Repealing Obamacare affects everyone

[SHRED]

A few points I've jotted down here (with input from some of you here) should the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act be done away with as the incoming GOP dominated government will most surely do. (see article below for more details)

Repealing Obamacare would again allow insurance corporations to...

Deny you the ability to purchase insurance on the individual market based on your health condition.

Drop you from coverage from the individual market if you become ill.

Charge more for female coverage.

Limit your coverage to an arbitrary maximum amount. Once you hit that limit, you pay for all costs over that amount. This is especially troubling if god forbid we had a serious accident or illness. It could bankrupt us (you or I). The ACA requires the insurance company to cover your entire treatment no matter the cost. It wasn't that way before it's passage in 2010.

Deny covering your adult children under your plan up to age 26. A very popular option.

Charge you for preventive care, such as physicals, health screenings, flu shots, breast-feeding supplies and contraception which are currently covered at no extra charge.

Also,

Funding for rural hospitals and clinics would dry up.

Rates for everyone will go up
as insurance pools get smaller and the cost for those who have no insurance will once more be spread among those who can pay.

It will bankrupt hospitals because people would start using ER's as routine doc visits again because they have lost their insurance.

Plus repeal will drive up prescription drug costs for those on Medicare...and us all.

Repealing Obamacare affects everyone

Under Obamacare, senior citizens pay less for Medicare coverage and for their prescription drugs. Many Americans have received free contraceptives, mammograms, colonoscopies and cholesterol tests. And small business employees with older and sicker workers have not been slapped with super-high premiums.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/02/news/economy/repealing-obamacare-health-insurance/index.html

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. All the more reason why they are going to kill it.

They will then say it was underfunded, poorly designed, and all the pain and suffering resulting from killing it is Obama and liberals fault.

[SHRED]

2. And then what?

After they are done with the blame game?

Do you think their constituents will be pleased with their replacement plan...if they have one?
I don't.

[Eliot Rosewater]

3. No, but it will be too late then and none of their voters will ever vote for a democrat.

[Hoyt]

4. Agree. Unfortunately, there were a lot of Democrats who bashed Obamacare too.

But, I really don't believe GOPers will get away with repealing the essential elements of Obamacare. Too many people, including many of their relatives, depend on it. They'll definitely try to rearrange some things so that they can say in the future it is no longer "Obama" care.

[LiberalLovinLug]

12. Including Bill Clinton

Because it does have problems. Its complicated in a lot of ways. IMO Obama did not fight hard and long enough for a public option. He could have used the bully pulpit more to explain this. Instead he went along with throwing out Doctors and Nurses for Single Payer from the negotiation room, and bent over to be nice and gave the football to Mitch the turtle to hold for him.

For the life of me I dont know why the Democrats did not refuse to call it Obamacare. I think there was a little play going on there, a little hubris as well. The GOP coined the name because they were sure it would fail, with a little help from themselves, and so Obama's name would forever be linked with this failure.

But Democrats fully believed it would be a success and so called their bluff. I even heard Obama himself use that term to describe the Affordable Care Act. The ACA is what they always should have called it on every news interview. Because that describes it best.

The GOP will "tweek" it by passing amendments that make it near but impossible to ever introduce a "public option" in the future for one. And then rename it. TrumpCare anyone?

[Hoyt]

15. It definitely has problems, but seems to look a whole lot better to Democratic critics now.

Heck, Medicare went for 40 years with no prescription drug coverage, and it still has problems.

[kimbutgar]

5. After the repeal older employees can get fired if they are using too much medical care

I see a whole bunch of thump baby boomers losing their jobs to healthier young people. The thumpers losing their homes because they have to pay bigger medical costs. The thump supporters who live in rural areas not being able to get health care. Might be a good payback for their stupidity by voting for the conman and rethugs.

Blue states can mandate ACA provisions if the health insurers want to do business in their states going forward. Red state voters are going to get their asses kicked. Though I do feel sorry for those who are democrats who live in those states will suffer because of the rethugs won't do anything to help their fellow citizens.

[SHRED]

7. I'm in California

I'm reasonably comfortable my state will work this out.

Those Red States that didn't set up a health exchange...they'll be screwed.

[kimbutgar]

9. I live in California also.

We have the biggest marketplace and some of the best doctors. I believe our democratic controlled government will find a workaround to deter the rethug repeal. Red states are screwed.

[SHRED]

10. Yes they are.

[bucolic_frolic]

6. Premium increases were not popular

Cat coverage with high deductibles isn't either

People want a free lunch - everything covered, low rates.

Personally, I don't think we're going to make any headway on
this until we have one payer as well as widespread outpatient
emergency-lite clinics or centers. Hospital ER's are too expensive.

[NightWatcher]

8. So will insurance companies start dropping sick people on Day 1?

And what happens to those of us who have conditions?

Are we all going to be dumped, never to get coverage again?

Or will they keep the mandate, raise rates, AND refuse to cover sick people?

[Takket]

11. was just reading Repealing Obamacare on twitter

the tweets are so sad....people don't even know what they want repealed... like this guy...

Basket of J.D. ?@URnvrwrong 33m33 minutes ago

Good, about time! screw the 20 million dead beats and illegals when the rest have less coverage and higher costs "Repealing Obamacare"


He doesn't even understand that the mandate means those 20 million have their own coverage, instead of no coverage and their healthcare costs being passed on to everyone else.........

Good article about the realities of repeal.......

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/11/better-off-before-obamacare/507650/

[GeoWilliam750]

13. So long as minorities and other "undeserving" get hit hardest,

poor and working class whites will be perfectly willing - or even happy- to accept taking a hit themselves.

Very interesting article in the Post about this last week.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-the-white-working-class-votes-against-itself/2016/12/22/3aa65c04-c88b-11e6-8bee-54e800ef2a63_story.html?utm_term=.be4ff3373a88

Most people will accept almost any level of corruption from their social superiors - even unto trillions of dollars, so long as they believe that their social inferiors are (preferably proportionately perhaps) worse off. It is far easier to accept inequality from the more powerful, than it is to accept equality from the more powerless.

I know a number of union members who are more upset about their fellow union members trying to game the system than they are about the executives raping the system for billions. Somehow many of these people have been taught to feel that even taking their well earned pension is a form of parasitical behaviour of which they should be ashamed.

[covadcalifornia]

14. there is so much good and so much bad in Obamacare - maybe the good stays....

I have been priced out of the market completely this year. Family of 4. I support all the good - pre-existing the most. It has saved many people I know from ruin.

but if you are not the upper income or the lower income - it has been so painful. Our premiums are Up 86+ % just in our payment in the last 3 years. deductibles so high we cannot afford basic coverage. We don't qualify for help and we can't pay the premiums without giving up savings / college funds / vacation and the like.

I want to help - but not to the point I can't use my insurance. I am hoping for a basic overhaul - not the end of - allowing for real adaptation to the users needs. not everyone needs all of the items in the plans. More plans? more choices? More providers in smaller markets - cross state options etc etc

I think we fight the "get rid of it all together" crowd with more of a "here is what is working and here is what is not"...can't we agree to start there? but we have to agree that it IS NOT all working as intended - especially for the middle class (like me). It is not affordable if you earn just enough to not get help... If we refuse to talk about the bad part then we can never save the good parts.