Don’t Be Ignorant On Obamacare. It’s an Improvement.

A Facebook conversation started after I shared an image of Obama with his facetious quote about his 2012 campaign strategy: “We may just run clips of the Republican debates, verbatim.” My conservative friend commented about Obamacare, and I wrote that he sounded ignorant.

Obama - 2012 Campaign Strategy - Run Republican Debates Clips, Verbatim

Here’s why I think Obamacare is an Improvement over the Status Quo:

1.) If you’re unable to afford coverage, you will be helped. 40-50 million people can’t afford it today. They will mostly be covered after 2014. That’s an improvement to our society.

2.) It ensures almost everyone is in the risk pool, which will help bring down some insurance costs, just like how everyone has to have auto coverage.

If auto insurers are assured that unless someone is breaking the law, almost all drivers will be insured, then they know their customers will only be a large liability if they’re At Fault. If insurers had to not only be liable for their customers, but all the dumbass teenagers and slobs who wouldn’t insure themselves if they didn’t have to, insurance would cost a lot more.

3.) Unconstitutional? We’ll let the Supreme Court decide that later. Then (if they rule it unconstitutional) they can tell states that they can’t make us all buy auto insurance. See what that does to the price of auto insurance.

4.) Insurance companies now have to spend 80% of the premiums they take in on healthcare costs for the insured (85% for group plans). There was no such restriction before. If they don’t spend 80% on these costs, they have to mail a check for the difference to the payee at the end of the year. This will help keep insurance costs honest, after this, it will be on the healthcare providers and pharmaceutical companies to address costs, because that’s what will be driving them if insurance companies are limited in what they can take for administration and profits.

5.) There are some serious Medicare and Medicaid anti-fraud provisions laid out in Obamacare to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse. And they’re already paying off big dividends. The Obama justice dept. has shown a huge increase in criminal prosecutions compared to previous administrations.

6.) We already pay to cover the uninsured. It’s called the Emergency Room. The uninsured show up at the ER when everything goes wrong, health-wise. This is an expensive way to provide healthcare for our society, as opposed to ongoing preventive care. If we’re already paying for everyone’s care, why not insure them, even the poor ones?

7.) The CBO reports that Obamacare will save the U.S. gov’t over $100 billion over the next decade (as opposed to doing nothing with the 1/6th of our economy that is healthcare).

CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimate that enacting both pieces of legislation will produce a net reduction in federal deficits of $143 billion over the 2010-2019 period. About $124 billion of that savings stems from provisions dealing with health care and federal revenues; the other $19 billion results from the education provisions.

8.) Insurance companies can no longer drop you because you’re sick (with some trumped-up excuse). They can’t refuse to cover you because you have “preexisting conditions”. There will be no “lifetime cap” in coverage that you could meet if you had an expensive chronic illness.

9.) Obamacare is basically the Same. Exact. Plan. that right-wing “think” tank The Heritage Foundation wrote 20 years ago to present a conservative alternative to HillaryCare. Now they disown this idea, of course, because it’s been implemented by a black Kenyan socialist Muslim usurper, but facts is facts. (The Heritage Foundation is the same people who put out a “study” in 2011 that claims there’s no poor people in the U.S. because 99+% of them have refrigerators). So if there’s no poor people, we should all have no problem affording health insurance, right?