Ever notice liberals here and elsewhere always talk about 'the groups that benefit from Obamacare" but rarely get specific? Thats because Obamacare benefits people like those that give them power. The gay lobby. The Muslim lobby.
That's simply too stupid and ignorant a comment to merit a response.
Care to list the "good" from the ACA?
Preexisting conditions requires the mandate or no one would buy insurance until after they need care.
As far as lowering costs for some - it is because it is medical welfare forcing other people to pay for their lower costs. The ACA didn't lower costs, it just further shifted the costs to the people who were already paying their way.
There are two primary groups that have benefited from the ACA:
- The working poor who (depending on the state) qualify for subsidies or expanded Medicaid. These include folks at small employers who don't offer health insurance, and folks working two or more part-time jobs, none of which qualify them for employer-provided health insurance.
- White males over the age of 50 who were laid off in the last recession. These folks, prior to the ACA, were stuck with COBRA, which is expensive and only lasts for 18 months. They often could not qualify for individual insurance, or couldn't afford such insurance, because of pre-existing medical issues. The ACA insurance marketplace has been a lifesaver for older males, because it allows them a bridge to Medicare at affordable rates (remember, a key ACA change is the 3 to 1 rule that requires insurance for older Americans to be priced at no more than 3 times the cost of insurance for millenials. Of course, that's the rule that has made ACA insurance a bad deal for healthy younger folks, thereby creating the current ACA "death spiral".)
DB, you're absolutely right about the need for the individual mandate - no private insurance system can survive for long if one needn't purchase insurance unless and until one gets sick. If that "fascist mandate" must go, then the obvious alternative will be single payer. Conservatives may well need to rethink their opposition to single payer. For example, if health care insurance is financed by means of general tax revenues, then employers will be relieved of the burden of running expensive health care plans, thus making the employment of Americans less expensive on the margin.