Obama has become Bush

[Virge]

Aike
I am judging ACA on the record of ALL US government programs started since 1912. Other than 5 programs that were declared unconstitutional and ended, the rest have followed exactly the same pattern of malignant growth and ineptitude. The most recent disasters in this chain of bureaucracies are The Dept of Homeland Security and the US Dept of Education which I mentioned earlier. In Bureaucracies in the US there's a principle in everything they do (whether intentionally or not) -- to solve no problem without creating new ones in order to maintain the pertinence of the Department.

ACA will follow the same model. The people who designed it have already admitted they underestimated the cost by TRILLIONS of dollars

[URL="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/341589/gao-report-obamacare-adds-62-trillion-long-term-deficit-andrew-stiles"]GAO Report: Obamacare Adds $6.2 Trillion to Long-Term Deficit
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[URL="http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/obamacare-report-website-costs/2014/09/23/id/596483/"]GAO Report Questions How Obamacare Billions Were Spent
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GAO report: Massive waste and incompetence in Obamacare rollout http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014...z3F4FgK700

[Aike]

I see. Thanks for clarification I was merely reacting to the contrast you placed between the private sector and the public sector in general, since that's what the debate about organizing healthcare often comes down to. As to the history of US government programs, I really don't know enough to say anything about it.

[CuriousPhoenix]

The real problem with the health care system is the cost and ACA doesn't deal with that because the Health Insurances and Hospitals were against it. You can go to Canada and get an angiogram or something like that for $35, while in America its over $900. I don't mind waiting for tests and procedures if it lowers the costs to reasonable levels.

The hospitals mark up the cost of everything they do because they have to be able to make money. They mark them up so high because they know the insurance company will only pay a fraction of the overall cost. If they marked it at the right price, then they would get a fraction of that price.

A friends' father had to have heart surgery at the hospital that they worked at and insurance covered the best there. They said it would cost $50,000 after the surgery or if they could pay $15,000 upfront that would be the new cost. We need to look at Japan and other countries healthcare systems to see how to fix our own. Most the time though their is a government plan.

In Germany, they have a government plan and private plans available to everyone. Meaning that you could get the government health insurance that pays x and is so-so but is paid for through taxes and other fees or you could opt out of government insurance and get it through a very competitive private market. Its competitive because the insurance companies have to be competitive with the government insurance.

[Aike]

International Socialist Review just published a critical article on ACA and argues for universal healthcare and the abolition of private insurance. Looks like it's worth the read.