LA Times explains why MediCal and ACA are failures (legal, Sacramento, economy)

[tamajane]

Being low income in an expensive state like CA is no picnic regardless of the reason. Then to have the worry and burden of being uninsured on top of it leads to nothing good.

[NewbieHere]

Originally Posted by 2sleepy

Turn the whole thing over to Kaiser, let them contract with other hospitals and doctors as they see fit. They know how to manage costs something that no one else seems able to do

For r once, I agree with you. Kaiser is excellent.

[CA4Now]

Originally Posted by tamajane

Being low income in an expensive state like CA is no picnic regardless of the reason. Then to have the worry and burden of being uninsured on top of it leads to nothing good.

Low income under the ACA in California means the person/family qualifies for subsidies. Extremely low income = they qualify for Medi-Cal. So it actually has NOT been a burden for low income people under the ACA.

That, however, will drastically change for them once the ACA is dismantled.

[CA4Now]

“People don’t realize that all it takes is one lost job and your goose is cooked,” said John Thompson, 59, an evangelical Christian from North Carolina.

Thompson says he voted Republican for three decades. He was let go from his work in 2013, however, and he found the only way to get health coverage was through Obamacare, whose insurance marketplaces opened in 2014.

“It literally saved my life,” said Thompson, who was diagnosed with cancer shortly afterward. Thompson is now back at work. But the Obamacare aid made him rethink his support for a political party devoted to taking the healthcare assistance away. “People like me are going to get screwed,” he said of the Republican healthcare plan. “That’s just the reality.”

Trump voters would be among the biggest losers in Republicans' Obamacare replacement plan - LA Times

[2sleepy]

There's some interesting information here, one thing I hadn't noticed before is that the Trumpcare credits are indexed to inflation +1 % making them worth less as the increase in premiums exceeds that of inflation:

[jimj]

The one positive thing that has to be said about the current administrations plan vs Obamacare, no matter what your opinion or political ideology is that we're actually allowed to see it and debate it prior to it passing into law.

[2sleepy]

Originally Posted by jimj

The one positive thing that has to be said about the current administrations plan vs Obamacare, no matter what your opinion or political ideology is that we're actually allowed to see it and debate it prior to it passing into law.

huh? You have that backwards:

• In the House, Democrats held a series of public hearings before introducing a public discussion draft in June 2009. The House then held more public hearings before introducing new legislative text in July. All three relevant committees held “markups” — committee work sessions to amend the legislation — and the full House vote on the amended legislation did not take place until November.
• In the Senate, the HELP Committee held 14 bipartisan roundtables and 13 public hearings in 2008 and 2009. During the committee’s markup in June 2009, Democrats accepted more than 160 Republican amendments to the bill.
• Beginning in May 2008 — 20 months before the Senate vote and six months before Barack Obama, who would later sign the bill into law, was even elected president — the Senate Finance Committee held 17 public roundtables, summits and hearings. In 2009, Democrats met and negotiated with three Republicans for several months before the tea party protests caused the GOP to back away from negotiations. The Finance Committee held its markup in September, and the full Senate vote did not take place until December.
• In both the House and the Senate, “scores” by the independent Congressional Budget Office were available before each vote at each stage of the process. These scores are estimates of the effects of legislation on the budget and on the number of people who would be covered by health insurance.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poste...=.38f05d8b5908

[CA4Now]

Originally Posted by 2sleepy

huh? You have that backwards

Exactly.

[CA4Now]

"If you don’t have access to regular care, he said, you get sick more often. If you delay doing something about it, you get sicker, and treatment becomes more complicated and expensive. This is Medicine 101.

It’s possible....that an already overwhelmed L.A County system will have far more patients waiting in line as they lose healthcare coverage and are turned away from facilities that pass along indigent patients as quickly as they can. And the county will have less money to take care of them because of anticipated cuts in federal spending on Medicaid.

“If the Affordable Care Act were to be repealed, in full we would lose about $900 million,” said Katz, one of several California officials exploring a universal healthcare plan in anticipation of a potentially disastrous “reform” from Congress.

In one of the more galling aspects of the GOP plan, health insurance companies would get a bigger tax break on what they pay to CEOs, whose compensation is staggering..."

He's devoted his life to caring for L.A.'s neediest patients, and Trumpcare has him very nervous - LA Times

[CA4Now]

"It’s not as if Obamacare is perfect, by the way. While there were millions of winners, a lot of people ended up with higher premiums or fewer healthcare options or both. A man of humility might have said we should try to improve on the existing plan, but on Friday Trump said nothing can be done, so he intended to stand by and watch it explode.

“Nobody knew health care could be so complicated,” Trump said a few weeks ago.

We did. We knew it even when Trump gloated, after his election victory, that Obamacare was history."

Trump's healthcare flop lowers blood pressure for those who feared the worst - LA Times