Why Obamacare Is Not a 'Train Wreck' (Again)

[babylonsister]

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/113049/obamacare-implementation-2013-busting-myths#

Why Obamacare Is Not a 'Train Wreck' (Again)

BY JONATHAN COHN


Max Baucus thinks it might be a “train wreck.” David Brooks is predicting chaos. And Democratic senators are telling the White House they are panicked. They’re all talking about Obamacare and what happens next year, when it starts making insurance coverage available to nearly all Americans.

Believe it or not, the conversation represents progress. Instead of talking about whether we should have a health care reform law, we’re talking about how well (or not well) the law is going to work. So let me spoil the surprise for you: It’s not going to work as well as many of us would like, and the initial adjustment may not be easy. The whole enterprise is going to be a work in progress. And that'll be ok—because it will still do a lot of good and make life better for most people, particularly with the passage of time.


snip//

But it took many, many decades to create the problem of health care costs in America. It’s bound to take at least a few years to solve it. And that may actually be starting to happen. Health care spending has actually slowed down in the last few years. The recession obviously has a lot to do with that: When people have less money to spend, they get less health care. But most experts believe that other forces are also at work. The most intriguing, and promising, sign is new data on hospital readmissions—that is, people coming back into the hospital shortly after getting discharged. In the aggregate, readmissions are a sign of poor care, either in the hospital or during follow-up. Obamacare penalizes hospitals for readmissions and, sure enough, readmissions plummeted right after it became law.

snip//

The key, really, is expectations. On Friday, the Commonweath Fund released a report with two key findings. One was that more young people have health insurance, thanks to Obamacare’s requirement that insurers make coverage available to people under 26. That’s a reminder of benefits the law has already delivered, without the ill-effects critics had predicted. The other finding is that large numbers of Americans remain uninsured or under-insured—simply put, they can’t get health care when they need it, or they remain exposed to financial catastrophe when they get sick. These people may be a lot better off because of Obamacare or they may be only a little bit better off. Either way, they’ll be better off—and, over time, their situation will improve. That’s not bad for government work.

[ProSense]

1. Seriously,

"Max Baucus thinks it might be a “train wreck.” David Brooks is predicting chaos."

...look at who is doing the criticizing. Baucus is likely pissed because the law he tried to sabotage is being sucessfully implemented. Also, proposals to address drug prices have been introduced by Obama and in the Senate.

Howard Dean on the health care law
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022560359

HHS finalizes rule guaranteeing 100 percent funding for new Medicaid beneficiaries
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022584523

Obama budget is a disaster for drugmakers
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022670043

Bill Introduced to Begin Rollback of High Medicare Drug Prices
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022725266