Is Obamacare working ?

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For one thing, most of the people who are dead set against Obamacare are the kind who could care less about poor people, despite making that a centerpiece of their argument.
For another, even if Obamacare does begin to get too expensive doesn't mean that it can't be fixed. There's no use in throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

The subsidies do not cover 100% of costs.

If you earn -------------------------then you pay
Up to 133% of FPL then you contribute 2.04% of your income
Up to 133-150% of FPL you contribute 3.06%-4.08% of your income
Up to 150-200% of FPL you contribute 4.08%-8.21% of your income
Up to 250-300% of FPL you contribute 8.21%-9.69% of your income
Up to 300-400% of FPL you contribute 9.69% of your income
https://www.healthinsurance.org/obamaca ... m-subsidy/

Take the example of someone making $31,000 (over 250% of FPL). That person is required to contribute 8.21 to 9.69% of income.

Likely, they will think, gee I can really use this money for something else and just pay the $696 penalty, rather than the $3,000 they would have to contribute.

This is relevant, and a huge problem for Obamacare.

Last edited by LoveNotHate on 27 Oct 2016, 7:06 am, edited 1 time in total.

at one time I was paying half my net pay for health insurance, so the 10% is a vast improvement. if it wasn't for my tin can [all paid for] i'd have been homeless as there would have been no money left over even for a rented flophouse. PPACA is far from perfect, it is mediocre in fact but that is still better than NOTHING.

It could have been better but Big Insurance lobbied for inclusion. They got their way! Now, realizing their gamble didn't pay off, are backing out and stepping down. What it really boils down to is market share. Betcha Big Insurance had this planned all along, to derail any attempt to reign them in. They will collapse under their own weight eventually but will have 75% + of your paycheck + plenty of state and federal subsidies before that happens.

If you have a $5000 deductabible on top of sky rocketing premiums, you are even worse off than not having insurance because most people do not spend $5000 in healthcare every year. It's basically catastrophic coverage except you are mandated by law to have it and you pay full price. Obamacare is not better than nothing, it is a fact that you could probably get cheaper healthcare without insurance if you have to spend $5000 anyways. Obamacare has ruined the healthcare system for millions of Americans, 'if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor' is one of the biggest lies in American political history, and things are getting progressively worse. You might think you are better off but you're not, they wrote Obamacare specifically to profit the insurance industry.

This idea that insuring everyone would somehow bring down costs was a stupid idea that hasn't working, now costs are skyrocketing and there are huge shortages in access to care particularly to the poor who may of had good insurance coverage before but not anyone. There are not enough doctors, there are not enough nurses, the entire system is falling apart and I can tell you first hand it is not helping poor people very much. It seems like they want to make healthcare so sh*tty for Americans that they'll tolerate top-down socialized medicine with it's own mandates and shortages because 'at least it works', Obama seriously is one of the worst presidents of all time. Hopefully you don't find yourself in front of death panel one day, rationing is a fundamental aspect of socialist medicine and those who are old/with no job/no family/etc are probably the first ones to get rationed. What we have is even worse than socialized medicine, we have fascist medicine as written by the corporatists who try to convince us they're oh so compassionate. Now people have less choice and these insurance companies become even more powerful as they push all competitors out of the field, Obama has created insurance monopolies for much of this country that didn't exist before. What we have right now is a disaster and we'd be better off without completely repealed, Trump is pretty open minded when it comes to healthcare and can fix the law but the Democrats never ever will since they're crashing this plane with no survivors.

Instead of blaming one alternative I think HMOs were a fundamental problem... the country may actually need more socialist healthcare for the cost to go down... or do you think Scandinavia has some disastrous system?

See for yourself:


Despite spending the second least:


Rampant capitalism as symbolized by an obese conman is the problem, not socialism.

Nordic socialism is already on the course to collapse, they are tiny homogeneous states the size of Minnesota and not a relevant comparison to the US especially Norway which is funded with oil. Sweden will see it's HDI fall between Malaysia and Libya in the next 20 years, they have destroyed their country and 100 years from now will be mourning their terrible mistake. A lot of it is a stereotype as some of these policies in Scandinavia are radically pro-capitalist even beyond the US, they just have a unsustainable welfare state. It's not the vaunted socialist utopias like leftists want us to believe.

Hm, well, instead of graphs you simply opine about the next century? And how will that happen, the sun will finally never peek ever again?

It's not socialism that causes collapse, it's debt and to be socialist does not necessarily imply runaway spending. Capitalists are more than willing to take out loans as well, in fact more so!

But guess what, everytime someone takes out a loan, it devalues our money. They will pass the cost of the interest onto you. They won't just ignore the added expense. The higher the interest, the greater the amount taken from every dollar. Soon, you will be forced take out a loan of your own just to keep up. Then you will pass the interest expense on to someone else and so on and so forth. This is how a debt run economy operates. It artificially inflates prices due to collective interest demands. It's the insidiously covert effect of too much debt.

Debt is an issue in any political system.

Last edited by ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo on 27 Oct 2016, 9:17 am, edited 1 time in total.

The next century? It will be a lot less than that, they are already crumbling under their own weight and it's only getting worse with open door immigration. A tiny country cannot let in hundreds of thousands of refugees from the most backwards parts of the world and not expect to take a hit. The more you actually know about Sweden instead of this idealized vision the more you don't actually want to replicate them in any way. Rape capital of the world by the way.

Nordics are unabashed capitalists in a lot of ways, calling them socialist is a misnomer since they're really just welfare states. Believe it or not, by most measures it is a lot easier doing business in these "socialist" countries which really are not than it is the supposedly ultra-capitalism they try the accuse the US of having.

Although I am not Swedish I imagine it's not easy to earn a living in a country that experiences such a harsh and prolonged winter. Also, it might not be easy attracting as many tourists, especially with the Alps to the south. So what you complain about the state providing in Sweden is something no one else will provide. Open immigration is in response to so many wanting to leave the cold place and low birth rate. It's so easy to sit and judge from a place in the sun belt without really experiencing what life in a harsh, prolonged winter climate is like, the challenges of earning a living in such a place. As a member of the EU, young Swedes can leave to warmer EU climes at any time. That's a huge challenge for any nation.

Although I am not Swedish I imagine it's not easy to earn a living in a country that experiences such a harsh and prolonged winter. Also, it might not be easy attracting as many tourists, especially with the Alps to the south. So what you complain about the state providing in Sweden is something no one else will provide. Open immigration is in response to so many wanting to leave the cold place and low birth rate. It's so easy to sit and judge from a place in the sun belt without really experiencing what life in a harsh, prolonged winter climate is like, the challenges of earning a living in such a place. As a member of the EU, young Swedes can leave to warmer EU climes at any time. That's a huge challenge for any nation. Enough people leaving will signify death of the country.

I'm not sure I buy that, I live in a much harsher unforgiving(in my opinion) desert climate that has rapidly grown in the last couple decades so that temperate Swedish climate seems pretty inviting to me but then again I guess I am originally from a cold climate. The amount of people and, just as important, who they're letting in just is not a net positive in the end for Sweden and I think their welfare systems will fall into a state of collapse because of it. European countries seem to do a terrible job at integrating immigrants and particularly Muslim immigrants as most are, creating bigger ethnic enclaves and more cultural separatism is a recipe for disaster. Hundreds of thousands of refugees is bad enough already but you have to understand that European countries are much smaller than the US. If the US took in the same amount of refugees per capita, it would be in the millions and we don't even want to bring in the 10k. What Europe is doing to itself is suicide.

Millenials and younger might have an easier time dealing with differences. It's middle aged and older who are most bothered by them.
Sweden is along the lines of Alaska-type climate, or Siberia. Nothing in the lower 48 is as cold and dark for so long. Jacoby, we're you raised in Alaska?


Then consider Vikings who were so cold and miserable, they built innovative ships on a large scale just to escape the frigid conditions of Scandinavia. They went to places warmer and more prosperous. The first thing they did was look for food to steal because they were so hungry. They couldn't grow much in their frozen villages.

Well there is a difference between living in the interior of Alaska and along the southern coast, the same is true for Sweden and it sounds pretty mild. I disagree that there isn't anything that matches the climate, it was colder and snowier where I grew up. Winters were tough but you don't know what you are missing until it is gone, I'm excited when I see trees now.

Stockholm has a similar climate to Minneapolis......but with less extremes. Actually between Chicago and a Minneapolis.

The interior of Sweden is similar to southern rural Canada. The true Arctic climate occurs in Sammi areas.