This is part 3 of my rant starting this evening. For my earlier published works, please refer to my timeline.
So why do I criticize the ACA so much? For those that know me, I’ve advocated for healthcare reform for quite some time. So much so that many think I’m a Leftist or a Democrat, which I am not. But it is a great question.
It’s because the ACA is garbage. That it covers more people now under at least catastrophic insurance doesn’t make it better, it only makes it first among those in last place. The ACA is not reform, it’s a cash grab that had some slight benefit to citizens previously ignored. That’s it.
What the ACA actually benefits is the status quo, or more specifically, the various companies and services that make up the American healthcare system. Insurance, manufacturers, hospitals, and, most importantly – investors. This is something that both the Right and Left benefit from, but the average American Citizen does not.
30 million new insured patients didn’t hurt insurance companies, it gave them 30 million new revenue sources, backed by the full faith and power of the US Government. Uncle Sam, with a bevy of corporate interests in the guise of Congress, wrote what was effectively a blank check to the healthcare sector in exchange for a few promised changes and “reforms” but very little actual accomplishment.
Don’t understand what I mean? Other than higher education, what other industry do you know of that is basically guaranteed payment by the government for services that may never be rendered, or only partially so?
All those premiums paid, and all those high deductibles to ensure that actual services rendered result in limited actual expense. What’s more, the ACA was prevented from negotiating or capping rates for things like drugs, so manufacturers wouldn’t have to worry about making less money under the new system, they could make even more thanks to arbitrary price increases. The list goes on, as does the payola.
But the Right opposes this! We hate the ACA! Yes, yes, of course you do. Did you notice that about the only thing President Trump and the Republicans have actually managed to truly gut so far is penalty for not purchasing insurance? The penalty that applies to the wealthy as well as the poor? Or rather, especially the wealthy as they can afford not to? Hmmm.
Meanwhile, drug prices have increased astronomically, with no new regulation. Premiums continue to increase and wages, when adjusted for inflation, continue their historical stagnation. But taxes for the rich and corporations have been drastically lowered.
And that stock market, of which 90% of the top 10% of Americans have much of their wealth? That continues to soar as companies realize record profits.
The ACA isn’t Socialism, as so called opponents would have you believe. It’s Capitalism at its finest(i.e. worst). It’s the use of wealth to construct a market that benefits the few at the expense of the many, with virtually no negative consequences to those who benefit. It is what Adam Smith warned us of when he wrote his Wealth of Nations. As Citizens, we pay so much to gain so little. That is why I say the ACA is garbage.
And this is the best that the greatest nation on Earth can do? Red or Blue, I’m not seeing much to be proud of.
