NY Times: Obamacare Has To Change To A More Government System To Survive

Obamacare is collapsing in exactly the way that opponents (which was, and still is, a majority of Americans) said it would before it passed. We also stated that private sector insurers would be priced out of the Ocare marketplace due to financial losses, which would lead to Democrats calling for a public option and single payer. And, now that insurers are leaving the Exchanges, Democrats are calling for….a public option

Ailing Obama Health Care Act May Have to Change to Survive

The fierce struggle to enact and carry out the Affordable Care Act was supposed to put an end to 75 years of fighting for a health care system to insure all Americans. Instead, the law’s troubles could make it just a way station on the road to another, more stable health care system, the shape of which could be determined on Election Day.

Seeing a lack of competition in many of the health law’s online insurance marketplaces, Hillary Clinton, President Obama and much of the Democratic Party are calling for more government, not less.

Democrats own Ocare lock, stock, and barrel. They created it, they crafted it, the voted for it. They implemented it. Now that it’s been shown to be a failure as predicted, they want more government. Surprise?

The departing president, the woman who seeks to replace him and nearly one-third of the Senate have endorsed a new government-sponsored health plan, the so-called public option, to give consumers an additional choice. A significant number of Democrats, for whom Senator Bernie Sanders spoke in the primaries, favor a single-payer arrangement, which could take the form of Medicare for all.

An additional choice? The way insurers are abandoning the Ocare marketplace would soon make it the only choice. Of course, medical providers are already reticent to accept Ocare insurance now, and many of them don’t. Many of them are not accepting any new Medicare patients. Do you think they will be happy to accept the government option insurance? They aren’t in business to constantly lose money and spend lots of time trying to get their payments from the government.

In such divergent proposals lies an emerging truth: Mr. Obama’s signature domestic achievement will almost certainly have to change to survive. The two parties agree that for too many people, health plans in the individual insurance market are still too expensive and inaccessible. (snip)

“Too many Americans still strain to pay for their physician visits and prescriptions, cover their deductibles or pay their monthly insurance bills; struggle to navigate a complex, sometimes bewildering system; and remain uninsured,” Mr. Obama wrote in The Journal of the American Medical Association.

In other words, the law crafted and passed by Democrats, against the wishes of the American People, is a disaster. But, instead of getting rid of it and enacting policies that work, they want to double down on government involvement with our health care and health insurance.

“Even the most ardent proponents of the law would say that it has structural and technical problems that need to be addressed,” she said. “The subsidies were not generous enough. The penalties for not getting insurance were not stiff enough. And we don’t have enough young healthy people in the exchanges.”

So, more force of government, and young people are not joining. Huh.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

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