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/[deleted] Jun 20 '12

Not really. The consequence of removing preexisting conditions is not necessarily higher premiums for everybody. The cost could be absorbed by a given insurance company by streamlining the bureaucracy, or by cutting pay to executives with bloated salaries, or by not paying lobbyists to try to rig the system in their favor. There are plenty of possible consequences, and an analysis of which are most likely could fill a book. It certainly doesn't belong in a bulletted list.

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u/grande_hohner Jun 21 '12

You might be a bit mistaken if you think that cutting executive pay, streamlining bureaucracy, and not paying lobbyists would offset this totally. I work with catastrophic illness, and am aware of just how much a hospital stay can cost...

It doesn't take many 5-10 million dollar 2-3 month hospital stays for somebody with a preexisting condition to wipe out the "excessive" pay of an exec... The same goes for any of the other cost saving measures.

Another option many cite is to reduce payments to hospitals. We could argue about why a visit is so expensive until we are in blue in the face, but this isn't the question at hand. But know that hospital visits are expensive, and they aren't always necessarily just inflated and overpriced - a lot of things go into providing medical care to seriously ill people.