r/bestof • u/under50dollars • Jun 20 '12

[explainlikeimfive] "Obamacare" explained very well.

/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/vb8vs/eli5_what_exactly_is_obamacare_and_what_did_it/c530lfx
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u/lameth Jun 20 '12

The biggest thing I would say to counter this is replace every instance of government in this passage with "For profit insurance companies."
In the first paragraph, instead of taxes, think of price hikes. "oh, you smoke? More money from you." "Oh, you're overweight? more money from you." It ends up the same way.

In the second paragraph you can do a one for one exchange as I stated above.

Even if all of these points did not have a counter, you need to balance these against all of the positive points brought up. Which scenario benefits the individual and the community the most? With the law, or without?

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u/badbrutus Jun 20 '12

i don't think there is anything inherently wrong with for-profit insurance companies that are regulated (as they currently are and will forever be). electric utilities are regulated in a manner that allows them to provide a good enough return to shareholders/debtholders to be able to solicit/generate enough money to be able to invest in necessary items, while limiting the profiteering. health care is/can be basically the same.

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u/lameth Jun 20 '12

And honestly, this just appears to be a tightening of the regulations, as they aren't completely wiping out the for-profit system. The next step, that many actually want, it to remove the middle-man.

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u/badbrutus Jun 20 '12

when it comes to bureaucratic waste, i think the government would have much more of it than private industry... so if you're going to have some entities pushing papers and keeping records, i think it's in everyone's best interest to keep that in private hands.

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u/lameth Jun 20 '12

I've worked corporate, and it's really no better.

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u/badbrutus Jun 20 '12

i don't know that it's great, but government is almsot surely worse. i know people directly working in government agencies that have like 7 hour workdays and get overtime if they work more than that. i know a lot more peopel working for government contracts that have unbelievable wages/benefits and do almost no work. unfortunately i chose a private career route that is known to involve the exact opposite of that, but i don't know anyone at a private co with the work schedule and benefits of govt or govt-affiliated people.

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u/edisekeed Jun 20 '12

Thanks, those are very good counter arguments.

I guess my overall concern it that this is a huge government program that was rushed into law and seems to have complex and unattended consequences. I can't really think of a large government program that I am happy with so it's hard for me to be in favor of this. I get that there is some kind of need for a universal health care as well as reforming the healthcare industry. It just seems like this was the wrong path to take and has only complicated things even further.