Why are so many people enraged by the Affordable Healthcare Act?

Because he’s black.

No, not really, but so much of vitriol that I see just makes no sense. I don’t understand it. Screaming and moaning about a marine holding an umbrella? What about Bush’s lies that got us into a war that we can’t win, can’t pay for, and that has killed so many?

Deliberate misinformation about what the program actually entails (remember the “Death Panels” bullshit?) probably has a lot to do with it. Some of it is pure obstructionism. And a small fraction is probably legitimate concerns or questions.

And really, Facebook folks, if you can’t come up with a cogent argument about a politician’s policies, then don’t rely on overt racism (have you seen the “If Obama showed up at your barbecue” meme?!? ).

@syz You are really correct, much of it is because he is black. From Mitch McConnell declaring in 2009 that Obama would never get any bipartisan cooperation, it has been a long rebellion that a black man could be effective.

Because some Republicans have to spin everything Obama does as being terrible. And because most people don’t bother to research and understand the reality of the act beyond what those spinners say.

I almost walked out of the haircutters mid-cut listening to the operator in the next chair raving against Obama and the Affordable Care Act. So much misunderstanding. People seem to have been fed so many lies by Faux News and other sources. They really seem to believe it is why healthcare is so expensive in the United States and conversely that we had the best system in the world. I don’t understand it!

What will they do when we real Socialists take over? :-)

Throughout the entire Cold War, the medical care lobbies, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and private insurance companies spent billions of dollars convincing Americans that universal health care = socialized medicine = socialism = communism. Concurrently, the same interest groups made Americans believe that they had the best health system on earth, along with the easiest and most flexible access to care.

Anyone with the intelligence of a garden snail has known, for many years, that the U.S. has no medical care system, just a costly, wasteful patchwork of disconnected services. Every year, more and more people fall through the cracks.

These interest groups were and remain so powerful, many Americans still cling to those false beliefs. People walk around with gaping holes in their teeth, because they can’t afford dental care, or live in chronic pain, because they have no access to doctors or treatment, vehemently protesting that universal health care is a bad, bad thing.

Do you think the average person would take the time to actually research and read about it? Or, watch and read badly written articles from TheBlaze before they go to bed? Which sounds easier? We’ve all done this before, but some people only do this.

@janbb ” I almost walked out of the haircutters mid-cut listening to the operator in the next chair raving”

Beauticians are hourly wage earners who make little money and survive on clients’ tips. Most of them work for small businesses that don’t provide employee benefits. I can almost guarantee that said operator had no employer-provided health insurance. Yet, she was raging against reforms that will bring her into a rational system and provide her with health care.

Most of it boils down to greed.

People (for all of their declarations that they are Christian and live by the teachings of Christ) don’t think that they should have to take care of their fellow humans, and get indignant about the idea of being paying a few dollars more in taxes in order for others to enjoy a better standard of living. “Why should MY hard-earned money pay for THEIR medical bills?”, they scream. “Why don’t they get a better JOB?”

The image of a lazy person scamming the system and living off of handouts has been popularized as an excuse to avoid helping others, and while this is true in some sad situations, it ignores the millions of decent people who have hit a tough time in their lives and just need a little bit of help getting back on their feet.

My dad was a single parent who supported myself and my sister by working construction. When the doctors said his knees were blown and he was going to have to stop working for a few months to heal from the surgery, we had to rely on food stamps and government assistance to get by. Without those things, its very likely that we would not have survived, or that my sister and I (ages 13 and 10) would have had to do very unsavory things just to eat, let alone pay our rent. In some extreme circumstances where people don’t get the help they need, this can force families into prostitution, thievery, and even slavery.

If you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything. Obamacare is a great step towards getting our country back on the right track.

“Because he’s black” is racist no matter who says it – including Democrats while making blanket statements about AHA opponents.

The best arguments that I’ve heard so far:

—The person does not want to suddenly be compelled to buy something that he was not compelled to buy before.
.....—Employers will be forced to buy insurance for all full-time employees, which will (has already, in some cases) translated into more part-time employees

—It could (and probably would) change the way that medical information is stored and analyzed – particularly with regards to who has access to what.

—Presently there are not enough doctors to see all of these millions of people, so people with less training (nurses, for instance) will be pressed into service where possible, resulting in poorer care overall.

—It’s too expensive

There are (or were) critics who maintain that the bill doesn’t do enough. And some people oppose the Act simply because of how sneakily it was passed. I seem to recall that when you put them all together, about 70% of the people asked did not want the Affordable Healthcare Act for a range of reasons.

@Evoru ”“Why should MY hard-earned money pay for THEIR medical bills?”

Why can’t people understand that cost-sharing is exactly what happens under private health insurance? Many young, healthy people need no medical care and go for years without submitting any claims; some people have greater needs. The person who pays premiums but gets $0 benefits covers the person who’s getting pre-natal care, or chemotherapy, or having his life saved by an appendectomy.

Why can’t people understand that the “haves” already pay for the “have-nots,” and in the most expensive and inefficient way? When an uninsured person arrives at a hospital’s emergency room, with a life-threatening illness or injury, we all pay for his treatment.

The answer is in that two-letter word you used to start the final question: If this is true…

It’s not true.

Every government program to “save us” from ourselves, apparently, starts out with modest estimations of total cost, claims that it is only “to help the most needy”, and offers great assurances that we still have “choice” and “liberty” and “freedom”, whatever those words mean these days.

What soon happens is the costs spiral ever-upward, the benefits to the “most needy” are cut back, the programs are run by political hacks being paid back for previous contributions and promises of future support, the bureaucracy grows entrenched… and the government, since it can’t face competition, drives out “choice” and “freedom” in the market… and service declines. (Let’s not forget that Congress will exempt itself from any laws that bind the rest of us peasants.) Oh, and let’s also not forget the connected and the gamers who will get rich at the cost of the rest of us, especially those who are most in need of health care reform, who would most benefit from a free market approach.

I offer as evidence Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Veteran’s Administration, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and all of public education, to name just a few.

I haven’t plotted the trajectory of “how” this will occur, but I know as sure as I know the sun will rise tomorrow that it will happen. I have no wish to plot that trajectory and try to “fix” the problems that are built in to it; I don’t even know what those problems are. But they are there, and they will come to light, if they haven’t already, and the program will cost more, deliver less and reduce liberty for dead certain. That is as inevitable as sunrise, in fact.

Congratulations to all of the cheerleaders. You win this round. We all lose.

@CWOTUS I don’t have documentation for this so I can’t prove it but I have read that the VA medical system is one of the most efficient, cost-effective health care providing systems in the country.

Most blanket statements are inherently false.

Um, @janbb you should have kept your last statement in mind when you made your first one. Blanket reassurances are no more apt to be universally true than blanket condemnations.

First disclaimer
Second disclaimer
Third disclaimer

Those were just the first three articles that caught my eye. In any case, I’m not saying that the Veterans’ Administration (or any other government agency) is universally incompetent, corrupt, wasteful or evil. I didn’t make that claim. What I will state without equivocation, however, is that the named agencies are run by political appointees, difficult or impossible to oversee and manage, loaded with bureaucracy… and admit no competition. Any business can have problems similar to the listed ones above, and any business can be run by incompetents, can badly serve its customers and suppliers and can cheat or default on its deliveries. But most of the time we can opt out of the “service” provided by such companies. And when they’re run badly enough for long enough it is a near certainty (not magic, but close enough for our purposes) that a competing business will take over their clients and manage better, if not cheaper and quicker. (Anyone recall the processes that it used to take to get a wall phone installed in a home a few decades ago?)

Badly run private businesses go out of business; they don’t suck up more clients and more tax dollars that we can’t decide we don’t need to spend. That’s my primary objection, now and always.

Those who are enraged have been informed by folks with an agenda to show them facts from a cultivated angle. It is easy to say that the Affordable Health Care Act is flawed, but to dismiss the good and effective parts for these defects is impractical and disingenuous.

I mean really, do the people who have some objections to it really also want to throw out :
– must insure those with pre-existing conditions
– can’t drop from policy if premiums are paid.
...really?

@CWOTUS I take your point although my statement was in reference to one specific government agency – not a statement about whether the government per se is better at doing things or the wonderful free market. Are you saying that the private health care system we have now is better and more efficient because it is determined by profit and the free market? If so, I pity us.

However, my head is achy and I am traveling tomorrow so I will put up my sword and fight again another day. :-)

OMG… does anyone really think that the current state of health care in the USA has anything to do with “the free market”?

See if you can buy health insurance from an out-of-state provider. No? Oh, I guess that’s not so free, is it?

See if you can get medical care, let’s say wound debridement and stitches, from an LPN instead of a Medical Doctor. No? Well, that’s just a slight lack of freedom, I guess.

See if you can go to the local pharmacy to refill your own high blood pressure meds – the ones you’ve been taking for several years with no adverse effects and as-expected efficacy – without getting a prescription from your doctor. No? Maybe that’s a restriction you enjoy, then. I don’t.

Finally, just how portable is your health insurance? Tied to your employment, right? Because that has been a benefit that the employer could offer in lieu of actual cash wages and save tax on his own, isn’t it? So it’s not at all portable; if you leave your employer, then you lose your insurance. That doesn’t sound too “free” to me.

I’m giving up, too. When even intelligent people confuse “what we have now” with “free market”, then there may be no hope left at all.

Thanks everybody for your answers, and happy Memorial Day to each of you. I want to believe Krugman is right about this bill, which Obama fought so hard to get passed and against so many odds did.

If the Affordable Healthcare Act, which seems to me to be the first significant (if imperfect) step toward a better healthcare system can generate such divisiveness, how will we ever be able to come together to solve any of our nation’s endless number of systemic problems?

The very fact that people are required to buy something, the market for which is controlled by the government, is enraging for most.

Honestly, the worst thing about the Affordable Care Act is that it doesn’t go far enough.

I have found from my own personal experience when I try to talk to someone who is in love with the plan about the actual benefits of the plan, they can’t tell me one aspect about the coverage. That floors me. They love it, yet they don’t know anything about the type of insurance that the coverage will offer. What does that say? They love it because he’s black? See how stupid it is to say something like that?

I would love for anyone of you who are so hypnotized by Obamacare to tell me how the plan will work in your state. Costs, coverage, deductibles, what physicians you can see, what the out-of-pocket costs will be; that sort of thing.

Convince me that it is the best things since sliced bread.

@janbb From what I have seen the VA is a bit of a mess. One person I know has been waiting 3+ years for allergy testing even after multiple visits to the ER and a severe anaphylactic shock risk. The referrals have supposedly been made several times but no one can find record of them. Same for his eyesight. He has been waiting 6+ months to speak to a psychiatrist or get into therapy after moving to an area seved by a different VA hospital. I could go on and on with similar experiences of several veterans I know well.

@Supacase I may be basing my statement on older information then but I know I had read that, perhaps in a Paul Krugman column, within the last 6–8 years. It may well be that the system is now not functioning well due to the recent expansion of veterans from recent years.

What @Nullo said… and…

I was recently skateboarding in Jamaica. A local asked if he could try. “Be careful” I shouted as he gained speed wobbling down the hill. He fell off and broke his arm.

“Oh no”! I cried… “I’m sorry”. That’s when he told me not to worry… Jamaica has a national health care plan. He would be taken care of without any expense.

Call it Socialism… Call it anything you like… But can you explain to me why in the year 2013, when we’re all supposed to be civilized human beings who care for one another, WHY anyone should ever have to spend a single dime on healthcare?

Seems to me that we should all just understand a fellow human being hurting, and want to take care of them automatically, without cost.

Healthcare should be state run, without cost ever to anyone for any reason. Stop the wars and divert one tenth of the military budget (designed to hurt people) and put it towards FREE health care for everyone.

I honestly can’t believe that folks are concerned about who pays for health care, and not instead storming the gates of every corporation who pays zillion dollar bonuses to CEO’s who’s job it is to fool investors.

It’s 2013. Can we please get our priorities straight?

I agree with @CWOTUS. The American people are fully capable of purchasing insurance without government intervention.

I’m still waiting. Not even one answer. <sigh>

@bkcunningham I don’t think anyone thinks it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. That’s one of the problems with compromises.

I’ll settle with someone just telling me about the plan in their state and how it works.

LMFAO people who believe politicians care about you really crack my up.

It’s stupid to accept things you’re told just because it sounds nice.

Did someone just compare Jamaica to the United States?

@cheebdragon I know right?!

@bkcunningham Here’s a good article about how if affects us here in Missouri. Beware, it’s quoting a Republican – lol

http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2013/04/05/half-a-million-missourians-eligible-for-tax-credits-in-2014-under-obamacare/

My point with asking for an explanation is that people supported-and are still supporting-something without any knowledge of what it involves or how it affects them. They seem blissfully ignorant and that frightens me.

Have you heard about the unions? Many who blindly pushed and pushed for the law are now opposing it.

The last 2 weeks have proven that no one in the government really knows what is going on, and the ones who might know, are pleading the 5th. But sure lets hand over healthcare for them to play with also, what could go wrong? It’s not like anyone could ever be held responsible for anything, right?

Certainly U.S. citizens are perfectly capable of purchasing insurance. If U.S. citizens can do anything, it’s buy stuff.
The whoosh over the heads of mind-your-own-insurance fans is that NOBODY NEEDS MEDICAL INSURANCE.

We all need medical care and services. This is where the totally valid comparison of the U.S. to Jamaica, and to every other industrialized country on the planet, in Jamaica you don’t need medical insurance because medical treatment is available, supported by everyone there.

If we take the cost of insurance out of the picture in the U.S. the freed-up $$ would be way more than enough to provide lifetime medical care for everyone here, citizen or not, and have money left over. The medical insurance industry are parasites, plain and simple.

Unemployment rate is 14.2 in a country with a population of 2 million
Sounds like a fantastic place to live…

“Health Systems and Services: The Health Service Delivery in the public sector is provided through a network of Secondary/Tertiary Care facilities consisting of 24 hospitals including 5 specialist institutions (with a bed complement of 4736); and Primary Care facilities comprising 348 health centers, managed by the four Regional Health Authorities. However, the Health Information System (HIS) is very fragmented and no HIS policy and strategic framework exist. In general, Information for planning, decision making and development of accurate situation analysis is not readily available. There is a general shortage of health care providers on key areas of health service delivery due in large part to a
high attrition rate of skilled personnel, especially Dentists, Nurses and Rehabilitation Specialists in speech and occupational therapy.
There is limited drug production from imported raw material. There is a system of pharmaco- viligance in place to ensure quality maintenance. The majority of the drugs used locally is imported and as prices fluctuate this leads to an increase in costs to the end user. In the long term this is not a sustainable practice.” Bravo! Great comparison!

Maybe next time, just for kicks, you could put a little effort into your side of the argument, you know, just think it through for a few minutes, perhaps do a tiny bit of research…..

@bkcunningham…I think you got your answer.

Watching from across the pond, it seems to be a major quango in the offing. The bureaucratic
entanglements seem to be the only thing which is clear and assured.

Why are people upset about affordable health care? Perhaps because it won’t be affordable?
Not to most working middle class Americans, from what we have read on this side of the pond.

Here, it is free. We pay high taxes to fund the NHS and it is free. It is not the greatest service, but it is as free to the homeless person as it is to Richard Branson. Prescriptions might cost
Branson a small fee, while the homeless person will not have to pay. Does Branson use the NHS? Probably not. Most people who can go private, do. This voluntary decision on the part of those that do buy private coverage allows the NHS to give cover to those who cannot afford
it.

The NHS is not, however, the utopian ideal depicted by Michael Moore. In the last few years it has been plagued by countless scandals of neglect in its hospitals…from taking organs out from the wrong patient, to neglecting the elderly so that they die dehydrated. Many administrators have been caught recently in fudging numbers and padding their pocketbooks to the tune of millions. The NHS is due for a massive overhaul and investigation. But before this decade, it has run quite well for years and years.

Despite this, if you break an arm or break out in hives or find you are dying, a doctor will see you. A hospital will admit you. No one is turned away. No one is left to die without options. I have witnessed personally the lack of empathy, the hostility toward patients at times…but it still is free healthcare. You leave the hospital or the clinic…there is no charge, and no bill from
insurance.

The US system will not be free for the average citizen.From what I understand it is cost prohibitive for most working families. To be honest, I wonder how hard the insurance companies lobbied to force the mandatory insurance option…rather than just to have free healthcare.

In the end, the high cost of the forced insurance premiums may end up being the same as a tax hike to insure free health care for every American.

If you took the girl to the Prom, America, you should dance with her all night…and that means true universal healthcare. Not astronomical premiums with forced buying of insurance and fines if you do not or cannot purchase it. There is no doubt you need a system in place. It is obvious however, that the plan was rushed through quickly. I laud Mr Obama’s idealism. He took on a gigantic task. He did not write the bill. He signed it off. He was determined to get it through and deal with the loopholes later. Had it been written by engineers rather than bureaucrats it might have been effective.

Unfortunately the plan was written so that nothing is very clear. My fear is that these “unknowns” which are buried in the text may come back to haunt the populace. It is difficult for most citizens to support a plan that is not even understood fully by its lawmakers. As Nancy Pelosi said (paraphrased): “Lets just pass it and figure it all out later.”

Yes, free healthcare is socialised medicine. But the system that will be put in place will be a giant behemoth. I would have taken the former…it will be far and fewer headaches in the end.

@DarlingRhadamanthus “how hard the insurance companies lobbied to force the mandatory insurance option”
You can bet on it, it’s the only way the Affordable Health Care Act got past the House and Senate Republicans.

I come back to the point that Nobody Needs Health Insurance. We all need health care.
If we get the insurance companies out of the picture, their profits alone will cover all the uncovered people in the U.S. Of course the insurance companies and their extremely over-paid execs do not like that scenario. (The current CEO of United Health Care – one of many health insurance companies in the U.S. – is due to make over 800 million $ for five to seven years of ‘work’. The previous CEO of UHC made over a billion.)
[ Of course that is just a small piece of the big picture of parasite-class CEOs sucking inordinate amounts out of their companies just because they can. They sit on each others’ boards of directors and grant extreme pay packs to each other. It’s just especially galling to see this happen in ‘health care’ insurance because every excess buck they make does not pay for someone’s health care. ]

@dabbler, how many House and Senate republicans voted in favor of the Obamacare?

In short, the reason it enrages people…is because it will not be truly free for all.
The middle class will be forced to buy insurance with premiums that will bankrupt
most families trying to stay afloat.

The problem that the US has is that it went to bed with the insurance companies.
The insurance empire thrives on illness and sickness that is paid for.

If you want healthcare for all…it should be healthcare for all and free for all with
the option of those that can afford private healthcare to have private coverage.

But it should be an option to go private. And guess what? It works here. Those that
can afford it, will go on to private, by their own choice. Companies here will provide
private healthcare for employees anyway.

Let me state that “it works here” means that the system of giving it free this way works. The
problems now are with the corrupt administration, the abuse of the elderly, the lack
of competent care…problems that are dogging many large health systems…free or not.

@dabbler….Bravo. Well said!

@bkcunningham I didn’t see no Republican-style fillibuster for this like they have mustered for records amounts and percentages of the other bills considered since 2009.
So I maintain that it got past them.