What the masses think is not a reflection on whether or not the ACA is an improvement or not. I am not sure why you are using an appeal to the masses here, it isn't like you typically go with the popular opinion on anything. Last I checked, the masses wanted Fulmer and Pearl back.
AMA is also the key influencer group related to who is able to provide care, required credentials, regulatory guidance, etc.. Which limits the amount of MDs in the market and limits other non-MDs from providing care, and that drives the price up. The current system essentially prohibits individuals from selecting or developing cost-effective healthcare options.
Do you people that are against it just dislike Obamacare because of some of its details? Do you dislike the notion of mandatory universal healthcare in principle? or both?
The issue with healthcare is that it is a governmental protected monopoly, and the ACA just adds to the red tape and cost of healthcare. I'm also against a single payer system.
The issue with healthcare is almost perfectly inelastic demand, which is why I like the single payer system. We're all human. We're all eventually gonna go down. It sucks to be so sick you're in a hospital for a week. But it sucks a lot worse to know you're gonna be paying for that week for the next several years. Why doesn't everybody just acknowledge the frailty and unpredictability of the human condition and agree to help pool together and help each other out financially when they incur health catastrophes? I understand the whole argument about making healthy lifestyle choices. But just tax the heck out of unhealthy stuff --alcohol, tobacco, sugar, trans fats-- and use it to subsidize the cost of health care system and that takes care of that. I really don't think the cost of medical bills are changing one person's behavior anyway. If getting sick and possibly dying isn't a deterrent, nothing is.
How is healthcare demand inelastic? Every study done shows that people with insurance with small co pays consume far more than people without insurance. The vast majority of things people go to the doctor for are not life threatening We seem to be paying for an awful lot of other people's issues already
So you're saying that somebody who would go to the doctor if there is a 10 dollar copay, wouldn't go if they had to pay 400 out of pocket? Thanks, Droski. That totally explains the elasticity of the demand, said no one, ever.
Let me restate: On any medical procedure treating something life threatening, demand curve is almost vertical.
There are actually some things that I like about it, and believe were necessary - such as preventing the denial of coverage for a previous medical condition. It somehow made an all-time problem only so much more and grotesquely worse - that's my beef.
Preventing denial of coverage is the biggest problem as it now incentivizes people to not pay until they get sick.
Or you need to take a course on not being retarded. If I can buy delicious Reese's peanut butter eggs for 49 cents each, I will surely buy them. But if, instead, I have to shlurp on a man's dong until he blows his protein in my mouth in order to enjoy the deliciousness of the soft chocolate peanut butter delectability, i'd probably go with another candy.
Worth 49 cents. Not quite worth a dong in my mouth. The key is to choose examples that make sense, Droski, or elasticity ceases to be meaningful as a concept.
A couple of points from me, Taxing us more for anything is crap. We are already getting taxed if we don't have insurance and soon we will be taxed for any insurance our employer gives us. More taxes should never be the answer in my opinion. The only circumstances I want to contribute to someone else's insurance is if they are already working, its bullshit that I am working at 2 in the morning paying through the nose for my family to see the doctor once and a while, meantime some lazy **** is sitting at home with his feet up fanning his balls all day. Somehow he has money for gold, Jordans, and tattoos. I will pay for an old person that worked their whole life. Crap, got to go to work, but I'll continue later. Just want to say really quick that people already had the option to go to free clinics and the ER, neither of which they would ever pay back or be denied treatment.
The point was that something that people consume a lot more of when it's cheaper isn't a natural monopoly and can benefit from competition. I realize that might be confusing to you.
The ACA made illegal many perfectly adequate private and employer-based policies, and required insurance companies to offer one-size-fits-all alternatives across the country. Why would grand and grandpa need a plan that covers prenatal care?
I know very little about economics, so please forgive me: what is closed about the system? Why would opening it up lower costs so that I can get that fMRI that I need on my back without paying 5000 dollars? Will it make preventative visits cheaper? And more importantly, will it make that liver transplant I need not throw me in to bankruptcy if I do not have the proper insurance? These are all honest questions looking for an answer, so please do not take it as some passive attack. EDIT: And I am asking these questions this from the pre-Obamacare fiasco point of view.
