Why so much fuss over Obamacare?

[AViking]

The P/N section is not really constructive for this type of topic so I'm hoping it will be better here.

Why is there so much fuss about it? I've posted in numerous places how bad our current healthcare system is. It's incredibly expensive and has no future. 17% of GDP being spend on healthcare is insane while at the same time having your population pay huge sums of money for premiums, copays, and deductibles. All while having millions with no coverage.

Three main points I'd like to bring up to start this topic.

First how much do you guys spend on healthcare as a percent of your income. In other words if you spend $5000 a year and have a $50,000 income then it would be 10%.

Second do you truly have a problem with everyone having healthcare coverage in the USA?

Third, would you have a problem paying a few more percent (as high as 5%) in taxes to get universal healthcare? I ask this question last since if I ask it first I'll get everyone saying no. I'm hoping that if you look at the amount you're paying for healthcare as a percent of your income that it will make more sense.

Say you are a family of 4 and your healthcare costs $5,000 a year. You would have to earn over $100,000 a year for that 5% to be costing you more. Well 80% of American families make less than that.

This is of course not really showing the true cost though. As an employer in the states before moving health insurance was very expensive. The average family actually costs about $15,000 to cover. So your employer is still paying for it. $5,000 is probably only your premium too. So if you're using your health insurance you're probably paying closer to $6,500. Maybe more.

 

[Matt1970]

That 10% becomes a much bigger pill to swallow when you are just getting by as it is.

 

[AViking]

What are you trying to say?

 

[boomerang]

He's saying that many here are living paycheck to paycheck. Waiving the magic Obamacare wand doesn't entail people getting a raise.

 

[sm625]

The main problem with obamacare is that it does nothign to actually address the real problem: healthcare is unaffordable. Governemnt cannot step in and make something affordable. It tried 15-20 years ago with home ownership and the result was a huge massive bubble. Maybe some more socialist governments can actually manage that. But the US congress is 90% corporate owned. Every law they pass is specifically written to benefit the authors of the legislation. It is the same story repeated over and over. But for some reason there is this group of people who expect a different result ("it will be different this time.") No, it wont. Health care costs will absolutely explode. They are attempting to force health care spending to rise by forcing young people to opt in or be fine. Young people do not have health insurance because they dont need it. Obamacare does nothing to change the fact that it costs over $100k to do a surgury that costs $12k in india, or that it costs $750 for a pill that is $13 in mexico. The government works for big pharma, to hold these antitrusts in place. It is actually blatantly illegal, it is a violation of the Sherman law.

 

[Juddog]

The main problem with obamacare is that it does nothign to actually address the real problem: healthcare is unaffordable. Governemnt cannot step in and make something affordable. It tried 15-20 years ago with home ownership and the result was a huge massive bubble. Maybe some more socialist governments can actually manage that. But the US congress is 90% corporate owned. Every law they pass is specifically written to benefit the authors of the legislation. It is the same story repeated over and over. But for some reason there is this group of people who expect a different result ("it will be different this time.") No, it wont. Health care costs will absolutely explode. They are attempting to force health care spending to rise by forcing young people to opt in or be fine. Young people do not have health insurance because they dont need it. Obamacare does nothing to change the fact that it costs over $100k to do a surgury that costs $12k in india, or that it costs $750 for a pill that is $13 in mexico. The government works for big pharma, to hold these antitrusts in place. It is actually blatantly illegal, it is a violation of the Sherman law.

The government can step in to make it affordable, but like you said, since our government is owned by corporate interests, it chooses not to.

Canada pays less per citizen yet healthcare coverage is 100% of the population. Sweden pays less and their healthcare system is even better than ours. Either system doesn't have people declaring bankruptcy because they get sick once and get burned on ridiculous payments.

When I was in the hospital as a kid, they were charging me $53 for a single ibuprofen pill, and $80 for a lunch consisting of a microwaved hotdog with some boiled canned corn.

One hospital can charge $70k for the exact same procedure as another hospital charges $35k for a few miles away, with equal chance of success.

There are procedures that cost $500k, for being in the hospital for a few days for a heart procedure.

On top of that the rates for people who have insurance are different than the rates of people that have medicaid / medicare, which are different than the rates for people paying out of pocket.

The entire system is bloated and completely ridiculous and nobody is going to be able to afford healthcare at the current rate of rate increase. Then you have health insurance costing so much that people don't bother getting it, and only go to the emergency room when they absolutely have to, so the emergency rooms are filled to the brink with people that shouldn't even be in there, had they treated the symptoms correctly over time.

We need a drastic overhaul and there are other countries which had this problem nipped in the bud 30 years ago that we can follow by example.

 

[shortylickens]

Because politicians have been promising us healthcare for years, Obama ran on that platform, and when it finally happens it does not provide healthcare of any kind.

All it does is force you to get insurance or pay a fine.

We need ACTUAL fucking health care. We need hospitals and doctors and nurses and more schools for all of them.

The real problem (which for strange reason no one wants to talk about) is the government backed monopoly the AMA has on medicine in this country. You break up that cartel and everything else will slowly fix itself.

 

[kia75]

Because of the name. Obama-care.

There were a few news stories the other days about how much Kentuckians loved the new health care exchange, Kynect (uggh, that sounds like an xbox live accessory). These people would never in a million years sign up for Obamacare but they'll sign up for Kynect. Look at polls where support for the ACA is much higher then Obamacare. Look at support for Romneycare before the election. And Obamacare is the ACA. So is Kynect and Romneycare. Poll after Poll shows that Americans love the different parts of Obamacare, the exchanges, the subsidies, the removal of pre-existing conditions. They're not too keen on the Individual mandate, but that's sort of required to make everything work.

So would a rose by any other name still smell as sweet? Apparently not.

This is also why Obamacare will succeed. People like being able to go to the doctor and fixing what ails them. People like feeling good. Nobody likes Emergency Room care. In 4 years when everybody has Health insurance it'll be political suicide to try and take it away.

 

[DaveSimmons]

In 4 years when everybody has Health insurance it'll be political suicide to try and take it away.

Which is why some Republican politicians are so afraid of it. Having it succeed and getting Americans hooked on having insurance, much of it taxpayer-subsidized for the "49%".

Emergency rooms are already taxpayer-subsidized though.

 

[dank69]

I think everyone here has already missed the point the OP was trying to make. Namely, that if you currently pay >5% of your income for health insurance maybe it would make sense to pay the government 5% more of you income as taxes while receiving universal healthcare instead of paying whatever you do currently.

Now, many people's health insurance is heavily subsidized by their employer so these people don't pay nearly 5% of their income for health insurance. However, if we had universal healthcare, companies wouldn't have to spend money on health insurance for their employees and as such they could pay their employees the difference.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I got those points, it's just that there is no hope of them being implemented any time soon. Even a sekrit commie mooslim foreigner couldn't do it.

It does make sense to have socialized medicine instead of the bloated and corrupt for-profit system we have now.

But I also wonder if other nations are getting a free ride on our for-profit research and development, just like they count on us to foot the bill for Team America World Police and spend much less on their military?

Would the cheap drugs and surgeries stay as cheap in the rest of the world if there was no medical-industrial complex in the US that gets paid for the development by gouging us here?

 

[Murloc]

But I also wonder if other nations are getting a free ride on our for-profit research and development, just like they count on us to foot the bill for Team America World Police and spend much less on their military?

Would the cheap drugs and surgeries stay as cheap in the rest of the world if there was no medical-industrial complex in the US that gets paid for the development by gouging us here?

Funny you mention this because pharma companies make the swiss pay more than other europeans for the same medications.

Anyway there's always this to be said: no one says you have to be top dog, you can politically reduce prices, stop the wars, and spend less money as a result. But you don't and that's your choice, with both advantages and disadvantages. Right now, probably more advantages, unless you're poor.

 

[irishScott]

I think the main source of conflict is essentially this: http://www.theonion.com/articles/man-who-understands-8-of-obamacare-vigorously-defe,34022/

No one understands Obamacare, and no one can say what it's going to do. Oh sure people claim that section X will do good thing Y or bad thing Z, but the law is so massive and so ridiculously complicated that no one can nail down the cause-and-effect relationships of the entire law.

Much like religion, this creates a platform where anyone can say anything and find some cherry-picked rationalization for it; which makes it prime fuel for political bullshit; and the debate never ends because no one is capable of ending it, academically or otherwise.


As for the larger issue of a public option, I don't think most Americans are against it so long as private options remain available.

 

[irishScott]

Funny you mention this because pharma companies make the swiss pay more than other europeans for the same medications.

Anyway there's always this to be said: no one says you have to be top dog, you can politically reduce prices, stop the wars, and spend less money as a result. But you don't and that's your choice, with both advantages and disadvantages. Right now, probably more advantages, unless you're poor.

I kinda had a double-take on that. Not in a bad way, but it is interesting from a cultural perspective. Americans are raised with the knowledge that they live in the best, most powerful nation on earth. It's not organized government indoctrination or anything (although you'll find more than a few who say it is), it's just merely our cultural perception of ourselves, and it's not completely irrational taking into account America's rise to world prominence in the 20th century. There's a great deal of Nationalism over here.

My double-take is evidence enough of that. The very notion that America one day wouldn't be on top feels... extremely alien. Intellectually I can understand the concept, but it seems to me, intuitively, that America wouldn't be America if it wasn't on top, or at least if it wasn't striving to be on top.

I suppose the difference in economic policies kinda reflects this. Despite the demonization our rich often get in the news, we admire our self-made wealthy. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerburg, and others like them are in many cases held up as the modern incarnations of the American Dream. If you create a huge business empire out of nothing, you're a bonafide American Hero. Contrast to Europe where smaller businesses are typically encouraged, and I know in more than a few European nations asking how much someone makes is considered extremely rude; whereas in the US it's considered a much more casual question (assuming some minor familiarity).


Don't mean to hijack the thread, just thought that was interesting.

 

[DaveSimmons]

We seem to be on top for the most advanced medical care as well -- you've probably seen many news stories of world leaders and billionaires flying from their own countries to the US for some advanced treatment. If we give that up, will any other country pick up the slack? Or will advances slow without a get-rich profit mentality to drive some companies and their staff?

Craig was often posting here about the evils of concentration of wealth, and while there's something to that, we seem to get most of our advances from people like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, the Google guys rather than committees and nonprofits. Even if what they do is take ideas from others' research and commercialize them.

Would we miss out on some new biotech Jobs/Gates figuring out how to make billions by regrowing limbs, re-writing our DNA to cure cancer, or accidentally turning us into zombies?

 

[boomerang]

No one understands Obamacare, and no one can say what it's going to do. Oh sure people claim that section X will do good thing Y or bad thing Z, but the law is so massive and so ridiculously complicated that no one can nail down the cause-and-effect relationships of the entire law.

I won't embed this because this forum has a different decorum. But I'm sure everyone remembers this chart.

http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/boomerang/obamacare-chart.jpg

Flat out honest, I don't want the government involved to this degree in healthcare. The waste, fraud, graft and abuse in our current programs is a big warning sign. This program will not be different in this regard with the exception that it will be far bigger. Further, the IRS we now know with certainty is being used as a political tool. I don't want them as the enforcement arm.

 

[piasabird]

My employer paid $8,000 per full-time employee for health care last year. That would be like $666.6666 per month. My wife is out of work and has no health care which is insult enough, and now the government wants to fine us in our poverty. To top that off I can get no information at all about health care plans from the government exchanges or marketplace websites. Why are they hiding the information???

 

[rockyct]

My employer paid $8,000 per full-time employee for health care last year. That would be like $666.6666 per month. My wife is out of work and has no health care which is insult enough, and now the government wants to fine us in our poverty. To top that off I can get no information at all about health care plans from the government exchanges or marketplace websites. Why are they hiding the information???

https://www.healthcare.gov/ Just start there. It depends on which state you live in. At least for California, it's really easy to find the plans and the cost available to you: https://www.coveredca.com/shopandcompare/

The idea for the fine is that there is an incentive for you to get insurance if you can afford it, not to tax you to death.

 

[AViking]

Ok lots of interesting points brought up. Let me start with my own family as an example though.

My father is long past retirement age. He keeps on working though because my mother has poor health and is uninsurable. The pre-existing clause doesn't kick in until 2014 and my mother qualifies for medicaid in 2015. So my father is forced to keep working, self employed, and has her hanging onto his policy along with my perfectly healthy brother for an annual cost of close to $19,000.

I was raised to believe that socialism is bad. That taxes are bad. Yada Yada. However reality is much much different. If you count healthcare coverage as a tax then my father is paying 28% in federal taxes, 9.3% for California (plus a few grand), minus a small tax write off for his 401K and mortgage, plus that $19,000 which is around 15% of his income. Do the math. He's paying more than I do in Sweden by several percent and is working for way too many years just to avoid being bankrupted by my mother's healthcare costs.

Yet here I get free healthcare (max it costs a couple hundred a year for doctors visits and prescription medication if you use it), 16 months of M/Paternity leave, 5 weeks of vacation that increases at 39 and so on so that by the time you retire you have over 8 weeks, daycare costs less than $150 a month, mass transit is subsidized so it costs about $115 a month, and it includes a very good pension plan that you can further with a separate insurance rider if you wanted a larger percent of your salary. And so on...

Basically we're getting screwed in the US. Even if you don't have a situation like my family you are still probably paying over $5000 a year and at an average income that adds up to a very large percent of your salary. When I look at my friends with kids in daycare the situation is really bad since daycare is so expensive at over $1000 per month per child. There's a reason the rich are getting richer and everyone else is hurting. There's no protection from these incredibly high costs.

Now my gripe with Obamacare was the same as one of you above. It didn't do anything about the pharmaceuticals, medical device manufactures, and other costs. However if you have 300,000,000 people on it then they can dictate how much they're going to pay. They can. Will they? I hope. However there needs to be more laws put in place to stop this gouging of the American people.

The best examples I can use are my personal ones so I'll use an MRI. I'll post what I put in another thread:

The first step in trying to get Americans access to affordable health care is .... controlling the cost of the care and thus making it <gasp> affordable. obummercare does nothing to address costs.

It does one thing. They can simply not pay the high prices that a medical provider provides. Once enough people use the ACA then it might be hard for providers to not service ACA customers.

I went to a specialist about 8 years ago and the doctor would not accept my insurance. I was using Blue Shield and they said that they would only pay them $60 for my office visit so they would demand cash. I had to pay $200 for a 15 minute visit. I had a HSA so I didn't care that much but this high priced healthcare needs to stop.

Another good example is that I got an MRI and they said my health insurance wouldn't cover it. They billed me $5000 for an MRI of my back. Six months later my insurance paid them and settled it for something like $1500. Of course the reality is that an MRI for the back only costs about $300 so they were still overcharging by about 500%.

You can't stop them from trying to overcharge unless you make big changes. Obamacare is at least a start. At some point you have to ask yourself why you are using expensive insurance to overpay your healthcare providers. The more people get on ACA the cheaper it will become. Hopefully in the near future we'll see that US healthcare costs drop significantly below the 17% of GDP we currently pay.

Also:

I think that the term "subsidize" is being misused here. While the rest of the world does pay less for the exact same drugs, the drug companies still make a profit off of each and every sale (or sell the drugs as a loss leader to gain market share/brand recognition, etc.). There is no subsidy, only a market-driven reduction in price through wholesale pricing, less stringent patent protection systems, etc. If the US system only offered the same level of profitability as the rest of the world, research and development would slow down massively, many pharmaceuticals would seek other opportunities, etc. While the cost of pharmaceuticals and many other medical devices is stifling in the US, it mainly represents what the market will bear.

I think it's that Americans don't know any better.

Lets be honest about this for at least one second. I grew up with American healthcare. It's normal. Everyone complains about the cost but "America Fuck Yeah!" and "We have the best healthcare in the world!". I go to Sweden and before I leave everyone rants and raves about "America Fuck Yeah!" and "Fuck Socialism!". They don't even for a second consider that something different could be better. No way! "Sweden is socialist, everyone is lazy, and everyone lives off the government teat!"

Well reality is very different. VERY different.

Ultimately what Americans have to decide is which system they prefer. Based on my own experiences:

USA
1. Great healthcare. If you go to the doctor for a booboo they will run every test imaginable.
2. Very expensive healthcare. You will spend a relatively large portion of your paycheck on healthcare. Even if you don't, your employer is, or the government is.
3. Overcrowded emergency rooms. They're terrible.
4. 17% of GDP is being spent on healthcare
5. Roughly 2 million Americans are going bankrupt each year due to medical bills.
6. 44 million Americans do not have health insurance.
7. An additional 38 million Americans do not have adequate health insurance
8. Average life expectancy in the USA is 78.7 years. Ranked 33 in the world.
9. We're the only industrialized country that are dependent on for profit medical coverage. The profit margins of pharmaceuticals, medical device manufacturers, etc are very high and that bill is being footed by all Americans.
10. Infant mortality is 6.81/1000 live births. Ranked 34 (behind Cuba)

SWEDEN

1. A regular doctor visit is pretty much "meh" compared to ours. They do not run every test imaginable and this can be frustrating. They will not run tests unless there is evidence to support the need for one. So if your ankle hurts they will first do a physical examination and then an x-ray but an MRI is out of the question since it's for soft tissue and they can't determine if it's soft tissue damage or simply you walking wrong and weakening your muscles. They will prescribe pain medicine and physical therapy rather since it is a more effective solution. I am used to getting the MRI but it won't happen until physical therapy determines that it is necessary.

2. Very affordable healthcare. It's $0. If you use it you have a yearly cap of about $100 for doctor visits and $100 for prescription medication. You pay higher taxes for this but I think you come out way ahead since the average American pays so much money for theirs. Your family in America is paying somewhere between $5,600 and $13,000 depending on the state and the deductible. The number is big. If you compare that as a percentage of your income it's very large and is larger than the tax difference I pay here to get not only healthcare but 16 months of Maternity/Paternity leave, a minimum of 5 weeks vacation, a pension plan, and so on. Our healthcare system only is cheap for those making very large sums of money. So yes, if you make $250,000 a year the American system is much cheaper. After all your income at retirement will mostly be based on capital gains and not your pension and you could give a shit about a $10,000 delivery charge to have a baby.

3. Unlike a regular doctors visit a trip to the ER is top notch. You are in and out of there. It's super effective and very impressive. Acute healthcare is way better than anything I experienced in the USA. Mostly due to the lack of overcrowding. Also due to the sheer number of doctors and specialists though there and ready. I think the US has a shortage of medical personnel right now. Either that or they just have a tons of doctors and specialists here.

4. Sweden pays 9% of their GDP for healthcare and funds 97% of healthcare coverage since patient costs are so small.

5. 0% of Swedes are going bankrupt due to healthcare bills
6. 100% of Swedes have healthcare coverage
7. 100% of visitors to Sweden from the EU/EEA have healthcare coverage but Americans who visit Sweden need to pay for the full cost of coverage since these are all based on reciprocal agreements and the USA doesn't provide healthcare to visitors.
8. Average life expectancy is 82 years. Ranked 4th.
9. Infant mortality is 2.56/1000 live births. Ranked 4th.

So the question is which one is more effective, more cost effective, and which one do you prefer? Or, you could just do the typical "America Fuck Yeah!"

 

[AViking]

My employer paid $8,000 per full-time employee for health care last year. That would be like $666.6666 per month. My wife is out of work and has no health care which is insult enough, and now the government wants to fine us in our poverty. To top that off I can get no information at all about health care plans from the government exchanges or marketplace websites. Why are they hiding the information???

Definitely check the websites since if you're really living at poverty levels healthcare coverage is not that expensive. The government subsidizes last until you hit 400% of the poverty level.

 

[AViking]

I won't embed this because this forum has a different decorum. But I'm sure everyone remembers this chart.

http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/boomerang/obamacare-chart.jpg

Flat out honest, I don't want the government involved to this degree in healthcare. The waste, fraud, graft and abuse in our current programs is a big warning sign. This program will not be different in this regard with the exception that it will be far bigger. Further, the IRS we now know with certainty is being used as a political tool. I don't want them as the enforcement arm.

This is another part of our culture that is a problem. We are all led to believe that anything the government does is wasteful. Now in many ways this IS true, so don't misunderstand me, but the point doesn't end there. It goes "The government wastes our money and a free market capitalist society is better". Something like that. So we deregulate. We make everything free market and for massive profits.

What are we left with. Well the necessities like healthcare and education are becoming so expensive and are already unaffordable for many. We have a housing bubble. We have a bank crisis and are currently still in a giant recession and the worst economic period since the great depression. The destruction of American wealth is enormous and the income disparity is larger than it was during the Rockefeller years. Quite frankly the USA looks like it's on its last legs. I was kinda laughing about it at the time but when I moved to Sweden Mexican immigrants were heading back to Mexico since they could make more money there now. The economy was that bad. Friends that were making $60,000-$80,000 a year were down to $15 an hour and those making 6 figures were taking 20% or more paycuts.

So with all that said which is better? Government waste and an improved quality of life for Americans or the great recession, the destruction of the middle class, and an increase in the wealth of the top echelon of Americans?

Obviously government waste needs to be avoided. We can start though by not spending 17% of our GDP on healthcare for our citizens. It's an easy benchmark to judge the system. Are we spending less than we were before or more? Then vote accordingly.

 

[AViking]

We seem to be on top for the most advanced medical care as well -- you've probably seen many news stories of world leaders and billionaires flying from their own countries to the US for some advanced treatment. If we give that up, will any other country pick up the slack? Or will advances slow without a get-rich profit mentality to drive some companies and their staff?

Craig was often posting here about the evils of concentration of wealth, and while there's something to that, we seem to get most of our advances from people like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, the Google guys rather than committees and nonprofits. Even if what they do is take ideas from others' research and commercialize them.

Would we miss out on some new biotech Jobs/Gates figuring out how to make billions by regrowing limbs, re-writing our DNA to cure cancer, or accidentally turning us into zombies?

Well lets look at 3 of the most interesting medical advances (to me) in recent memory.

1. HIV Vaccine (which incidentally hit a snag yesterday)

US researchers at US universities with grants from all over the place including the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. Not being done by a pharmaceutical company.

2. Malaria Vaccine

GlaxoSmithKline is a British company. I believe they're working on the human trials though in conjunction with the US national institute for health (NIH) and our Navy and Army.

3. Cure for jetlag

Scientists at Kyoto University in Japan

Either way none of these are being done by the big US pharmaceuticals. I doubt any of these would be affected by us paying less for healthcare.

 

[Gunslinger08]

First how much do you guys spend on healthcare as a percent of your income. In other words if you spend $5000 a year and have a $50,000 income then it would be 10%.

Probably 3% of net income, which is mostly premiums. I am a younger person, so I visit the doctor very infrequently. I have yet to receive my enrollment forms for next year.

Second do you truly have a problem with everyone having healthcare coverage in the USA?

This seems like a disingenuous question that's probably fueled by rhetoric on your news outlet of choice. I really don't think there's anyone who has a problem with everyone having healthcare coverage. Why would anyone be opposed to that?

Third, would you have a problem paying a few more percent (as high as 5%) in taxes to get universal healthcare?

5%? Probably not, assuming this is a perfect world. This is not a perfect world.
1. Employers aren't going to instantly give employees a raise to make up for the subsidized premiums that they no longer have to pay. This is going to lead to a drop in net pay for pretty much everyone. This will hurt some people considerably.
2. I seriously doubt a 5% personal income tax hike is going to come anywhere close to funding universal healthcare. Considering that we currently spend 17-18% of GDP on healthcare, you'd have to raise taxes quite a bit more than 5%. 18% of $16 trillion is $2.88 trillion. That's more than the total tax revenue in 2012.
3. Rates are only going to go up. This leaves you with three choices: cut benefits, raise taxes, or have the government fix prices for all patients like the current Medicare system. It will probably be a combination of all three.

 

[ElFenix]

10. Infant mortality is 6.81/1000 live births. Ranked 34 (behind Cuba)

live birth does not have a consistent definition and there are plenty of places where it isn't tracked all that well.

2. I seriously doubt a 5% personal income tax hike is going to come anywhere close to funding universal healthcare. Considering that we currently spend 17-18% of GDP on healthcare, you'd have to raise taxes quite a bit more than 5%. 18% of $16 trillion is $2.88 trillion. That's more than the total tax revenue in 2012.

to a large extent that's double counting, though. the government already pays for more than half of medical care expenses in the US. so it'd be like a 5% hike to replace 7%. which might be doable if there are actual cost savings to be had.

 

[fskimospy]

The main problem with obamacare is that it does nothign to actually address the real problem: healthcare is unaffordable. Governemnt cannot step in and make something affordable. It tried 15-20 years ago with home ownership and the result was a huge massive bubble. Maybe some more socialist governments can actually manage that. But the US congress is 90% corporate owned. Every law they pass is specifically written to benefit the authors of the legislation. It is the same story repeated over and over. But for some reason there is this group of people who expect a different result ("it will be different this time.") No, it wont. Health care costs will absolutely explode. They are attempting to force health care spending to rise by forcing young people to opt in or be fine. Young people do not have health insurance because they dont need it. Obamacare does nothing to change the fact that it costs over $100k to do a surgury that costs $12k in india, or that it costs $750 for a pill that is $13 in mexico. The government works for big pharma, to hold these antitrusts in place. It is actually blatantly illegal, it is a violation of the Sherman law.

I feel like that's a hard argument to make considering that the government run health care in the US is more affordable than the private insurers, and in the world as a whole the more government is involved with health care the lower overall costs tend to be.

EDIT: You might not always get exactly the health care you want, but government has proven extremely effective at controlling health costs.