One of the mantras heard by Democrats is that Republicans should work with them on strengthening the ACA instead of advocating for repeal. It's a good suggestion if you don't understand the ACA and otherwise is part of a false narrative that the ACA can "work" for Americans.
The ACA premises were false and therefore its conclusions and provisions were false, that's why when we were sold on Obamacare we were lied to, including the persistent lie that the ACA created a United States "right" to health care, that's why the list of promised changes from keep your doctor, to every American saving $2,500 on premiums to the eradication of the uninsured merely became an unverified relativistic argument that there were "fewer" uninsured. That's why the law's most draconian provisions were well-timed, in terms of elections, including the individual mandate did not become effective until after Obama's re-election.
In a self-promoting retrospective that appeared in JAMA in 2016, the Journal of the American Medical Association, a lobbying organization for physicians, President Obama recommended "…increasing federal financial assistance for Marketplace enrollees, introducing a public plan option in areas lacking individual market competition, and taking actions to reduce prescription drug costs." These "suggestions" by the President actually reveal that under Obamacare, three of the major problems relating to the cost for consumers of obtaining health insurance (premiums) and of affordability of health care insurance (non-covered items like prescription drugs or insufficiently covered items requiring enormous out of pocket payouts like higher deductibles, copays and coinsurance) remain barriers to health care under Obamacare. We still have a health CARE crisis.
The consumer COST of obtaining insurance remains too high even with federal entitlement monies, so Obama advocates more entitlement money for exchange participants. There is insufficient choice for consumers so Obama advocates a public option for health insurance. Interestingly a federal public option was the Obamacare "fix" to pre-existing condition insurance coverage before passage of the Act whereby those with pre-existing conditions who were denied and had no insurance for at least six months could participate in a federal public option plan (which disappeared with Obamacare) yet in this article Obama recognizes the need for such public option plan. Then the vague suggestion of taking action to reduce the costs of prescription drugs which were not addressed by Obamacare at all.
Obama also acknowledged (finally) the "death panel," defending its inclusion in Obamacare. Obama states: "In addition, Congress should not advance legislation that undermines the Independent Payment Advisory Board, which will provide a valuable backstop if rapid cost growth returns to Medicare," that's right, the death panel where a panel kicks in if Medicare costs get too high and has enormous power to cut those costs without requiring any approval.
Obamacare did NOT address the high costs of obtaining and using purchased health insurance and in the vast majority of cases worsened this barrier for consumers. Obamacare did NOT provide consumers with more choice and in the vast majority of cases reduced choices. Obamacare did NOT protect consumers from the costs of drugs and in fact Medicare drugs have risen 10 TIMES the rate of inflation. Obamacare DOES protect government money by including the death panel, the Independent Payment Advisory Board, emphasis on Independent, they require no approval for their actions.
The Democrats' lying about Obamacare hurts consumers. What Obamacare really did was governmentally institutionalize the desires of the health insurance lobbyists by adopting a scheme whereby consumers are forced to purchase the consumer financial product of health insurance (within guidelines), whereby the establishment of low-hanging fruit, concrete costs of preventive care are provided INSTEAD OF sufficient coverage of needed drugs and treatments as evidenced by no drug provisions and the increased out of pocket costs of high deductibles, high copays and coinsurance in tandem with governmental continual raising of the amounts people must lay out in real dollars to reach their out of pocket maximum.
AND don't forget, virtually simultaneously, Congress and their staff got themselves a way to avoid Obamacare and retain their superior benefits plans all off taxpayer dollars. Obamacare doesn't require a fix, it requires a rewrite to fulfill the false promises and misleading agenda that inspired it in the first place.
