Re: The PPACA Thread Part III - Let's have a healthy debate!
A couple of years before the ACA was signed, I attended an Estes Park medical conference attended by people in the health care industry, primarily doctors, provider management, and trustees (board members). These were people who had good reason to maintain the status quo, as medical care costs had been rising 6-7% per year for a long time. One of the prevailing messages was the fact that medical providers must start preparing for a major overhaul in the medical care delivery and reimbursement system. And these people were not claiming that bad-guy politicians were going to mess up a system that did not need fixing--they were saying the then-existing system could not continue. Expenses were out of hand, health care delivery was extremely inefficient, insurance was becoming too expensive for the average wage earner, and too many were not treating as they should because they were uninsured. It was not a bunch of democrats, by any means; rather, it was a conservative group of highly educated, highly paid people predicting what was about to happen and warning their fellow industry professionals that they must do everything they could to anticipate major change in order to survive. I was there as a trustee for a small hospital, not an expert by any means, and I'm still not. But the Estes Park four-day conferences are pretty highly regarded, I think, and the message was coming from within the industry, not political hacks, activists, or the insurance industry.
There is probably a lot to improve with ACA, but thinking that the attempt to overhaul that system was unnecessary and tragic, while a convenient pitch to those who fear and oppose any gubmint efforts that might affect their lives, is not realistic, IMO. It is too complicated an issue for idiot politicians to reduce it to a sound-bite that will get the base riled up, such as claiming that everything was going well and that it should have been left dam-well alone. I don't think I have ever heard a politician asked to explain what is the most important difference between ACA and the MA plan, for example, or what it is about the MA plan that makes it unsuitable for nation-wide application. People on this site can speak to that and have, I think, but the national discussion never gets to that level. Death squads, for Parise's sake.
Maybe we should require the candidates from both parties to get a user name and engage in the discussion on this thread. That would elevate the discussion a lot.
MA is the perfect case study for the ACA. Same concerns, fear mongering, etc happened before this went into place. Job killer, too expensive, no insurers will sign up, blah blah blah. None of that happened, so what gives?