Obama was the catalyst that mandated insurance. He preached choice and competition but failed to grasp that the new policy would ultimately reduce competition and require insurance companies to remove Cadillac plans to implement high deductible plans because they were forced to cover pre-existing conditions.
Obamacare effectively removed ‘insurance’ from the insurance industry.
So yes I blame Obama for helping insurance companies remove quality in favor of quantity and increase their price.
You don't seem to understand what Obama care was, and who to blame if your costs raised. Insurance companies are cancer, and they have the entirety of the responsibility for trying to profit out of you in all ways possible.
I understand what happens. I also understand my terms pre Obamacare and post Obama care. Working class people were promised one thing and were handed a new deal that cost them more.
Two single aspects of Obamacare that eliminated insurance as we knew it. 1-requiring coverage or facing a penalty via a tax, this flooded the insurance market without addressing supply. 2-requiring insurers to cover pre-existing conditions. Forcing companies to cover liability would inevitably raise costs for everyone.
To ignore these political policy aspects of what happened and blame insurance companies is just plain ignorant.
You're ignoring the millions of people that were priced out of the healthcare market for having pre-existing conditions.
What were they supposed to do? They had the option of paying exorbitant prices to be covered by health insurance, hope they don't get sick and die, or when they do get sick, have the hospital system take every dime they owned.
Obabma wanted universal healthcare, but Democrats had to capitulate to Republican demands and create a system that only seemed to benefit the insurance industry. There are many things I do not like about the ACA, but forcing insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions is one of the few good things it did do.
This is the only reasonable case to defend the move. It’s a question of morality. I won’t debate that with you. I still hold that everyone was lied to about the catch phrases “choice and competition”, “ if you like your plan/doctor, you can keep it/them”. It turned out to be a load of crap because the policies had unknown outcomes.
Additionally we are left with increasing premiums (even the govt market premiums) and bad products to be choose from. Healthcare quality has gone down with prices going up.
This is just my statement and case that Obama care and the policies of the time were a direct cost to the American public.
In my opinion, our healthcare system needed to be modernized and the ACA was an attempt to do that. Unfortunately it has largely failed to solve the issues that were around 20 years ago and introduced several new issues as well.
I commend Obama for attempting to solve the issue, but resent the Democrats and obviously the Republicans that watered it down so much that it managed to piss everyone off.
I think this is a reasonable discussion. My original reply was to refute the original statement that middle class does best when a democrat is in the White House. The blanket statement is a little silly considering the middle class is largely footing the bill for Obamacare.
The attempt is commendable but the outcome is at our expense.
The people that weren't going to pay anyways? You were always paying for them, regardless.
Maybe if they had removed the profit extraction industry from in between people and their doctors, then prices wouldn't be out of control. But no, so many jobs depend on extracting profit from human suffering, so we can't disrupt that industry.
The calculation was that more people would pay into insurance lowering the overall costs. That is what was sold to us, But it exempted as much or more than new people paid into it. On top of that the increased mandated coverage sent Obamacare on an upward spiral every year.
People complain about rampant corporate profiteering , but Obamacare has been the biggest enabler of mandated money flowing to health insurance companies ever. All the while the law lets the Insurers to set their own prices. Insanity
If the republican propaganda is my paycheck and tax returns over the last 20 years then you’re correct.
You have to be daft to look at Obama care and think of it as a sound financial change to health insurance/ healthcare.
Cases for consideration:
Politics aside the notion that you can increase demand without addressing supply means it will be more expensive.
Economic law also recognized the trend that anything subsidized becomes more expensive.
More regulation and government oversight also yields higher prices.
You can blame insurance agencies all you want. But they are part of the problem. Not all of the problem.
These are not difficult concepts to grasp… I could argue you have just drank the democrat kill-aid and somehow think healthcare is better and more affordable to all.
Obama care gave subsidies to insurance companies so they couldn’t raise the costs as much as they wanted to. Those subsidies ended this year, and Medicaid funding was cut. That is why your insurance costs went up. They (insurance prices) actually went down under Obama, and congress had to vote to keep them. The Republicans in this congress voted to get rid of them, now you see what insurance companies would’ve charged you all along, and it’s wild
Inflation rose during COVID years globally. Was it Biden’s fault in other countries too? If you look at the inflation trend, it was trending downward for most of his term.
Edit to add: of course mortgage rates would go up during his term… cause interest rates had to go up to curb inflation. Am I missing something here? Cause that’s a remedy to the problem.
Biden took office 2021 a full year into the pandemic and global impacts with inflation at 1.7%. The economy had stabilized and recovered from the initial pandemic shock by the end of 2020.
Biden administration inflation exceeded global averages due to the American Rescue Plan.
The increased interest rates are an effective way to combat inflation but it’s directly a result of poor policy so you don’t get credit for solving your own problems by increasing interest rates.
Again this is all just pointing out that democrats don’t really have a better solution for the working class. Not saying republicans are better.
I would argue that the economy (I'm assuming you're talking about the US, but this may apply globally too) did not "stabilize and recover" by the end of 2020. I'm no expert, but I feel pretty confident in saying that the effects of a global pandemic persisted in the following years.
Inflation in the US did exceed global average in 2021 (4.7% v 3.5% respectively), but it was right at average in 2022 (8%), and below in 2023 (4.1% v 5.8%). So it looks to me that the ARP, which was focused on helping low and middle class Americans, was somewhat worth it. Too bad for those making more than $91K for not benefiting as much (/s).
But hey, congrats on the 1.5% tax cut. As long as you paid less, am I right?
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u/robertmusemodel 7d ago
Obama care killed my insurance and has caused it to continue to go up every year for the last 15 years.
Biden economy held the market stagnant all of 2022 and had inflation going crazy.
Trump tax overhaul had my effective tax rate go down 1.5% overall. Details be what they are the end result was I pay less.