Obamacare news from the field:
Had to leave work early today. I caught Mrs. Aristus's bug and it's doing its work.
BUT!...
Before I left at lunchtime, I saw 11 patients, four of whom had their new ACA policies in effect (Washington State's health insurance exchange, Apple Care). I was able to send out appropriate prescriptions to their pharmacies, instead of settling for whatever $4 medications might have helped, or scrounging around in our (ever-diminishing) stash of donated meds.
I referred three patients out for diagnostic imaging, whch they don't have to pay for out-of-pocket, or apply for financial aid for.
And I referred 2 patients out for specialty evaluation and treatment, all covered under their new policies.
If all continues to go well, I predict single-payer health in the US within 5-7 years...
= new reply since forum marked as read
I am sure there is something wrong with me 
Or a Nurse Practitioner...
No need to be afraid...
really. 
Thank you so much for sharing it with us. Three patients go for diagnostic imaging at no out of pocket cost. I'll bet my bottom dollar that it would not have happened without Obamacare!
Excellent news for the New Year!
Feel better Aristus, my Grand Nephew spread his nasty cold to each of us at Christmas. My whole family is sick.
indeed
My family fortunes come from defense manufacturing and there are certain things that cannot and can be produced abroad and then only by certain countries.
At this point, we lose a large chunk of the second group to German manufacturers...why? It's not because the products are better or the materials cheaper or the technicians more skilled or faster. (In fact, the opposite is true. American manufacturers have every advantage of tech, sourcing and skill. Better equipment, better materials cheaper, better workers, better results. By-and-large, the same is true of Northern states over Southern states by account of higher levels of education & training, infrastructure and more accumulated wealth. The advantage that the south used to move jobs was anti-union and anti-environmental policies yielding cheaper workforce and labor protection along with lower regulation.) They simply can quote a much cheaper price for a comparable only-slightly-worse product despite a higher minimum and average wage. So what gives? What is this great advantage that Germany has over US manufacturers? Norway has it too.
The cost of doing business is lower because the single largest non product-dependent expense for American manufacturers is healthcare. German manufacturers and Norwegian manufacturers have a line-item cost of $0 for healthcare. It's paid for by entirely by tax revenues. So when they're bidding for contracts to produce screws or panels or frames, they can quote a lower price because single-payer.
What does this have to do with America? Well...it's funny. All the red states that won't implement single-payer are going to get crushed by the blue states with strong unions and higher wages they took manufacturing jobs from for the last 50 years (thanks to Taft-Hartley and "Right-to-work"
when those states implement single-payer and their costs drop below what the red states can absorb or screw workers for. It's part of why it's so imperative immediately for the robber-baron class to pass FTAs and break as many unions as possible and screw pensioners out of their pensions and strip away as many union protections as they can ASAP...they're about to find themselves in a position where unless they can offshore those jobs to someplace even cheaper, they'll have to come crawling back to the rust belt and the northeast and California and the same unions and workers they've been fucking over for decades as they relocate their factories to the places with the lowest costs of doing business. Good old "We love the union" Michigan, Ohio, New York and in the case of aerospace...Connecticut and Washington. What comes with that? A shift in demographics as workers move where the jobs are...the great deflation of the south. The loss of GOP power and the ascendancy of the liberal states.
It's permanently a states-right issue and any future solution will have to be done state-by-state and operated by the states...I don't think there can ever be a national solution at this point. That's the legacy of Obamacare...he's put the GOP in a position where adhering to their values destroys them because the more they adhere to those values, the faster they implode as their choice is to renege their values and adopt state-administrated single-payer or hold their values and watch the liberal portions of America ascend over them as we murder conservatism.
ie: from the providers themselves.
of life on the streets. A reality the 1% would never in a million years credit, because it tends to go against their treasured misconceptions about the 99%...
the Field, Aristus!
to AppleCare And All the Other CARES! 
To The People
