2016 Elections

[AFTT47]

Obamacare will run into trouble because it does nothing to contain rising costs while it promises subsidies Uncle Sugar will have to cough up. 

The problem with our health care system is we've put the foxes in charge of the chicken coup and are hoping they'll take care of the chickens out of the kindness of their hearts. Obamacare is like trying to regulate the foxes so they don't eat so many chickens. The solution is to get the foxes out of the chicken coup completely. 

One of the first things I learned in Organizational Behavior class in business school is "don't reward A and hope for B". This is a lesson we need to learn as we examine our system.

For profit companies will pursue profits. They're not bad for doing so. It's what they do, like water seeking the path of least resistance to flow to its own level. For profit health insurance companies increase profits by NOT taking care of sick people. Therefore, they can be expected to do anything to not take care of sick people. They'll try to knock sick people off their roles. They'll try to keep them off citing pre-existing conditions. They'll add to administrative costs making doctors jump through hoops to get compensation. They'll drag out payments as long as they can. They do these things because they make money doing them. The fault isn't theirs but ours for putting them in charge and hoping they'll act contrary to their nature. 

So not only are they a useless middle man, and such things always add to the costs to the consumer, but they have a vested interest to NOT do the job we hope they'll do. 

No wonder Americans pay the most and get the least with health care.

The solution is have the government run health care. It should be a community function, much like the military, fire departments and police force. 

I'd have given this ten kudos if I could.

This is something I wish people would get into their head. There are few things which are good in their pure form. I would argue that capitalism is generally good. It generates more wealth than any other system and it benefits everyone to some degree. But some things, by their very nature, should NOT be run for profit. Health insurance is definitely one of them. Huge conflicts of interest. Maybe that's true of any type of insurance but we're talking about people's survival here. It's morally insane to mix healthcare with cut-throat capitalism. It doesn't even seem to make good business sense. We're getting very bad value for our money compared to other countries.

The Affordable Health Care Act is a bridge to government health care - just like Don't Ask, Don't Tell was a bridge to true equality in the military. It was simply too big a leap to take all at once. Too much inertia against it.