Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you.
Posted on 10/04/2025 10:33:37 AM PDT by DFG
ince Democrats have shut down the federal government because they want another $1.5 trillion bailout of Obamacare, it’s a good time to remind everyone that the law has been a wide-ranging and expensive fiasco.
Virtually every promise made by Democrats regarding the Affordable Care Act has failed to come true.
Sure, former President Barack Obama infamously promised that Americans could keep their preferred insurance if they desired. By the end of his second term, around 7 million people had been booted from their insurance because of the Affordable Care Act. Who knows how many have been dropped since.
But let’s also not forget that Obama pledged that the law would reduce family health insurance premiums by “up to” $2,500 annually by the end of his first term. Premiums not only continued to rise during his presidency, but since 2010, they have spiked from $13,000 to nearly $24,000.
Democrats used to love to talk about “bending the cost curve.” Well, congrats.
Obama also promised that Obamacare’s state exchanges would enhance competition among insurers and lower costs. Taxpayers are now on the hook for 90% of the cost of those premiums. If the COVID-19-era Obamacare subsidies are allowed to sunset, taxpayers will be responsible for a mere 80%.
Without the subsidies, the Congressional Budget Office predicted that 3.6 million users would leave the exchanges. Obamacare didn’t create better health care insurance options for consumers; it created millions of state dependents.
The Obamacare exchanges were sold as self-sufficient engines of capitalism even as Democrats were doing everything to inhibit market competition. Many Obamacare exchanges now only have a single insurer. Aetna, UnitedHealthcare, and Humana have all basically abandoned them.
One of the most contentious debates over the Affordable Care Act was the cost. Democrats stressed that the project would cost less than a trillion dollars over a decade. On numerous occasions, Obama promised he would not add “one dime” to the debt. Democrats, in fact, guaranteed the Affordable Care Act would help reduce deficits. If you dared question the estimates, fact-checkers would swarm and call you a liar.
There’s no definitive number on the debt added by Obamacare since its passage. It is likely in the hundreds of billions of dollars, if not trillions.
Democrats promised that penalties on employers who failed to provide health insurance would bring in “substantial” revenue to allay costs. Once the Affordable Care Act was passed, Obama ignored the law by delaying implementation, before “tweaking” the law without any constitutional authority. The employer mandate now brings in only a small fraction of promised returns.
Obama also kept delaying the Affordable Care Act’s “Cadillac tax,” a levy on alleged “gold-plated” private employee plans. The tax was meant to discourage upper- and middle-class workers from obtaining the types of plans Democrats deemed too generous as a way of lowering costs but also raising “revenue.” Once labor unions found out they also had “gold-plated” plans, well, Democrats dropped the idea, which was repealed in 2019.
The individual mandate, which the Supreme Court miraculously transformed into a “tax,” now exists only in conceptual form, despite Democrats’ promise that it would generate tens of billions of dollars in revenue. It brings in zero dollars.
So it’s no surprise that Democrats have been demanding Republicans bail out the poorly conceived law since its passage.
When Congress refused to pass new subsidies in 2013, the Obama administration, again without any constitutional authority, ordered the Treasury to create a $7 billion per year appropriation for insurance companies participating in the allegedly self-supporting exchanges.
When a district court ruled that the payments were unconstitutional, Obama ignored the decision. Don’t you love it when Democrats lecture people about norms?
When Democrats added new Obamacare subsidies to the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act to fund those with incomes 400% over the federal poverty line, they sold it as a temporary measure to get through the COVID-19 economy.
Every Democrat leader referred to the subsidies as “a bridge” that was meant to help until the economy rebounded from the pandemic.
Here we are in 2025. You know what they say about temporary government programs.
Aside from all the failed promises, the passage of Obamacare broke American politics. For the first time in U.S. history, a party rammed through a massive national reform without any input from half the country. In their effort to appease a handful of moderates in their party, Democrats larded up Obamacare with unenforceable mandates, taxes, and bureaucratic complexities that created the illusion of affordability.
When they still couldn’t pass the bill using the traditional lawmaking process, they blew up a bunch of governing norms to do it.
Now, Democrats have shut the government down to try and force Republicans to help prop up this disastrous law. The GOP would be nuts to help them.
|
|
Click here: to donate by Credit Card Or here: to donate by PayPal Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794 Thank you very much and God bless you. |
Exactly.
this. the Tea Party is correct. repeal obamacare.
And don’t fall for the idiotic “repeal and replace”. Let the free market operate.
Should all government healthcare insurance programs be abolished, eg Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare etc?
BFD, they want to subsidize premiums for insurance that has deductibles that nobody who can’t afford the insurance in the first place can afford.
The whole thing is stupid and needs to be eliminated. Not worth the trouble to keep or fix.
Most of obamacare is a gift to his friends and supporters from medical records to insurance carriers. Sweet deal to have the gooberment pay premiums for insurance that covered parties can’t afford to use.
I think that Obamacare, it’s legislations, it’s subsidies, it’s advertising, it’s laws, the interest on the money borrowed, have resulted in the single largest portion of the Nation Debt. It has substantially damaged the middle class by driving insurance rates 300% higher.
Saying that about a program that ensures, even with illegals and Medicaid, only 20 million of 340 million people demonstrates the catastrophic failure of government in healthcare. This program should not be further subsidized or saved.
Obamacare did not replace those, so that was not the basis for my comment. Obviously military members should receive their promised benefits.
With adequate safeguards that would prevent denial of coverage to older people, I would say government involvement in medical care should be very limited.
Obamacare raped me of over $50K my last years before my retirement because of the way health insurance was called income.
Every Democrat leader referred to the subsidies as “a bridge” that was meant to help until the economy rebounded from the pandemic.
I wonder how many homes the democrats bought during that time?.
End it now it was deathcare dreamt up by two domestic terrorists, Bill Ayers and Barack Obama to be followed by Gates Covid and mandatory vaccinations. End it NOW.It was step one of depopulation.
But they will, eventually. Thanks, Juan McAmnesty, you left us with the turd that can never be flushed.
Obamacare screwed America- all Americans.Those of us working have what they call Cadillac, I pay $400 a month to say I have insurance, then when I use it I have a $3200 deductible before they pay out 80 percent, and I pick up the 20 percent.
The few of us working are paying for everyone not working.
Come January Trump should call for congress to totally end Obamacare by the end of the year. That gives us 12 months to come up with HIS plan that promises to cover EVERYBODY. Doable? Might not be any illegals around to insure. Make it market-based. Put nurses in charge as they’re the ones who are the caregivers. Let the democrats try to fight them.
There will be fewer McCains in the senate to stop the repeal.
Obamacare is just a Way Station on the way to Socialize Medicine….
The way to handle health care is through market force.
I believe most hospitals should be split into two competing entities. Those hospitals would no longer be local monopolies. No union should be able to contract with both. Their union contracts should have to expire at least three months apart.
Drug coverage should be separated out from medical service coverage and sold on a national basis. You would pick a hospital cost coverage plan and then a hospital cost coverage plan approved drug plan.
Once drug coverage is split off, hospitals could run hospital cost coverage plans without insurance company middlemen.
Services that are (or could be) rendered on an outpatient basis by individuals might be moved outside of the health care cost insurance system.
One thing that might be done is to split coverage so there are drug plans and hospital service plans.
You would shop for a hospital plan, which would normally be run by hospital systems in most areas.
You would then shop and select a drug plan from the hospital plan website. Drug plans would typically be run by existing health insurance companies. See my profile page for my drug plan proposals by clicking on my name below.
You would pay your combined premiums to the hospital plan.
Your hospital co-pays would typically be the hospital’s marginal personnel costs. It would be pointless to deny you hospital services if your premiums are paid up. You might have to wait around until 3am though to get the service.
Your in-network independent provider (i.e. any provider that bills separately) co-pays might be either 20% or 50% of the total Medicare amount (depending on your plan and service) after paying the deductible, if any.
Emergency services necessarily received out-of-network might be paid for by the hospital plan at the Medicare rate less twice the amount you’d have to pay in-network.
“a $3200 deductible”
Deductibles should be replaced by co-insurance, in your case to say $6,400.
Insurance companies have more ability to manage charges than sick, desperate people.
The only realistic way now is just push for preventive care and conditioning methods starting at a young age. Rationing is coming whether you like it or not. You also have to deal with the electorate. The largest voting bloc in the US, that includes both dems and repubs, love Federal involvement.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.