Credibility

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by detbuch

"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.