They did? Whose costs went down? Obama said his plan would lower costs $2500 a year for the average family. He said you could keep your doctor or your plan if you liked them. He also got sued by the Little Sisters of the Poor (and he lost in the Supreme Court) because his plan forced Christians to pay for elective abortions. Nice. Who cares about what the Bill Of Rights says about religious freedom?

I believe healthcare should be available to those who can't secure it for themselves. Whether it's insurance or not, is irrelevant to me. I don't think there are huge numbers of poor people dying in the streets because they don't have healthcare. But there are some people not getting the treatment they deserve as Americans, and I don't like it.

just sayin'....

"The CBO has already revised its projections of enrollment in Obamacare’s exchanges several times. They’ll have to revise them again, because their current (March 2016) baseline predicts that exchange enrollment will skyrocket to 18 million by 2018. There’s, in fact, no evidence that exchange enrollment will be significantly higher than current levels going forward, given rising premiums and a worsening risk pool."

If you believe that being an American means all Americans should be provided the same product by private businesses regardless of whether or not they can afford to pay for it, then you believe in socialism. And if you believe that healthcare is different than other products and should be delivered in that socialistic manner, then you should have no objection, should even support, universal healthcare paid for by government.

"Wasn't that the case before Obamacare?"

According to liberals, yes.


"If you believe that being an American means all Americans should be provided the same product by private businesses regardless of whether or not they can afford to pay for it"

I didn't say anything close to that. I don't think I'm entitled to the same "stuff" (house, yacht, Cadillac health plan) that a wealthy CEO can buy for himself. Not everyone has the right to a private suite at Johns Hopkins or the Mayo Clinic, just as not everyone has the right to drive a Lexus and have a house on Nantucket. But according to my personal beliefs, everyone has the right to some minimum level of care and security.

"then you believe in socialism" I sure don't believe in pure libertarianism. I think we all have an obligation to provide a safety net to those who can't secure it for themselves. Is that a degree of socialism? Yep. Does that make me a socialist** like Bernie Sanders? Nope.

** for the sake of this argument, let's forget he owns three homes, proving that he's not even remotely the socialist he claims to be

I have no problem (no huge problem) with the govt getting involved to the extent that it tries to minimize the number of people who fall through the cracks. I don't want the govt within a hundred miles of my own healthcare, or that of my family. That's why I get up every day and go to a job that I don't particularly like, so that I don't have to depend on the govt. But it's better than nothing, for the people who have no alternative.

:kewl:

I don't disagree. And I believe all of that was the case before Obamacare. As far as the numbers, too large for you, of those whose insurance will be taken away from them by the current GOP plan, no insurance will be "taken away." Insurance will be optional. Many may choose not to have it. That is probably the big number that the CBO says will not be covered. That will be a voluntary decision. The plan has its methods of making various types of insurance available to those in lower income brackets. Some of those methods will be removed over time as the economy improves and health care prices drop because of the overall tax and regulation policies which are instituted along with the impact of less expensive coverage. We shall see if the plan, after it has been amended and hammered out in debate in the House and Senate, then passed (if passed) works. Remember, it took three years to institute Obamacare after it was passed. This notion that the GOP plan should be ready and set to go RIGHT NOW is political demagoguery.

"You believe that, before Obamacare, liberals thought healthcare was available to those who couldn't secure it for themselves and that huge numbers of poor people were not dying in the streets "

Sorry, I was saying, that according to liberals, before Obamacare, huge numbers of poor people were dying in the streets.

"wasn't that minimum level of care available to everyone before Obamacare?"

I don't know. I would have thought that between Medicaid, and free care available at Catholic hospitals, everyone had something. If that's true, then we didn't need Obamacare. I don't know how many people could not afford to go to the doctor of they got sick, and who didn't get Medicaid for some reason. I don't know how many, and I don't know who they were.

"I believe all of that was the case before Obamacare"

You may well be right. I don't know.

I also don't have a problem with pooling everyone together to fund people with preexisting conditions. Especially conditions that they had no control over. If it's too totalitarian to mandate that everyone buy insurance from a private insurer, then tax everybody and let the government implement the plan. No one should suffer decades of financial hardship because of medical issues they had zero control over. No one controls who is so inflicted, so I have zero issue with everyone pooling those costs. It sounds profoundly humane to me. Forcing those people to fend for themselves, is disgusting to me.

Amen.

But the GOP could have had a group working on this for a few years.