'Obamacare’ enrollment points to continued success

[kennetha]

Source: MSNBC

When the first open-enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act began in October 2013, it failed miserably thanks largely to a website that simply didn’t work. After a month, an underwhelming total of 106,185 consumers signed up for insurance through an exchange.

And Republicans thought this was hilarious. The GOP’s “Obamacare” critics, not at all shy about rooting for failure, openly mocked the system, pointing to sports venues with more than 106,185 seats. For the right, low enrollment totals stood as undeniable proof that the Affordable Care Act was “hurtling toward failure,” and conservatives could hardly contain their glee.

A little more than two years later, the right’s laughter has disappeared – right along with the low enrollment totals.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/obamacare-enrollment-points-continued-success

---

Now tell me again why Bernie wants to scrap the ACA and start over rather than building on it?

[Dawson Leery]

1. k/r

[Billsmile]

2. Yes But....

My ACA exchange rates rose this year by $150 a month. It's still a far better deal than what we had before the ACA.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

3. Maybe you should listen to Bernie on what he wants to do in re the ACA

instead of what Clinton is telling you he wants to do. I'm pretty sure he's stated more than once that no, he does not intent to 'scrap the ACA and start over'.

[kennetha]

4. But he does ....

want to re-litigate the whole issue of single payer vs the sort of mixed system the ACA represents.

It's politically stupid and naive. His problem is that he is intellectually and ideologically inflexible. He''s pushing the same lines he was 30 years ago and has not developed one bit.

[elmac]

5. Its saving lives

plus more then doubling Health insurance stocks yet repugs have spent $75,000,000 trying to repeal it.

[Dems to Win]

6. 26 million uninsured, 29 million under-insured ($5500 deductible policy for WalMart workers making

$10/hr, so they still can't afford to go to the doctor when they are sick)

Obamacare has definitely helped some people: those with pre-existing conditions, and those who are self-employed or otherwise without an employer, who make enough money (over 138% of poverty) to buy coverage through the exchange. As an early retiree, Obamacare is very beneficial to me personally. I can buy good coverage thru the exchange with no worries about filling out endless forms of my medical history.

But for the working poor in the states that didn't expand Medicaid, Obamacare is a big fat zero. I wonder why Obamacare was structured to require Repub govs and legislatures to expand Medicaid in order to help the working poor in those states. Why did the Democrats not make them eligible to buy insurance through the exchange, and get a worthwhile policy with 100% subsidies of the premiums and co-pays?

For the working poor whose employers now provide them with 'coverage' that has a deductible of 4 or 5 thousand dollars, Obamacare is also a big fat zero. They are counted as insured, but they still can't afford to go to the doctor!

It hurts my heart that Democrats got one chance in a generation to reform health care and try for universal health coverage, and they wrote and passed a plan that leaves out the working poor.

[christx30]

7. It's amazing what you can do

when you make something mandatory, with massive fines for noncompliance.

[Dems to Win]

8. Obamacare leaves us at the mercy of private insurance companies

If you get sick and need health care, an insurance policy is too often just a license to do battle.

https://medium.com/@Lookingforrobyn/when-you-ask-me-to-vote-for-hillary-174becdb5ccc#.z2r77fo5s

When you ask me to vote for Hillary

I do not think it means what you think it means.
I’m going to set aside all of the standard issues I might have with Hillary Clinton. This isn’t about policies with which I disagree, or the fact that she’s never met a war she didn’t like, or that she has turned her back on her own policy goals for the sake of political expediency, or that I have the real sense she sold me out three times today before I even got out of bed. Push all of those issues off to the side, and focus on the ask — what are you asking me to do when you ask me to vote for her in the primaries over Bernie Sanders?

You are asking me to consciously give up on any hope I may have of living a sane life in our country. To vote for her in the primaries, I would need to believe that the establishment on both the right and the left have so thoroughly strangled the political system that it is no longer “reasonable” to even try for reform. I have to be so scared of political opponents gaining power that it is worth it to sacrifice even the hope of being able to get ahead, have a savings cushion, access healthcare, send our kids to college, retire, or just not feel like we’re constantly living on a knife’s edge, all because of fear of a potential future.

If this doesn’t make sense to you — if you think it is reasonable to fear the opposition more than to hope for having a better life — then I’m guessing you live a fairly comfortable life and don’t feel strong motivation to change it. Perhaps it’s been a long time since you had to decide not to take your spouse to the emergency room because you were worried it would wipe out what little savings you have. Maybe you don’t have full-blown anxiety attacks every time you see that your medical insurance company has sent you something in the mail. Do you remember the last time you cried thinking about how you can’t afford to get a job, because it will knock you off of the meager insurance assistance you have and put you even further behind than you started? Would your place of employment and the welfare of hundreds of employees be ensured if only we could sort out the insanity that is private insurance? Has there been a time in your life when nearly all of the stress you experience in life comes, one way or another, from trying to navigate the private medical-industrial complex?

If these don’t sound familiar to you, then maybe you don’t really understand what you’re asking of me when you advise me to make decisions based on “practicality.” And notice, I’m not even saying you’re wrong. What I am saying is that for me to choose Hillary over Bernie right now is to literally choose to give up on the best chance we have ever had to finally become a reasonable, civilized nation, and say instead “No, we can’t do it, I am too scared of what might happen.” If we don’t elect Bernie, but at least we try, then maybe someday — four years from now, eight, maybe when my kids are grown, who knows — we will make forward progress again. But to lay down now and accept the position that our political system is so thoroughly bankrupt that I should drop any expectation of living beyond paycheck to paycheck in order to prevent something even worse from happening… well, that’s it. It’s over. The powerful can sit back and relax, knowing that if we didn’t stand up now, we never will — they know their manipulations work, their place (and ours) is set. We shut the door and I embrace the hand-to-mouth class status we’ve tried to move out of for so long.

[Cryptoad]

9. GOP is way underestimating

the number of working poor republicans who for the first time in their lives can afford to have Health Insurance for their families and are not going to vote for people who say they are going to repeal it.

[IronLionZion]

10. “This is just old-fashioned political gimmickry. I helped write the Affordable Care Act.

So I don’t want somebody suggesting I’m trying to dismantle legislation that I helped write.” - Bernie Sanders

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/11/23/bernie-sanderss-claim-that-he-would-expand-not-dismantle-the-affordable-care-act/

http://www.ontheissues.org/2016/Bernie_Sanders_Health_Care.htm

http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-healthcare/

I support Bernie and Single Payer for all, and have long believed that building up a constituency of supporters through the ACA is the most feasible way to get bigger reforms. People need to see the benefits before they will vote for more changes.

[lark]

11. All the states that didn't expand Medicaid is why ACA is a big problem.

My son is unemployed, but because he worked for $8/hr up until Nov. he can't afford any of the ACA plans in FL. In FL, and other red southern states, Medicaid only kicks in when you make a fraction of the poverty level. That's why ACA needs to be changed to single payer. Poor, low information, people in these states, and all the others that didn't expand Medicaid, get nothing from ACA so have no investment in it and blame the government, not their governors.

[SunSeeker]

12. K & R