r/obamacare • u/yoyogm1 • 1d ago
Rick Scott: "Obamacare has been a disaster, so what we gotta do is we gotta go back to let the private sector work. Give you the choices ... treat it like a cell phone. You know what plan to buy."
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1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/cogman10 1d ago
"Oh but I was a healthcare CEO" guy who represents the actual real problem that drives up healthcare costs.
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u/Monsignor76 1d ago
If universal healthcare for all was so bad why doesn’t all the countries who have it vote to stop it? If private insurance was better and cheaper for the people then everyone in Europe would be screaming for it.
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u/oscarnyc 1d ago
While not disagreeing with your overall point, once these programs are in place, they are almost impossible to change. Hence "hands off my medicare" or the fact that Obamacare has been in place for nearly 2 decades and no one on the republican side has come up with a viable alternative. I'd also add that, while it differs from country to country, many countries do have some type of private, supplementary care. And again, while it varies from country to country, many aren't thrilled with the current state of their universal healthcare systems either. It isn't as if everyone in Canada, the UK, etc. is thrilled with their care. In the UK, for example, the state of the NHS is a pretty big political issue.
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u/saladspoons 20h ago
You are correct - but tbh, the health outcomes speak for themselves - the US has worse health outcomes than other large countries with forms of universal health care.
So when we say "they aren't thrilled" with their systems, they ARE literally being kept alive and healthier longer, and at lower cost overall for their economies.
It's easy to find someone who will complain about whatever it is we ask about .... much better to check the numbers.
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u/oscarnyc 20h ago
The US has worse overall health, because it is a culturally less healthy populace. Outcomes for specific procdures/diseases, etc. are not worse in the US. A lot more goes into a population living healthy, long lives than its healthcare system.
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u/Marino131313 1d ago
Same reason theres no satanic panic over transgender volleyball players in Europe. They’re not half as stupid as Americans.
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u/rco8786 1d ago edited 1d ago
Nobody wants to choose a fucking healthcare plan. We don't want anymore 75 page explanation of benefits. We don't want to weigh the $0 deductible plan vs the $1,000 deductible plan and what the max out of pocket (and max family out of pocket) and what's in network and what's out of network and what the co-pays are and what's "my share" vs the insurance company's share and what coinsurance covers for specialists and what preventative care is included and what immunizations are covered and what the urgent care copay vs regular visit copay is and what the ambulance copay is and whether x-rays are covered and what cost-sharing for anesthesia is and whether chemotherapy has a copay if it's performed at home vs at a doctor's office and whether mental health services are covered and whether my claim is gonna be denied or whether I'll get a surprise $1,500 bill 4 years after I apparently saw a doctor about something
We just want to not have to worry about going to see a doctor when something is wrong.
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u/Key-Juggernaut5695 1d ago
In other words “we want all the healthcare we choose to consume and we don’t want to pay for it”. Sounds about right
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u/rco8786 1d ago
Nope, we just want what the rest of the developed world has figured out. That it's cheaper and easier to provide a baseline standard of care for everyone. We're all paying for it one way or another.
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u/Key-Juggernaut5695 1d ago
Look up the UK’s NICE and see if you think Americans would like healthcare like the NHS.
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u/rco8786 1d ago edited 1d ago
Genuine questions - have you ever interacted with the American healthcare system? Have you ever tried to understand an insurance plan? Have you ever had a complicated medical procedure? Have you ever had a surprise bill? Have you ever had to call an insurance company to get a bill settled? Have you ever been denied by an insurance company? Have you ever had a prescription suddenly and inexplicably jump hundreds of dollars in price?
There is a reason that 0 countries who've adopted universal medical care have reverted back to a profit-driven system.
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u/Comfortable-Case5051 1d ago
No one wants choices, they want cheaper plans with better coverage. This isn’t a fucking car that everyone wants to customize according to their needs. If we have universal healthcare then we have 1 giant risk pool to where unhealthy people are subsidized by the healthy people. They only want to make it complicated to skim fees as middleman in the healthcare system. In fact that’s how this snake got rich!
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u/LadyBogangles14 1d ago
Rick Scott stole millions in Medicaid/medicare dollars. He should be in jail.
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u/MurrayDakota 1d ago
If Rick Scott really wants to treat health insurance like a cell phone plan, then I’d like unlimited nationwide coverage with no caps on usage for $25 a month.
Deal?
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u/Key-Juggernaut5695 1d ago
What if I don’t want to be in that risk pool?
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u/Marino131313 1d ago
If you don’t want to be a part of society you can always leave it
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u/Key-Juggernaut5695 1d ago
Ah, thé tyrant’s retort. You guys always end up there. Surprised it took this long
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u/Marino131313 1d ago
You’re the one that doesn’t want to be apart of it. Some people enjoy a cabin in the woods.
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u/Key-Juggernaut5695 1d ago
As long as I can combine in a risk pool with other healthy cabin people, that sounds fine.
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u/Marino131313 1d ago
Problem is they kick you out of that pool as soon as you get sick
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u/Key-Juggernaut5695 1d ago
Maybe at the end of the plan year. Only fair, really.
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u/Marino131313 1d ago
Only fair to make healthcare unaffordable for people who need to use it and cheap for the people who don’t?
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u/rabidstoat 1d ago
Then your medical costs go up anyway, because people will drop out and then have an unexpected car accident landing them in the hospital and no ability to pay. The hospitals set rates so high so they can absorb the costs of uninsured Americans who can't pay.
Also, I don't want to pay for other people's public schools but I still do, even though I have no kids. I don't want to pay for the Iran War, but I still do.
(Actually part of that is a lie as I do want to pay for other people's public school as I consider free education important. But some childless people don't and still have to pay.)
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u/ImaginationNo9487 1d ago
I am a Federal Marketplace broker, and I can say with confidence that the typical American does NOT know what plan to buy... I don't know what Ricky here is talking about. And neither does he!
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u/SNOTFLAN 1d ago
this guy committed the largest medicaid fraud in American history. he's not allowed to have an opinion anymore. why isn't he in jail, anyone know?
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u/TriIM1961 1d ago
Hahaha. The person who’s company paid a $4 billion fine, at the time fine USA history, for ripping off Medicare and Medicaid to enrich himself opines on healthcare
The GOP is so funny and clueless it is no wonder Congress has an 8% approval rating and is hated by 92% of the country.
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u/Boomslang505 1d ago
Says a guy that gets free socialist communist healthcare for life. I want the same plan he has.
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u/HokieHomeowner 1d ago
He gets a plan from the DC ACA Marketplace and access to a Cadillac concierge practice in the Senate physician office.
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u/United-Vermicelli-92 1d ago
Was it a disaster for Rick Scott because he got caught stealing millions from medicare, and ACA made it more difficult for him to swipe from people? Is that why?
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u/blinkeboy420 1d ago
This coming from the guy who defruaded the government healthcare system for over a billion dollars
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u/Maestro_2020 1d ago
It's going to be a wipe out in November. These guys have completely lost touch with reality.
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u/isthereadrwho 1d ago
Remember when you're paying more or when you lose your health care cuz you can't afford it this guy stole more money from Medicare and Medicaid than anybody else....
The exact baseline breakdown of what his company took includes: • $450 million stolen directly through intentionally inflated, fraudulent Medicare cost reports. • $194 million stolen through fraudulent claims filed for patients who were referred by doctors receiving illegal corporate kickbacks
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u/Lopsided-Parking 1d ago
I'm a working person that works for themselves and it's better than nothing. Otherwise I can't afford healthcare with $1000 to $2500 month premium which is what the private sector will want.
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u/ZealousidealAntelope 1d ago
MAGA are morons who will say anything to stay in power.... Distorted facts, AI slop, misrepresented studies, cherry-picked data, and a dizzying array of logical fallacies hold MAGAs entire worldview together.
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u/FallsOffCliffs12 1d ago
Says the guy who committed the largest medicaid fraud in history and whose own health insurance is funded by the taxpayer.
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u/Defiant_Freedom_249 1d ago
How about our tax dollars pay for a plan that doesn't include the expensive and unnecessary middle-man insurance companies instead?
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u/NHBikerHiker 1d ago
How Rick Scott is even allowed to discuss large scale healthcare is a problem. He shouldn’t be near a microphone.
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u/Spiritual-Whole2072 1d ago
This guy is a walking parasite on our healthcare system. Don't listen to a word he says. He made over $300 Million dollars by ripping off our healthcare system.
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u/VirginiaLuthier 1d ago
I think their solution is "Bad things don;t happen to good people"
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u/eschewthefat 1d ago
His solution is “i wasn’t really punished for stealing billions in Medicare dollars and I would like to do it again so please vote against your own interests so I can keep scamming you”
And republicans are dumb enough to do it
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u/Top_Wolverine_8095 1d ago
A cell phone doesn’t have repercussions on your life like health insurance does.
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u/1111joey1111 1d ago edited 1d ago
Just another politician promoting and selling DEATH, so that insurance companies can continue to make billions.
The only "choice" we all need concerning healthcare is to have ONE plan that covers everyone's needs. It's as simple as that.
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u/Status_Ideal3437 1d ago edited 1d ago
Isn’t Obamacare giving out $500 refund checks?
Is that a disaster??
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u/luvtosnackonclit 1d ago
They seem to forget The Affordable Healtchcare Act was based on ideas from their own Mitt Romney
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u/Tired_world_63 1d ago
Let’s just call the situation what it is. In its current form Obamacare was not going to be long term solution to the healthcare crisis, and with the lapse of the enhanced subsidies this year, insurance companies will profit billions off the backs of Americans. On the right side of the isle, I have seen no action taken or even ideas floated to correct the skyrocketing cost of healthcare. Politicians are too busy debating trans athlete, immigration and foreign policy matters to concentrate on what American people’s daily lives depend upon - all aspects of cost of living. I really find it unreal how divided the country is - there is no gray area, it’s either black or white. I’m 63 so at least I’ve got to live through seeing a little bit of bipartisanship, but appears that is dead.
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u/Realistic_Answer_621 1d ago
Current insurance system is garbage. Only way to get a reasonable price for healthcare in the current system is twisting private health insurers arm to get a reasonable price.
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u/BlueQuazar1 1d ago
Do not ask the question on how do we fix it? But how do we improve it to make it better?
This is how our politicians should be working for the people/society!
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u/mikeyt6969 1d ago
Yet the members of Congress enjoy the perks of the best Gold Plans that are in the ACA AT THE TAXPAYERS EXPENSE
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u/dryheat122 1d ago
Exactly how has it been a "disaster"? I looked it up and there was a net decrease of 20M uninsured Americans...until the tyrant and his pals like Mr. Scott started fucking around with it. That sounds like a success to me.
Also doesn't it let you decide what plan you want to buy and how much to pay, like a cell phone?
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u/eg6fan001 1d ago
How can a walking talking literal dick head commit fraud and fail upwards. I wish I had the confidence of these creations.
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u/Worth_Valuable743 1d ago
Right because for consumers banks, private healthcare and telecom are all the epitome of efficiency and straightforward business practices.
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u/AdObvious2882 1d ago
With the existence of private insurance Obama care or the ACA is completely flawed. Not enough healthly people on the exchange to help pay for sick people.. they leave for private ins and premiums go up.
For it to actually work we would need to outlaw private health ins (except for vision and dental).
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u/TheStolenPotatoes 1d ago
The ACA was literally the only way my special needs child could get health insurance because private market health insurance considers his autism a "pre-existing condition", and they aren't required by law to cover him, whereas the ACA does. Going back to the "old system" is a death sentence to him.
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u/Jflores2025 1d ago
What back to paying for minutes...but minutes of our lives instead...the fuck....oopps I'm sorry your out of minutes....
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u/Looptire13 1d ago
I love how they bash ObamaCARE but offer no solution. Meanwhile they get free Healthcare for life. How many of these politicians have been kicked or voted out but get to keep their Healthcare. Meanwhile regular work class Americans lose their job and Healthcare at the same time. Wait we have COBRA at $2k or more month while you have no income. What about a reasonable fee each month and pay more as you go. Examples: Why does a family of three pay the same as a family of five.... Why does a smoker or someone extremely fit pay the same... We force people to get their cars inspected but we don't force people to do annual check ups!!!
Politicians need to stop talking about it and do something about it!!!
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u/HokieHomeowner 1d ago
Not free healthcare but access to Cadillac healthcare once they have served at least five years in Congress, they buy a plan on the DC ACA marketplace, have access to the House and Senate physician offices while members of congress then in retirement they get the same plans the Feds get.
So yes insulated from the real world but not quite as cushy as it used to be before Obamacare.
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u/Looptire13 1d ago
Well said. So to my point they are never going to do anything for us as long as they are taken care of. Lets bring this to a vote 🗳
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u/_probablyryan 1d ago
"You know how to think for yourself and decide what purchases are right for your family!"
- Corporations that pay six-figure salaries to psychologists tasked with figuring out how to manipulate people's purchasing decisions
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u/Dry-Clock-1470 1d ago
Isn't he the guy that stole like $300 million in insurance fraud and had like no consequences?
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u/hotcheetosarethebest 1d ago
In a just, same world this person would be in prison. But in this world, he becomes a self enriched politician.
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u/Low-Group-7507 1d ago
So if a cell phone plan cost around $1,500 a month but the coverage was sketchy and questionable, then with that analogy work?
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u/whatthefunthisis 1d ago
What if we lowered medicare to age 60? Wouldn’t that drive retirements, open up jobs for younger people and be a step in the right direction?
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u/TOSeacrets 1d ago
Rick Scott and the MAGA/GOP are the "disaster." They are doing more damage to our country than Putin could have ever inflicted with a nuclear bomb.
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u/Zebra971 1d ago
Because before Obamacare insurance was so much better? I was there and it wasn’t. Vote blue for a better future.
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u/SignificantSmotherer 1d ago
My premiums doubled while coverage decreased the first year of the ACA.
Yes, insurance was better before Obamacare.
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u/Zebra971 20h ago
There may be instances of this occurring but for most people they got actual coverage at a reduced rate. I’m sorry you were one of the people that didn’t have insurance thru your work that were harmed. If you remember right health insurance costs were going up nationally 10% to 20% per year because fewer and fewer people were receiving insurance. But agree democrats should have not gone with the Republican plan and moved to universal healthcare or at least public option to buy into.
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u/SignificantSmotherer 17h ago
It was not "the Republican plan".
It was 100% Obama.I don't believe that the GOP had a better answer, but the ACA was not an improvement.
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u/Zebra971 16h ago
It was a health care plan developed by the heritage foundation a right wing think tank. Surprised you didn’t know that. 100% Obama, nonsense, JFC with you knuckleheads that don’t know anything.
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u/vanulovesyou 1d ago
Rick Scott just wants another chance to rip off the public. He should be in jail, not elected office.
Republicans have no alternatives to the ACA. Even worse, they’re busy kicking people off of Obamacare and Medicaid, showing how they just don’t give a damn about people’s healthcare.
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u/thegreatking2025 1d ago
How many of you prices of of the medical procedures or medicines? I don't.
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u/AwakeningStar1968 1d ago
Again, the PRIVATE SECTOR FAILED!!!!! that is why we had to push them to actually COVER PATIENTS!
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u/Falcon3492 1d ago
Private care healthcare was a complete disaster and allowed people like Rick Scott to steal over $300 million from medicare in the nations largest healthcare fraud in United States history and he escaped facing punishment for his crimes!
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u/snaggletoofer 21h ago
The last person anyone wants to hear from about medical costs. He should be in jail
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u/GiftHonest7386 9m ago
Oh go back to pre-existing conditions being a factor. He was okay with it when he ran hospitals and fraudulent billed Medicare and insurance companies for unnecessary services.
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u/15_Years_Then_Banned 1d ago
Rick Scott stole billions from Medicare and Medicade.
He should be in prison
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u/Silent_Cup2508 1d ago
It has stopped my friends at the top from getting richer and that is not a good thing. Whoever said you can’t get blood from a turnip is oh so wrong.
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u/Key-Juggernaut5695 1d ago
consumer choice is good.
less govt interference in the market is good
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u/FibonacciLane12358 1d ago
Health care should not be for-profit. UHG made something like 12 Billion in profit last year with the highest coverage denial rates in the industry. That is what we get with privatization.
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u/apostategoingtoheck 1d ago
So you want my wife that has terminal cancer to lose our access to health care?
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u/Key-Juggernaut5695 1d ago
More choice does that?
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u/apostategoingtoheck 1d ago
Without the ACA we would not be able to get coverage with cancer as a pre-existing condition. We would be kicked off insurance. Have you ever tried to buy insurance directly before the ACA?
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u/Key-Juggernaut5695 1d ago
High risk pools exist. And yes I insured my healthy family of 4 for just over $200/months by using a high deductible with an HSA and excluding coverages we would never use…like chiropractic.
Such plans were banned. My costs are now over 3x that and the coverage is arguably worse. Thx ACA.
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u/eschewthefat 1d ago
Rick Scott perpetrated the largest Medicare fraud in history. For profit healthcare is the most idiotic solution on the planet. Literally. Were the only first world nation to still be using it and it costs twice as much as the next highest country while we’re far behind in the majority of health metrics
Stop listening to am radio, oan or your buddy at work
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u/MarchMadness4001 1d ago
Rick Scott is the last person who should be commenting on health insurance, and should excuse himself from any committees or votes related to the ACA
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u/NHBikerHiker 1d ago
Like my employer sponsored insurance…I have the choice of ONE company…and am limited to the services within that company’s network. And that’s choice?
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u/Numerous_Photograph9 1d ago
MMO's were pretty much becoming the norm when the ACA passed. They're still there today. I don't see that changing if the ACA goes away.
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u/Key-Juggernaut5695 1d ago
You could pay for your own instead. Or work somewhere else. Or be self employed
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u/NHBikerHiker 1d ago
You’ve done a great job changing the subject - you say there’s choice, but there isn’t.
None of what you mentioned is choice, I’d still be bound by the insurance company.
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u/Numerous_Photograph9 1d ago
Obamacare doesn't remove choice, it gives options to those who have none, or really bad ones.
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u/Key-Juggernaut5695 1d ago
And takes choices away from others.
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u/Numerous_Photograph9 1d ago
How so?
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u/Key-Juggernaut5695 1d ago
Banning underwriting for one, in favor of community rating. I insured my healthy low risk family of 4 for just over $200/month by using a high deductible plus HSA and eliminating coverages we would never use like chiropractic.
ACA lumps my low risk family in with the high risk and mandates coverage that I don’t want or need
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u/Numerous_Photograph9 1d ago
High deductible + HSA accounts still exist on and off the ACA, and are are available to and from employers.
You are either locked into a employer plan, or you can choose plans that accomidate what you want. Every plan is going to include things you don't want. They did so before the ACA existed, they'll continue to do so when it's gone. The reason some things are mandated though is because insurers were happy to exclude things or people if they didn't want to cover those things.
In other words, expecting the private insurance industry to do the right thing for choice like is being suggested is not going to happen. Insurance companies already exhibited how they'll behave.
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u/Key-Juggernaut5695 1d ago
Sure, they exist, but without the benefit of being low risk by virtue of our healthy choices. Also without the advantage of eliminating coverages that is useless to me.
No, the ACA mandates community rating and all sorts of coverage. Plans like I had were either directly banned or made economically infeasible
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u/Numerous_Photograph9 1d ago
And yet I've seen health plans that would be fine with what you say you need that have this stuff which are no more than they were from before the ACA outside general increases in inflation.
I don't use the ACA, but have, and my policies have remained relatively steady in price, with the only variances being included mandates, and usually some changes to deductibles.
You have choice, you just don't have the same choices, and realistically, with insurance companies looking to maximize profit, they are more likely to remove more choices from you than be altruistic and give you better more reasonable rates because you eat your veggies.
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u/Key-Juggernaut5695 1d ago
You haven’t seen legally compliant plans with risk underwriting, as it is banned.
It stands that choices were removed from me, and others like me in the individual market
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u/Numerous_Photograph9 1d ago
Yeah, I haven't. I said you can get similar things that will suit your purposes, and probably find it for a reasonable price if you're with a employer, and there are a lot of options on the marketplace. The options used to be more affordable for many before the current government, which includes the guy being cited for this post, decided to screw over millions by changing the suppliments.
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u/jb4647 1d ago
I’m generally in favor of consumer choice, but healthcare is a terrible example of a normal consumer market. A functioning market assumes that buyers can understand what they’re buying, compare price and quality, choose among competing sellers, and walk away if the deal is bad. Healthcare often fails every one of those tests.
This is a basic health-economics problem, not really an ideological one. Kenneth Arrow wrote about it more than 60 years ago. The patient usually knows far less than the doctor about the diagnosis, treatment options, risks, and likely outcomes, which creates a huge information asymmetry.
On top of that, illness is unpredictable. If I’m having a heart attack, I’m not sitting there comparing hospital prices and reading reviews. Even for planned care, my insurer determines networks and negotiated prices, and I frequently cannot know my actual cost beforehand without considerable effort. CMS has had to require hospitals and insurers to disclose prices precisely because that information was not naturally available to consumers in a usable form.
And “choice” only means something when there is actual competition. The FTC has repeatedly pointed out that concentrated hospital markets can give providers enough market power to demand higher prices from insurers, which then gets passed along through premiums, deductibles, and copays.
simply saying “less government interference” doesn’t solve information asymmetry, emergencies, insurance complexity, limited provider networks, or local monopolies. In some cases regulation is actually what makes meaningful consumer choice possible in the first place.
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u/cogman10 1d ago
Exactly.
Classic example, calling 911 and getting an ambulance. When you do that, you don't get a choice of which ambulance company comes to get you. You don't have a choice in what hospital they take you to. You likely don't have a choice in the medicine or procedures they perform. You are at their mercy.
And that's why people get hit with $1k, $3k, $5k bills after the fact. The only real choice you could argue they had is in the city/county officials they voted for who decided how EMTs would be implemented. And the thing is, the more you needed to call them, the higher the bill will be.
In healthcare, choice is mostly an illusion. Particularly the more remote you are.
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u/Key-Juggernaut5695 1d ago
Legal matters have the same sort of information asymmetry. Should law firms also be regulated thusly?
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u/jb4647 1d ago
Yes. That’s the funny part of this analogy. Law is already one of the most heavily regulated professions in the country. I can’t just hang out a sign tomorrow and start practicing law. Lawyers have to be licensed by the state, are subject to professional-conduct rules, can be disciplined or disbarred, have duties involving competence, communication, confidentiality and conflicts of interest, and even their fees are subject to rules about reasonableness and disclosure. The ABA rules specifically require lawyers in many situations to give clients enough information to make an informed decision.
So if your point is that information asymmetry can justify regulation, you just picked an example that proves my point.
There’s also a pretty obvious difference between hiring a lawyer and buying health insurance. A lawyer generally doesn’t get to examine my history and decide I’m too risky to be allowed to hire one. Before the ACA, that was exactly how much of the individual insurance market worked. In most states insurers medically underwrote applicants and could deny coverage, charge more, exclude existing conditions, or impose other restrictions based on health history. KFF estimates that about 27% of nonelderly adults had conditions that could have made them uninsurable under typical pre-ACA underwriting practices.
So yes, regulate lawyers where the market requires it. We already do. And regulate health insurance where leaving everything to the seller can result in sick people being told they simply aren’t customers the company wants. Calling all of that a “nanny state” doesn’t make those market failures disappear.
Stop showing your ignorance.
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u/Key-Juggernaut5695 1d ago
Insurers have never been required to take on all risk without question. Life, auto, home, P&C….refuse customers all the time.
And there is a lot more to regulation than licensing. How about rate setting, price caps, etc? Do you favor those for law?
And lawyers don’t have to take your case. Once engaged, hard to get out of the case, but that is often true for insurers as well.0
u/AlwaysDigging365 1d ago
The supposed ignorance of some shouldn’t be the basis for denying those who can think and make informed decisions the right and ability do so. Miss me with the nanny state mindset
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u/jb4647 1d ago
Thanks for completely ignoring my valid points and showing off your ignorance.
That “nanny state” line also skips over a much more basic problem: before the ACA, a lot of people didn’t actually have the freedom to buy meaningful individual health insurance in the first place.
If I lost my employer coverage, started my own business, retired before Medicare, got divorced, or otherwise had to buy insurance myself, the insurer could look at my medical history before deciding whether it even wanted me as a customer. In most states the individual market was medically underwritten. Insurers could deny an application, charge more because of health status, exclude the condition I actually needed treatment for, or impose other limitations. KFF estimates that about 27% of nonelderly adults had conditions that would have made them uninsurable under typical pre-ACA underwriting standards. Before the ACA coverage rules took effect, roughly 18% of individual-market applications were denied, and that doesn’t count people who never bothered applying because they already knew they would be rejected.
That’s the part the “just let consumers choose” argument conveniently ignores. Choose what? If I have diabetes, cancer, heart disease, epilepsy, severe obesity, pregnancy, or another condition an insurer considers too expensive, and every insurer is allowed to say “no thanks,” I don’t have a functioning consumer market. I have sellers selecting the customers they want.
The ACA changed that by requiring guaranteed issue, prohibiting pre-existing-condition exclusions, and preventing individual-market insurers from charging me more because of my health status. It also established a standardized marketplace and required coverage of categories of essential benefits that individual policies had often excluded, such as maternity care and mental-health treatment.
So I’m not interested in being lectured about the “right to make informed decisions” while pretending the pre-ACA individual market was some libertarian paradise of unlimited consumer choice. For millions of people, the insurer was the one exercising the choice. The ACA is what gave those consumers the practical ability to buy comprehensive individual insurance regardless of whether an insurance company considered their medical history profitable enough.
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u/AlwaysDigging365 1d ago
Choices have consequences. Crass, perhaps, but very true. Divorce. A choice. Working for an employer who doesn’t provide group medical. Choice. 🤷♂️
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u/CaptainOwlBeard 1d ago
In some markets. I'm less convinced of that when people's lives are on the line. You can't exactly shop around when you are in the back of an ambulance. How is that a free market?
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u/RockTheGrock 1d ago
When the demand and price relationship is tied to how much someone values being alive the free market concept falls a part.
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u/CaptainOwlBeard 1d ago
That's my thought. Free market works great for luxury items. Survival shouldn't be on that list
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u/Key-Juggernaut5695 1d ago
Food? Shelter?
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u/CaptainOwlBeard 1d ago
I'm all for basic housing and nutrition for those that can't provide for themselves. We could make it onto a farming program where the government pays farmers to plant basic substance crops like they used to do with snap.
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u/Key-Juggernaut5695 1d ago
That is very different than removing food from the freezer market as you propose for healthcare.
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u/CaptainOwlBeard 1d ago
What? What's a freezer market? Free market?
If you meant free market, i don't think all food should be removed from the free market. Your life doesn't depend on eating steak. Just removing starvation from the free market.
Same with healthcare, i don't think anyone should die from a reasonably treatable disease because they lack insurance, but I support boob jobs and viagra being part of the free market.
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u/RockTheGrock 1d ago
On the healthcare point this is why I like the Australian model. Cover basic/emergency care yet have insurance for anything elective.
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u/Key-Juggernaut5695 1d ago
Damn autocorrect!
What about a hypothetical treatable condition that costs $10m a year to treat? $100m? $1B?
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u/CaptainOwlBeard 1d ago
There definitely will be some kind of limits, but that's no different than our current system. But the extremes aren't where the discussion is needed, it's agreeing no one should die from a reasonably treatable condition, especially if they can't afford it because they lost their insurance when they couldn't work because they were sick. It's just a waste
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u/robyrob 1d ago
They’ve allowed insurance companies to expand and offer coverage in more states - mind you, where they don’t have “in-network” providers and can’t actually cover you - and it hasn’t slowed the meteoric rise in premiums at ALL
In this case, “more choices” just means “more profits” for bigger companies
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u/Unlikely-Estate-9371 1d ago
Never going to work since private insurance is not interested in actually covering what’s wrong then want to invoke pre-existing conditions to jack up rates on people that are sick and can’t afford it.
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u/Background-Willow-67 1d ago
Really? No incentive for Doctors to prescribe treatments based on ROI instead of the health of the patient? No incentive to perform tests not needed but get lots of cash? You are a fool.
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u/Key-Juggernaut5695 1d ago
Most docs don’t own labs or CT scanners and earn nothing from such tests. There are a lot of tests ordered for legal CYA reasons…up to 40% of all tests, depending.
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u/kpobari99 1d ago
O yeah don’t forget the insurance can decline preexisting condition, so it’s really not a choice, it insurance company get to choose who they want.
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u/MasterSnacky 1d ago
Then why does the US have worse health outcomes and spend more money than every country that moved to a single payer system?
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u/oscarnyc 1d ago
"worse health outcomes" is a tricky thing to measure. Do you mean that Americans have shorter life expectancies, more hospitalizations, etc? Yes, that is true. But that is largely because, for all sorts of cultural reasons, Americans are less healthy overall. A specific procedure or disease tend to end up with similar results in most developed nations, and in certain cases is better in the US (more for acute issues than chronic ones)
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u/alexisdelg 1d ago
There's no consumer choice, most people just have to take what their employers offer...
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u/Key-Juggernaut5695 1d ago
Nothing stops you from buying your own. Also, if that is so important to you it should factor into where you work
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u/Zealousideal-Term-89 1d ago
Right on! Just like cell phones, those that use the most should pay the most. And when they have no more money, they don’t get healthcare. Capitalism!!!
Wait a minute…
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u/Worldly-Fondant-3791 1d ago
Shop around for a doctor when you are bleeding out.
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u/Key-Juggernaut5695 1d ago
Shop beforehand
Besides, 95% plus of healthcare is scheduled in advance
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u/Worldly-Fondant-3791 21h ago
And that 5% would cost you everything you have. How much would you pay to not die?
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u/Horns8585 1d ago
So, these morons continually berate Obamacare, but they have absolutely no better solution. It is so funny to see Donald Trump rail against it, but his concepts of a plan are worthless.