Posted on 01/19/2017 5:25:22 AM PST by IBD editorial writer
As soon as Republicans took the first steps toward repealing ObamaCare, stories started popping up all over about how ObamaCare "saved my life."
CNN ran an op-ed called "ObamaCare saved my life. What now?" and Salon one titled "ObamaCare saved my dad's life — and then he voted for Donald Trump." Another reported on how a "Sedona cancer survivor tells Paul Ryan: 'Obamacare' saved my life." Huffington Post had a piece about how "ObamaCare Saved My Mom's Life."
The list of such stories grows by the day. They all tell the same tale. Someone got insurance because of ObamaCare, got treated for a disease, and didn't die.
The stories are meant to build support for keeping ObamaCare in place now that Republicans have the chance to repeal it. Get rid of ObamaCare and people will perish, is the implicit message.
Were these folks actually saved by ObamaCare? It's possible. You can't spend a trillion dollars subsidizing insurance without helping someone. Of course, lots of Americans who had health problems managed to live before President Obama signed that bill into law, even if they didn't have insurance. So it's hard to say with any real certainty what would have happened.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
Medical care can save your life.
But, there are many more “Obamacare has bankrupted me” stories.
Of course those stories could be real.
For every million people coerced to buy insurance they don’t need, don’t want, and can’t afford, there are bound to be a couple of people helped.
Law of large numbers. In a country of 320,000,000 it is impossible to enact legislation, no matter how bad, that harms tens of millions of people, without accidentally helping a couple of dozen or so.
That’s why I hate to see Democrats using individuals as props and pawns, a sample size of 1 is pretty stupid.
They’re laughable. I like the one where the ‘Republican’ entrepreneur was saved. I don’t believe a word of it.
Obamacare saved nobody. Insurance is not healthcare.
I am sure that a lot of the stories are true. I’m also sure that the stories of all the people who are forced to buy substandard coverage because the cost of healthcare insurance has gone up due to the government subsidies and who don’t qualify for subsidies themselves will never be told.
I’ve noticed that, too. I have noticed an uptick in “Obamacare helped me start a small business.” Go figure.
When someone else's money is involved, cost is no object. But I'm sorry. Being forced to part with a significant portion of my income to save the life of someone I don't and never will know is IMMORAL.
ML/NJ
There would be both survival AND death stories for both socialized medicine and free market.
E.g.:
Free market survival-
Someone proactively gets the care they want, selecting doctors and treatments along the way, without government bureaucracy slowing them down. Don’t need gov approved treatments. Can go all cash.
Free market death-
Not enough money for treatment. Need to depend on charity.
Socialist survival-
Poor person gets care at someone else’s expense.
Socialist death-
Dies waiting on line.
The way to pick is what causes the best care overall. There are more that die under socialist schemes than free market ones.
And that pesky freedom - allows for more innovation in treatment to begin with.
Guaranteed gov buyers, dictating policy content, etc. are what lead to increased prices.
Overall it would be much better to have gov out of it entirely. I’d even support a constitutional amendment that prohibits states from regulating insurance.
Justice for bad behavior on the part of insurance companies can still be dealt with via contract law and fraud.
Such prohibition would not stop gov from informing people or directing them to local charities.
But those who were saved is only half of the picture. Bastiat (among others) put forward the principle of "That which is seen verses that which is not.
Yup, but it personalizes the problem. Be ready for "Repealing Obamacare Killed My Baby" stories.
You - you, personally - voted for Trump and will be responsible for millions of dead children. Me too. I hope I'll be able to live with myself. /s
How, exactly, did that work? Unless the business was helping people to figure out how to take advantage of the gov't program....
I haven’t heard of anyone helped by Obamacare. I haven’t heard of anyone who isn’t worse off, either can’t get coverage, or the coverage they have is so high it is putting them in a bind... and this in return for a deductible so high they can’t go to the doctor anymore.
In other words, in my entire extended family, the only ones who are able to actually go to the doctor are people who are covered some other way, VA or medicare.
All the arguments I hear on TV seem to be about theory, no one seems to know anyone actually on Obamacare. So you hear people on the one side defending some imaginary free health care system that doesn’t exist, versus people on the other side describing a system that vaguely doesn’t work. It might be good to interview actual people to see what their actual experiences are. In my extended family, its all anecdotal, but its all bad.
IMO....I can always *find* more money. Whether I need to beg, borrow, or steal it, there is money out there to be gotten.
However, I can't teach myself open heart surgery. It's not a course that I can pick up at the local Community College. Ergo, anything that keeps docs practicing, I'm 100% in favor of. And ObamaCare drives docs (three, personally, just local to me who took care of my family and I) out of the profession.
Anything coming from Oliar’s administration is a fabrication and a BS lie.
I’ve yet to see a good explanation. I was wondering that myself.
correct, because those stories don’t fit the narrative
Why Obamacare’s ‘20 Million’ Number Is Fake
http://dailysignal.com/2017/01/13/why-obamacares-20-million-number-is-fake/
The Obama administration claims 20 million more Americans today have health care due to Obamacare. But that is based on six years of survey data, not actual sign-ups. The reality is that when you look at the actual net gains over the past two years since the program was fully implemented, the number is 14 million, and of that, 11.8 million (84 percent) were people given the “gift” of Medicaid.
And new research shows that even fewer people will be left without insurance after the repeal of Obamacare. Numbers are still being crunched, but between statistics released by the Congressional Budget Office and one of the infamous architects of Obamacare, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Jonathan Gruber, it’s estimated that anywhere from 2 to 7 million people now on Medicaid would have qualified for the program even without Obamacare.
That further discredits the administration’s claim of 20 million more Americans having health insurance because of Obamacare.
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