with no insurance) ranges between 1 and 4 billion dollars a year.  Given that total US health care expenditures amounted to 2.7 Trillion dollars, those costs are a drop in the bucket.    Even if the estimates are off by a factor of 10, that's still less than 1% of the total.  

 

The free market comment is valid however and it certainly does add a premium to costs across the board - by about 17% which is the net ROI that most pharmaceutical companies earn. 

 

Drug pricing differentials are not bull**** in the least.  The problem is that this typically applies to brand name drugs and generics are not always available.  The Lipitor example stood out for me because the quoted price of 124$ is actually higher than Pfizer's retail price for the drug (76$).  Here's a link which talks about some of the pricing.

 

   http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/10/us-usa-health-drugs-analysis-idUSBRE9490MH20130510

 

Most drug prescriptions in the US are written as generics.  e.g.  Coumadin is a brand name blood thinner.  If a Rx is written for Coumadin, the pharmacists can automatically substitute a generic (Warfarin) unless the prescription is written solely for the brand name version or the patient demands the brand name.   A couple of reasons I can think of why a doctor would not allow generics is if specific drug interactions could take place OR there was a specific side effect from a generic he wanted to avoid.  

 

Some of the problem in drug pricing is that some consumers do not have the benefit of price leveraging that is available thru mail order services like Caremark.   

 

I did not refer to "emergency rooms" (as the are known in the US) or government-subsidized medical care. I meant the fact that you are less likely to see a doctor (is it established practice in the US to make routine yearly medical examinations?) if you think the only outcome is that you will walk away with a fat bill. Thus eventually paving the way for eventual emergency surgery when your bad health catches up with you, making the net cost of your healthcare higher.

 

I'm sorry if I was unclear about the more expensive medicine being "bull****", I didn't mean to say I don't believe there are price differences, rather the opposite, that there are completely bizarre and arbitrary price differences. The article you linked to pretty much sums up what I think. Like with the example with Avastin, something has to be really, really bad when a medicine is more expensive in the US than in Switzerland. It's exactly as bizarre as if I would move to ex-USSR Estonia (country with 62% lower PPP) and find out that a Big Mac cost the equivalent of $9.40 (making it the most expensive Big Mac in the world - everything calculated from PPP and a Big Mac index comparison).

 

With analogous reasoning, if the US was to adapt the same health care system as the UK, the drugmaker would sell Avastin at $3552 a month instead of the bat**** crazy, unmotivated $8800 it costs today. And that is without the better deal the US UHC would get due to subsidizing the drug to five times the population.

 

What I'm suggesting is a little bit different than the current situation. What if instead of the pharmacist being able to recommend a lower-price drug, the doctor was obliged to prescript the cheapest drug and the pharmacist could recommend a more expensive one? All of this with the reservations for there being different active substances, et.c.

Edited October 3, 2013 by Rostere

[Hiro Protagonist]

 

Drug pricing differentials are not bull**** in the least.  The problem is that this typically applies to brand name drugs and generics are not always available.  The Lipitor example stood out for me because the quoted price of 124$ is actually higher than Pfizer's retail price for the drug (76$).  Here's a link which talks about some of the pricing.

 

   http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/10/us-usa-health-drugs-analysis-idUSBRE9490MH20130510

 

 

Even if it's $76, it's still more than what patients in other countries pay. And your link seems to confirm this. It's a case of Americans will pay for it and pass it on. There doesn't seem to be any checks and Pharmaceutical companies are charging as much as they can. Whereas other countries will have their Government step in and it can be a win for Governments as well.

 

For example:

Price of cholesterol medicine atorvastatin and other drugs set to fall

http://www.news.com.au/national-news/price-of-cholesterol-medicine-atorvastatin-and-other-drugs-set-to-fall/story-fncynjr2-1226700922443

 

More can obviously be done and is underway by our Government, as we pay more for some drugs than the UK as shown in the article.

[BruceVC]

What I find particularly vexing about the Republicans resistance to Obamacare and there continued efforts to the government shutdown is that Obama won the election. Romney ran part of his campaign as being vociferously opposed to Obamacare and claiming this would lead to economic suicide , America voted and Obama won another term. The people of America followed the path of Democracy and decided that Obamacare is something that they want.

 

Surly the best thing now is for the Republicans to accept this, if Romney had won the election he could have repealed the developments around the new health care but he didn't. To me this is just about political maneuvering and being obstructive and not actually about reasonable political opposition

[Nepenthe]

Those prices easily vary depending on where you get your procedure and whether you have insurance or not and vice versa. For instance, if you pay out of pocket a hospital will usually give you atleast 50% off of what they'd charge your insurance if you have it. 

 

Around here, that would be called insurance fraud.

[Walsingham]

Bruce, while I can follow your point about mandate for Obamacare, I don't think it carries weight. Voting levels are very low in the US. I don't think anyone in any of tehir elections can really claim a full popular mandate.

[BruceVC]

Bruce, while I can follow your point about mandate for Obamacare, I don't think it carries weight. Voting levels are very low in the US. I don't think anyone in any of tehir elections can really claim a full popular mandate.

 

Sure but the Republicans are claiming that the implementation of Obamacare and has been undemocratic and that's its there duty to the American people to stop it.

 

If the majority of the American people were opposed to it they could have voted for Romney. But the reality is that despite the fact the Republicans for years claimed that the American people don't want Obamacare the voting facts dispute this. 

 

The fact that Obama won the election again does show that there is more support for Obamacare than there is opposition to it, this is how a Democracy works. Republicans needs to accept this and move on to other contentious political fights

Edited October 3, 2013 by BruceVC

[Walsingham]

Point.

[kgambit]

 

I did not refer to "emergency rooms" (as the are known in the US) or government-subsidized medical care. I meant the fact that you are less likely to see a doctor (is it established practice in the US to make routine yearly medical examinations?) if you think the only outcome is that you will walk away with a fat bill. Thus eventually paving the way for eventual emergency surgery when your bad health catches up with you, making the net cost of your healthcare higher.

 

I'm sorry if I was unclear about the more expensive medicine being "bull****", I didn't mean to say I don't believe there are price differences, rather the opposite, that there are completely bizarre and arbitrary price differences. The article you linked to pretty much sums up what I think. Like with the example with Avastin, something has to be really, really bad when a medicine is more expensive in the US than in Switzerland. It's exactly as bizarre as if I would move to ex-USSR Estonia (country with 62% lower PPP) and find out that a Big Mac cost the equivalent of $9.40 (making it the most expensive Big Mac in the world - everything calculated from PPP and a Big Mac index comparison).

 

With analogous reasoning, if the US was to adapt the same health care system as the UK, the drugmaker would sell Avastin at $3552 a month instead of the bat**** crazy, unmotivated $8800 it costs today. And that is without the better deal the US UHC would get due to subsidizing the drug to five times the population.

 

What I'm suggesting is a little bit different than the current situation. What if instead of the pharmacist being able to recommend a lower-price drug, the doctor was obliged to prescript the cheapest drug and the pharmacist could recommend a more expensive one? All of this with the reservations for there being different active substances, et.c.

 

 

Sorry for the confusion. It is a fairly routine practice in the US to have yearly exams; not universal, but reasonably widespread.  I totally agree with you about the lack of cost control on drugs in the US.   

 

Your system would work as well, but I don't see any difference in the end result.   As long as patients are consistently given access to the cheaper alternative, costs should go down. 

 

Even if it's $76, it's still more than what patients in other countries pay. And your link seems to confirm this. It's a case of Americans will pay for it and pass it on. There doesn't seem to be any checks and Pharmaceutical companies are charging as much as they can. Whereas other countries will have their Government step in and it can be a win for Governments as well.

 

 

I agree which was the whole point of posting that link.     

 

 

What I find particularly vexing about the Republicans resistance to Obamacare and there continued efforts to the government shutdown is that Obama won the election.

 

If the majority of the American people were opposed to it they could have voted for Romney. But the reality is that despite the fact the Republicans for years claimed that the American people don't want Obamacare the voting facts dispute this. 

 

The last election was not a one issue election and this isn't just about the Republicans.  

 

The latest poll shows a clear majority (57%) of Americans are opposed to Obamacare.  And if you track the history you will find that Obamacare has rarely had a popular majority supporting it and that's been clear from multiple polls even before Obama's re-election.  So this isn't just a Republican thing.  Check out the link below - it tracks the approval rating over the course of the last 4.5 years.  

 

Winning an election does not allow a government the right to  say "Oh you voted for us now shut up for the next four years".     Winning an election does not automatically disenfranchise the losing party from having it's voice heard. 

 

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/obama_and_democrats_health_care_plan-1130.html

Edited October 3, 2013 by kgambit

[BruceVC]

 

 

 

What I find particularly vexing about the Republicans resistance to Obamacare and there continued efforts to the government shutdown is that Obama won the election.

 

If the majority of the American people were opposed to it they could have voted for Romney. But the reality is that despite the fact the Republicans for years claimed that the American people don't want Obamacare the voting facts dispute this. 

 

The last election was not a one issue election and this isn't just about the Republicans.  

 

The latest poll shows a clear majority (57%) of Americans are opposed to Obamacare.  And if you track the history you will find that Obamacare has rarely had a popular majority supporting it and that's been clear from multiple polls even before Obama's re-election.  So this isn't just a Republican thing.  Check out the link below - it tracks the approval rating over the course of the last 4.5 years.  

 

Winning an election does not allow a government the right to  say "Oh you voted for us now shut up for the next four years".     Winning an election does not automatically disenfranchise the losing party from having it's voice heard. 

 

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/obama_and_democrats_health_care_plan-1130.html

 

 

I really enjoy and appreciate your posts Kgambit but I think you missing my point.

 

Obama is Obamacare and Obamacare is Obama. The two are inextricably linked. Obama's presidency will be defined by the failure or success of the new proposed healthcare system.  IMO despite all the other important and relevant things he has done this is what will endure and what people will remember.

 

Of course we all realize that any elected government doesn't mean that government can do what they want or that they can't be challenged. But you cannot deny that despite opposition from some sectors to Obamacare this is what he stands for and what was a major source of opposition from the Republicans and Romney.  So when people voted for Obama they voted for Obamacare and the Democrats won. This obviously needs to be implemented and the Republicans are not helping the situation by causing a government shutdown, they had there chance and they lost it when there candidate was soundly beaten in the elections

[Walsingham]

Mind you, Bruce. The US governmental system is ALL about compromise.

 

Any system which has one man filibuster capability is about compromise.

 

The real question I'd ask is whether the US government is even capable of governing, or whether it was designed to fail!

[Hurlshort]

It's pretty hard to trust the polls when you get vastly different numbers depending on whether you call it Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act.

[BruceVC]

Mind you, Bruce. The US governmental system is ALL about compromise.

 

Any system which has one man filibuster capability is about compromise.

 

The real question I'd ask is whether the US government is even capable of governing, or whether it was designed to fail!

 

Good points, all I can say is I have to believe that the USA can succeed or all the world is in for tumultuous economic times

[Guard Dog]

Bruce, you have to understand these Republicans who are fighting Obamacare got elected BECAUSE they said they would do exactly what they are doing. If they get weak and squishy now their constituents who sent them there to do this will show them the door in 2014. Most polls agree 51% of Americans want this BS gone. And Obama barely got 50% of the vote in 2012. The truth is the US is dividing into two different and mutually exclusive camps. Right now we have more in common than in opposition. That is what has and will hold us together... until it doesn't. When that happens we will break up, of fight, or both.

 

The last bill the house sent to the senate funded obamacare but forced the congress to participate in it without exemption or subsidy. The senate rejected it. They would rather keep the government closed than be forced to actually obey the law they are forcing all of us to comply with. 

[Guard Dog]

You guys wonder why I say government is an evil thing? The Obama admin had the IRS go after a prominent neurosurgeon after he gave a speech critical of Obamcare while el Presidente himself was in attendance: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/3/irs-targeted-dr-ben-carson-after-prayer-breakfast-/

 

It seems the IRS really is Obama's secret police going after his political enemies.

Edited October 3, 2013 by Guard Dog

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

It's pretty hard to trust the polls when you get vastly different numbers depending on whether you call it Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act.

True, not to mention the average person doesn't actually know what the act does.

[Walsingham]

I'm going to through this in, for the hell of it:

 

In terms of domestic policy only, the USA needs to become more federal and less centralising.

 

Given the disparate needs and resources of the different states, it's just mental to suggest they should all have the same provisions. Hell, we don't even have a single system for everything in UK and we're smaller than some single states.

[kgambit]

 

 

 

 

What I find particularly vexing about the Republicans resistance to Obamacare and there continued efforts to the government shutdown is that Obama won the election.

 

If the majority of the American people were opposed to it they could have voted for Romney. But the reality is that despite the fact the Republicans for years claimed that the American people don't want Obamacare the voting facts dispute this. 

 

The last election was not a one issue election and this isn't just about the Republicans.  

 

The latest poll shows a clear majority (57%) of Americans are opposed to Obamacare.  And if you track the history you will find that Obamacare has rarely had a popular majority supporting it and that's been clear from multiple polls even before Obama's re-election.  So this isn't just a Republican thing.  Check out the link below - it tracks the approval rating over the course of the last 4.5 years.  

 

Winning an election does not allow a government the right to  say "Oh you voted for us now shut up for the next four years".     Winning an election does not automatically disenfranchise the losing party from having it's voice heard. 

 

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/obama_and_democrats_health_care_plan-1130.html

 

 

I really enjoy and appreciate your posts Kgambit but I think you missing my point.

 

Obama is Obamacare and Obamacare is Obama. The two are inextricably linked. Obama's presidency will be defined by the failure or success of the new proposed healthcare system.  IMO despite all the other important and relevant things he has done this is what will endure and what people will remember.

 

 

 

No, I didn't miss your point Bruce.  I just do not agree with it completely.    I repeat my earlier premise that an election victory does not imply that the victors have a universal mandate to enact any legislation they see fit.   57% disapproval means that opposition is coming from more than just Republicans.   Obama won In spite of the opposition to Obamacare - his victory was not an electorate mandate in support of it.

 

As for history, it's a bit too early to judge him on that basis yet.  Frankly I think he I going to be judged as an extremely weak and ineffective leader when all is said and done.  If an overpriced piece of legislation that does little to curb costs and falls far short of providing its desired goal of universal health care is the singular crown jewel of his presidency then he is not going to be viewed favorably in the future. 

 

 

 

It's pretty hard to trust the polls when you get vastly different numbers depending on whether you call it Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act.

True, not to mention the average person doesn't actually know what the act does.

 

 

Well since the "average" person is roughly half republican and half democrat that doesn't speak well for the electorate on either side now does it?  

Edited October 3, 2013 by kgambit