This article states what everyone is feeling:
But for many middle class Americans — a single person earning more than $47,520 or a family of four with an income of $97,200 — the pricey premiums and deductibles mean health care coverage remains out of reach.
And here is more:
For the 10.5 million enrollees on the Obamamcare exchanges, health insurance costs are more transparent. And more of the burden falls on the consumers. That is leaving an untold number of Americans opting to remain uninsured, rather than shell out thousands a year for premiums and deductibles. In 2015, 46% of uninsured adults said that they tried to get coverage but did not because it was too expensive, a Kaiser study found.
It’s not working. Ask any doctor in the field and they will tell you the issues. Ask most people and they will tell that system this is unaffordable.
The bottom line is that any plan that eschews the free market system fails. You can’t guarantee the insurance companies a profit and expect to save money by removing competition. It will never happen.
The ACA was set up to have insurance company completion but insurance companies dropped out because they couldn’t make enough profit. Premiums are high in private industry as well. Healthcare insurance companies are making out quite well.
“Money” and “the marketplace” is how people move things around. They were invented a long time before recorded history. The market can cause justice and injustice – but these are best addressed as individuals, as moral questions. “Why should the hungry have nothing to eat, when others have plenty?” That is a fair moral argument. “How can we fix the laws of the market to make it so?” leads to catastrophe.
It’s like asking – “how can we make gravity more fair?” for the elderly often fall and become injured by gravity. We are unlikely to adjust the laws of gravity to make them more compassionate towards the elderly; we must do something more directly.
When I thought of this, I couldn’t think of anything more absurd than trying to adjust the laws of gravity – but our Guidelines on Fall Precautions seem to try. “Stop medications that cause falls!” yes, of course – the antihypertensives are the greatest culprit there. So what do we do to make gravity more fair? The great thinkers of the Ivory Towers are working on it, don’t worry.
PS: Tom – “Healthcare Is A National Security Issue.” Memorize that. We’ll be singing it at morning meetings. I suspect all physicians will be obligated to have Federal licenses and “volunteer” for the Public Health Service Uniformed Corps. Voluntary, of course – if you still want to practice medicine.
Everyone knows where this heading, single payer. Physicians now have a choice. Do nothing and have a system that commits us to virtual servitude or demand an equal place at the negotiating table as the details get hammered out.
$100 says we will do nothing.