Off Topic Obama Care

Trump's already putting in place demolishing health care for 20 million Americans.

How the **** does that happen?

Why doesn't middle America care for those around them?

What the **** is wrong with that country, land of the free?

I'm an old fart but I'm not stupid.

Can one of you black cat yank fans enlighten an old guy?

 

The world has gone mad..How the **** could anyone with a brain vote for Trump?

 

Just politics mate....these f*ckers don't care about the average person. F*cking madness

Look on the bright side...after the USA, Russia and China all nuke each other...we won't need health care.

 

Just remember the most powerful leader is the Western world is good at grabbing Pussies....not more I can really add to that

 

That's a f**ked up country (as indeed we are) - I read an article on the bbc I think about a 12 year old boy who put a gun to the head of a young lass in New York. What henious crime did she commit you ask? She refused to give him some of her chicken nuggets but don't worry there is an old saying that we follow what the Americans do a few years later. In a way I am pleased I am getting on a bit but I fear for my Grandkids

 

Must admit this whole thing confuses me a little.

From what I understand, a large portion of "average Joe" Americans are anti - Obama Care? Is that right @Hefty fullback ? If so, is it just because it would cost extra taxes or is there some other reason I'm not understanding?

Over here, privatization (used a "z" just for you) of the NHS is one of the public's biggest fears... why are you lot not crying out for free healthcare?!

 

The thought of a collective social care system is alien to a lot of Americans who believe it to be a socialist ideal..This is the problem that Obama has faced to get it it up and running in the first place.

 

Along with the house of representatives - a bloke at work said to me they will have a government that can make decisions now

 

A lot of 'Yanks' I know think it's a persons own responsibility to fund such costs as opposed to the governments?!

 

Obamaccare is a derogatory term dreamt up by the Republicans who opposed it all along and over time some of the original insurance who signed up for it dropped out leaving those who stayed forced to up the premiums and having in impact on employers and tax payers. Possibly all done deliberately to ensure that it failed.

Don't be surprised if it is rehashed over the next year and called the Trumpmedicare programme, including the best bits of the current system so, hallelujah, the Republicans get the credit just in time for their mid-term elections of senators and representatives. .

 

QUOTE="David Moyes' Stupid Face, post: 10116132, member: 1002327"]From what I understand, a large portion of "average Joe" Americans are anti - Obama Care?[/QUOTE]
Obama won the presidency by a landslide. He could have accomplished much more of his agenda, had he not immediately used up all of his political capital on healthcare reform. Prior to the election, reform was welcome and probably needed but Obamacare was perceived by most to be overreaching and very, very expensive - big government at its worst. Socialized medicine - Yikes!

 

When I was in Jamaica, they were screaming for their healthcare to go back to being privatised. Since it has become free for them, they can no longer get an appointment or be seen by a doctor, plus waiting lists for operations are now never ending.

They couldn't understand how anybody could enjoy that. Suppose it's how you are used to living at the end of the day.

 

Must admit like there's times when I've rang the doctor and been told the next available appointment is in 6 weeks time.

For long term illnesses the NHS is fantastic however and provides state of the art medical care that most people would not be able to afford. If you have a potentially serious problem however you can't get a doctors appointment which leads to people clogging up A and E's and the standard of short term care is worse than if it were private when people would think twice about booking docs appointments for a sniffy nose.

I personally believe there should be an initial fee for a consultation whether this is at a doctors or a hospital and all treatment after this is free. I'm not talking an astronomical amount something in the region of 15 - 20 quid would be enough to put these minor ailment folk off.

 

We lived in France for 5 years 2004-2009 and we had to have private insurance, this was about 80 Euros a month per couple.
When we visited our GP we paid him 20 upfront and he issued us with a receipt which we sent to our insurer who reimbursed us with 17 direct to our bank.
A home visit was 40 Euros with a similar pro rata reimbursement.
My wife had an operation whilst there and we had daily visits for a week at home by their equivilant of a District Nurse who gave us a bill on completion of her treatment which again was dealt with by our insurer.
This insurance also covered glasses and the system worked really well, the health service there was first class but similar to ours was Billions if Euros in debt.

In general the French are hypochondriacs and demand a lot from their health service and although we paid we couldn't fault it.
Paying a relatively small amount for that service wasn't an issue at all and if BUPA etc had reasonably affordable health insurance we would have no hesitation in using it but unfortunately we can't afford it.

If people were made to pay for their GP visits then I'm convinced their surgeries would suddenly become very quiet places to visit.

 

I've heard there's a medical condition in France called Heavy Legs. I think it's when your legs are heavy

 

I have no truck with the average Yank.
They're just folk trying to get on with their lives.
They have suffered a lot of job losses in heavy industry due to importation.
Cities like Detroit have gone to **** with the demise of the car industry.

I been reading Bruce Springsteens autobiography.
He grew up in a very working class background in New Jersey.
A town built on steel. They closed the steel plant & all the men were out of work.
Effectively it ****ed the whole towns economy.
A bit like when Easington pit closed.

 

The amount given.

 

Just listened to a full radio programme on Obama care and the average american now payes 3 times as much with this system as its all down to insurance companies, one american lad says you get find 2000 dollars a year for not paying your insurance but the basic ins is 5000 dollars and most people can't afford it so its cheaper paying the 2 in a fine, don't quite understand it myself but intrigued to know what Trump comes up with instead.

 

This may be a poignant summing up about the benefits of Obamacare. The Politicians would do well to read it, but have the opportunity to keep this part of the plan. As I said earlier on, they may not dump the better parts, just keep it for their re-hashed version:

US patients await Obamacare's fate
By Jessica LussenhopBBC News

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Image copyrightCOURTESY DELOACH FAMILY
Image captionDuncan DeLoach near the beginning of his treatment for testicular cancer, and 12 weeks later with his mother Cathy
As Republicans begin their repeal of the Affordable Care Act, patients weigh in on how the act has changed their medical care.

At first, 20-year-old Duncan DeLoach figured that the persistent, squeezing feeling he had at the base of his spine was just a pulled muscle.

But the pain intensified to the point where, on the evening of Thanksgiving 2014, DeLoach's mother Cathy found him collapsed on the floor of their Fairfax, Virginia, home. Not long after, he went in for a full-body MRI scan.

"I was in so much back pain they actually had to tie my legs together," says DeLoach. "I couldn't stay still."

The images showed ghostly white glimmers dotting his organs. Cathy DeLoach remembers thinking, "That looks like cancer."

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Testicular cancer, it turned out, so advanced that it had already spread to Duncan's lymph nodes and liver, dotting his spine, lungs and skull.

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Image copyrightCOURTESY DELOACH FAMILY
Image captionDuncan DeLoach's MRI and PET scans, both showing metastasized cancer
To save Duncan's life, treatment began immediately - an orchiectomy to remove his right testicle, followed by 12 weeks of aggressive chemotherapy. There was no time to think about how the family would pay for the treatment, and luckily they didn't need to.

Duncan was covered under his father's health insurance, thanks to a provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.

Before the law passed in 2010, Duncan would have been kicked off his parent's plan at 18, since he wasn't a full-time student. His job with a landscaping company didn't offer healthcare coverage.

But since he became one of the estimated 5.7 million young adults able to remain on a parent's healthcare under the ACA, Duncan was able to access top-notch treatment thanks to his father's high-quality plan.

"In 15 days, we racked up $29,000 [in treatment costs]," recalls Cathy. "I stayed with him in the hospital and I had a lot of time to think about how grateful I was for the Affordable Care Act."

Both Duncan's mother and father say they are "fiscally conservative and socially liberal" - neither voted for Barack Obama in either 2008 or 2012, and Cathy said that when the ACA first passed she was not a fan. She thought it was too expensive and rammed through by Democrats.

But sitting by Duncan's beside, Cathy completely changed her mind. Not only was she grateful for the coverage her son received, she also became a fan of other effects of the ACA: coverage for birth control, cancer screenings and the requirement that businesses with 50 or more employees provide a healthcare plan.

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Image copyrightWIN MCNAMEE
Image captionPresident Barack Obama signs the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law in 2010
Now, she's terrified that Republicans, along with the new Trump administration, will take away her son's coverage and make it more difficult for him to be insured in the future.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has fundamentally changed the way many Americans access their healthcare. An estimated 20 million Americans have insurance under its provisions, and the number of uninsured has dropped to a historic low of 9%.

Three of the law's biggest tenets include requiring all Americans to have insurance or pay a penalty, widely expanding the number of people eligible for the government-funded Medicaid programme, and establishing online marketplaces, called exchanges, where patients can comparatively shop for plans.

The enormous package included many other provisions, such as making it illegal for patients with pre-existing conditions to be denied insurance, changing the ways doctors and hospitals are reimbursed by the federal government for care, and - as in Duncan's case - allowing children to stay on their parents' insurance until the age of 26.

While some Republicans have said they would like to keep the young people's provision, a repeal of the act could leave people like Duncan suddenly uninsured.

"I'm so furious about what's happening," says Cathy. "I'm in a position where I can afford it, but a lot of people are not.

"This really is something that could be so awful for so many people, and so many poor people, and it's wrong."

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Image copyrightALEX WONG
Image captionHouse Speaker Paul Ryan discusses the Republican plan to repeal Obamacare under the new Trump administration
Shredding the Affordable Care Act was a key campaign promise made by Donald Trump. Now that Republicans control the House, Senate and the White House, plans are moving forward to dismantle Obama's signature policy. This week, Republicans in the House and Senate passed a budget resolution which set in motion a plan to repeal key parts of the law.

Republicans do not yet have a replacement plan. At his first news conference of the year, President-elect Trump vowed that he would have a new plan as soon as his pick for secretary of health and human services, Tom Price, is confirmed.

"Obamacare is a complete and total disaster," he told reporters. "We're going to have a healthcare that is far less expensive and far better."

It is still unclear how he plans to do this. However, some Americans are happy to see the ACA repealed - especially those who had negative healthcare experiences as a result of its enactment.

This group includes people like Bob Frank, who until 2010 had a plan he purchased as an individual from Blue Cross Blue Shield in Maryland.

Frank was in good health, and says he paid about $360 a month and had a $2,000 deductible - the amount he would pay out of pocket before insurance began to cover costs. But his policy was cancelled because it didn't cover all of the "essential" kinds of healthcare mandated by the ACA - in Frank's case, his plan had no coverage for pregnancy, maternal or paediatric care.

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Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES
Image captionIn 2015, Obamacare opponents rallied outside the Supreme Court, which ultimately ruled the healthcare plan constitutional
As a 62-year-old single man with grown children, Frank says he had absolutely no need for these services, but was forced to pay for them - under the new, ACA-compliant plan he was offered, his deductible tripled and his premiums ticked up year after year.

"This then started a snowball of chaos," he says.

In 2014, after three hours of surgery to repair discs in his neck, Frank says he woke up to a shocking bit of news - while he was under anaesthesia, his policy had been cancelled. Frank's insurance company had confused his current and cancelled plan, and claimed he had not been paying his bills.

Without coverage, Frank's bill for the surgery came to $36,000. It took weeks to straighten out the confusion and get the surgery covered.

"The whole Affordable Care Act experience was terrible," he says. "We were told our premiums were going to drop, everybody's going to save $2,500 - this is all a racket.

"I'm in favour of them repealing it not because I want to spite President Obama. I want to repeal it because it doesn't work."

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Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES
Image captionDemonstrators in Pennsylvania rallied against the repeal of the Affordable Care Act in December
Premiums for Obamacare plans have shot up around the country - an average of 22% nationwide - and insurance companies are abandoning what were supposed to be the competitive, cost-reducing exchanges. As a result, some people have lost their ACA plans and have fewer replacement options in some counties and states.

Beverly Hallberg, a 37-year-old small business owner in Washington DC, says she's seen her premiums triple in the last few years, and her deductible is sky high. Critics say that having impossibly high deductibles is almost the same as having no healthcare at all. The consequences are identical: people are reluctant to go to the doctor.

"I like to say, my health hasn't changed, yet my healthcare costs have. I don't think I went to the doctor once this year," says Hallberg.

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Image copyrightJOE RAEDLE
Image captionA doctor in Florida examines a patient newly insured under the Affordable Care Act
Tracy Pate, a healthcare navigator with a non-profit called Project Access in north-eastern Tennessee, has heard plenty of complaints from her clients about the rising premium costs and narrowing plan options. In fact, she's experienced it herself - her monthly payment has gone from $50 a month to $200.

"But I'm still thankful I have health insurance - I couldn't get health insurance because I had pre-existing conditions," she says. "You may not like the cost of insurance, but that's just a small part of the pie known as Affordable Care Act."

Pate says that when she first started trying to sign people up for Obamacare, doors would close in her face - she serves a largely conservative community with no love for the outgoing president. But now that some years have passed and people have experienced the benefits of healthcare coverage, Pate says she no longer has to hit the streets - people are calling her to make appointments.

She says despite rate increases, she's still been able to steer her clients to affordable options using the healthcare exchange, and the majority of the clients pay less than $200 a month. The thought of all the people she's signed up losing their coverage overnight is "scary".

"How can you tell 22 million people, 'No, sorry, you can't go to your doctor tomorrow.'" she says.

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Image copyrightJOE RAEDLE
Image captionOutreach efforts like this one in Miami, Florida, have helped sign up millions for Obamacare plans
Even families like the DeLoachs can sympathise with critiques of the ACA. While the law was vital to Duncan's care, they have an older daughter who recently bought a plan through an ACA exchange and was shocked by the cost.

Mike DeLoach, Duncan's father, says he has a fundamental problem with being required by the government to buy health insurance - a component necessary to fund the provisions he does like, including coverage for children up to 26 and the pre-existing condition rule.

Still, just a few days ago he wrote a letter to Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, telling him Duncan's story and asking him to delay the repeal of Obamacare.

"The chance of somebody who doesn't have a college degree getting a job that's going to give them health insurance right now is slim. So I said, 'Why don't you hold off'.

"Fix that - then reform [ACA]."

As for Duncan, now 22, his doctor declared his cancer in remission in April 2015. He celebrated by moving to Utah for almost a year to work at a ski resort.

Now that he's back in Virginia and the reality of the election has set in, he says he is very concerned about his future. Doctors are keeping a close eye on a residual mass near one of his kidneys, and Duncan returns for blood tests and scans every few months.

"It's a pretty active worry," he says. "It costs a lot of money to go through what I have to go through."

Although he is not very politically active, Duncan says that in the future he will vote with one thing in mind.

"I'll vote for my health insurance. That's pretty much it."

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Image captionDuncan DeLoach, healthy and happy today, with his father Mike
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