Obamacare Prediction

[excringency]

Sometime in 2014 when Obamacare is enacted the Republicans will stop using the title Obamacare. As the country accepts, then prizes, and then votes for expansion of government involvement in health care the R's will return to calling it the Affordable Care Act, or ACA for short. They will try to rewrite history as they did with Medicare. Dire predictions of socialistic catastrophe followed by acting as if they were part of a sacrosanct creation.

[leftstreet]

1. 2016 GOP would be wise to propose Single Payer

They'd decimate the Democratic party for decades


And no, I know they won't do it. All politicians are in the pockets of Big Insurance/Big Pharma

[NoOneMan]

2. Thats optimistic

I think its going to make per capita health costs skyrocket and its usage fees will lock all but the most-comfortable Americans out of the health care system. All pushes for real reform will lose traction and a growing contingent of Americans will begin pushing for stripping away layers of the law. States will then begin taking unilateral actions, resulting in a very unequal patchwork system.

[subterranean]

3. If your prediction proves correct,

and it does in fact make health care costs skyrocket (even more than they already are) and locks most Americans out of the system, wouldn't that be likely to strengthen calls for real reform? Maybe more states would follow Vermont's example, if that's at all successful, and try some form of single payer. It may result in an unequal patchwork system, but we already have that now.

[excringency]

5. I hope that isn't

the case. What does give me optimism for success at the outset is this. Insurance companies stand to make a killing (pun intended) on the millions of new customers brought into the system. As more gain coverage without the right's prediction of a socialistic Armageddon coming to pass, a good portion of the country will become comfortable with the idea of government in health care. I may be naive here, but I expect the ACA to become a permanent part of U.S. life. I also expect it to evolve over time much like Social Security and Medicare to expand its reach. Hopefully during Hillary's first term we can start the discussion of a single payer health care system for the United States and get it passed by her second term.

[NoOneMan]

6. I don't think so

This was passed under the guise of being a "liberal" solution involving more government intervention (I don't really see it that way at all). If it takes a nose dive, the argument to go single-payer will be underminded by perception alone. How could politicians muster the political will for real reform when they have their names dragged through the mud from the unintended consequences of these half-measures? It will only leave the will for reform (in any direction) existant at a state level.

[leftstreet]

7. +1 If GOP had passed this, reform would be an option

But since the 'liberals' passed mandated for-profit insurance, we're clusterfucked on national single payer for some time

[Bandit]

4. What you are describing is the way it was before Obamacare..

Look to Massachusetts and you will get a glimpse of how it will play out....It is after all a Republican Bill so don't expect it to be a real blessing for most americans...