Will Obamacare succeed where term limits failed?

[Lemur]

Republicans came up with most of the ideas that actually got implemented.

Yup, the whole thing is predicated on the Heritage Foundation's 1989 proposals, enacted by Repub Gov Mitt Romney is 2006, etc.

And I love how every evil and ill of our healthcare system is laid at the feet of ACA, which is nothing more than an attempt to flatten the market a bit (in a clumsy manner).

Those who complain loudest have no credible plan for reining in the excesses of our medical/insurance colossus. (Buy insurance across state lines! Malpractice caps! Deregulate everything! Yeah, that's about all they've got. Evidence that any of this would work? We don't need no stinkin' evidence.) But we need to maintain the status quo because FREEDOM AND MURICA.

Anyway ...

[Xiahou]

I wish people would stop calling it Obamacare. Its a ponzi-scheme that will enrich pharmaceutical companies while lowering the overall standard of care. And Republicans came up with most of the ideas that actually got implemented.

Obama doesn't mind people calling it Obamacare... because he does care.

Seriously though, you can try to blame whoever you want for the bill, but it was passed on a largely party-line vote and signed into law by President Obama and it's been championed by him ever since.

Yup, the whole thing is predicated on the Heritage Foundation's 1989 proposals, enacted by Repub Gov Mitt Romney is 2006, etc.

And I love how every evil and ill of our healthcare system is laid at the feet of ACA, which is nothing more than an attempt to flatten the market a bit (in a clumsy manner).

Those who complain loudest have no credible plan for reigning in the excesses of our medical/insurance colossus. (Buy insurance across state lines! Malpractice caps! Deregulate everything! Yeah, that's about all they've got. Evidence that any of this would work? We don't need no stinkin' evidence.) But we need to maintain the status quo because FREEDOM AND MURICA.

A few points:
"At least he did something!" isn't a good defense. The status quo was bad. Obamacare is worse. Keeping the status quo isn't a long term solution, but it's better than what we're getting now by almost any measure.

Heritage putting out a proposal does not equal widespread conservative- or even GOP support for a mandate.....

"In 1994 Sen. Don Nickles (R., Okla.) and Rep. Cliff Stearns (R., Fla.) turned the Heritage plan into a bill. Peter Ferrara and others, such as Tom Miller at the Cato Institute, rallied other conservatives against the plan. “By endorsing the concept of compulsory universal insurance coverage,” wrote Miller, “Nickles-Stearns undermines the traditional principles of personal liberty and individual responsibility that provide essential bulwarks against all-intrusive governmental control of health care.”

Ferrara convinced 37 leaders of the conservative movement, including Phyllis Schlafly, Grover Norquist, and Paul Weyrich, to sign a petition opposing the bill. “To this day,” Peter writes, “my relationship with Stuart Butler and Heritage has never recovered.”"

Lastly- speaking personally, I would have opposed the Heritage plan (if I wasn't 10 at the time) on the grounds of its individual mandate- but it would have been a vast improvement over Obamacare in that it only mandated catostrophic vs comprehensive plans and it leveled the tax structure between employer-based coverage and individual coverage. The latter was also part of the McCain plan- and is one of the few things proposed that makes some sense.

[Lemur]

"At least he did something!" isn't a good defense. The status quo was bad. Obamacare is worse. Keeping the status quo isn't a long term solution, but it's better than what we have now by almost any measure.

The obvious long-term solution is implementing what every other industrialized nation on Earth has, which is some sort of single-payer system. I know that's not what Ayn Rand (who wrote the Constitution and gave birth to George Washington) would want, but it's the only system demonstrated to control costs while providing a baseline of health for citizens.

Because Obamacare is entirely derived from a Republican think-tank and Republican politicians, it addresses none of the underlying problems. It's still trying to pretend that national private-sector healthcare can work, a proposition for which there is zero evidence.

It will be interesting to see if a measure as watered-down as Obamacare can be implemented despite the nihilist opposition of Republican governors. Time will tell. You take the fialure and costliness of Obamacare as a given, as a priori truth that only madmen and ideologues might question. I'd suggest there's a bit more divergence of thought on the overall cost of it, coming from sources such as the CBO.

And anyway, you have no positive agenda to put forward, just Obamacare bad bad bad. You can't defend the status quo ante because it is indefensible, and the only changes you can suggest are Randian free-market solutions which have never been demonstrated to work in the real world. They have exactly as much evidence for their efficacy as communist economic theory and crystal-powered healing.

Obamacare is a very mild start on reining in some of the worst practices of health insurance. It doesn't go nearly far enough, but neither does it appear to be the flaming disaster you tangibly yearn for it to be.

And if this amounts to an "At least he did something" defense, I'd say it has more heft than your "Oh no he did something" offense.

[Xiahou]

The obvious long-term solution is implementing what every other industrialized nation on Earth has, which is some sort of single-payer system. I know that's not what Ayn Rand (who wrote the Constitution and gave birth to George Washington) would want, but it's the only system demonstrated to control costs while providing a baseline of health for citizens.

There. Isn't that much more pleasant to read? All that's missing is some supporting statements.

Because Obamacare is entirely derived from a Republican think-tank and Republican politicians, it addresses none of the underlying problems. It's still trying to pretend that national private-sector healthcare can work, a proposition for which there is zero evidence.

Again, you can try to blame whoever you want for it, but it was passed by a Democrat congress and signed into law by Obama. Let's deal with reality. If the Democrats didn't like it, they need not have passed it.

And anyway, you have no positive agenda to put forward, just Obamacare bad bad bad. You can't defend the status quo ante because it is indefensible, and the only changes you can suggest are Randian free-market solutions which have never been demonstrated to work in the real world.

Nor have they been tried. If you had a hangnail and someone suggested sawing off your arm to fix it and I said we shouldn't, would you chastise me for not having a plan??

It's hardly a "Randian" suggestion... whatever that means. Employer-based coverage grew out of FDR era wage controls. That was a major factor in ballooning medical costs. I'm not even claiming it would solve everything- but beginning to separate coverage from employment by breaking down the tax favoritism would make it better than it is now.

[Lemur]

I'm not even claiming it would solve everything

You haven't got any evidence suggesting it would solve anything. Nor has any substantial proposal been put forward by the nihilists in Congress.

You appear to have an almost purely negative agenda, with no politically or financially realistic plan for what to do afterwards. See earlier quotes from Ramesh Ponnoru to see what I think of this.

Again, you can try to blame whoever you want for it

Not trying to "blame" anyone, just correctly and factually charting the legislative and published history of the initiatives that became Obamacare. It's all factual, it's all on record. Any resemblance between Grouch Marx singing "I'm Against It" and current Republican doom-sayers is purely voluntary.

If you had a hangnail and someone suggested sawing off your arm to fix it and I said we shouldn't, would you chastise me for not having a plan??

I'd say, "Show me successful hangnail removal, please," and you'd be able to do so. I can reel off dozens of countries that have successfully integrated some form of single-payer healthcare into their economy, and I can link to the overall healthcare results and cost savings. Hell, in this thread I already have. These aren't even controversial or contested statistics.

Single-payer healthcare has facts, empiricism, and real-world results. Private sector healthcare has ideology (and in the USA, inertia). Explain to me which of these proposals, on this basis, is more "conservative."

[Xiahou]

You haven't got any evidence suggesting it would solve anything. Nor has any substantial proposal been put forward by the nihilists in Congress.

You appear to have an almost purely negative agenda, with no politically or financially realistic plan for what to do afterwards. See earlier quotes from Ramesh Ponnoru to see what I think of this.

Let's be honest... would it make any difference if a congressional "nihilist" proposed an Obamacare alternative? There have been Republican proposals. The fact that you're seemingly unaware of them illustrates my point. The Republicans are nihilists with no plan of their own... even if they have several plans. There are many reasons they don't get any traction.... that the GOP isn't in power and the GOP electorate feels a far less pressing need for reform than the Democrat base are two big factors.

Not trying to "blame" anyone, just correctly and factually charting the legislative and published history of the initiatives that became Obamacare. It's all factual, it's all on record. Any resemblance between Grouch Marx singing "I'm Against It" and current Republican doom-sayers is purely voluntary.

The "Heritage Plan" never had widespread support among conservatives. If it had, something like it would have passed when the GOP had control of congress and the White House. Yet, it required Democrat control for it to get passed. To me, it doesn't seem fair to describe such that as a "Republican plan".

I'd say, "Show me successful hangnail removal, please," and you'd be able to do so. I can reel off dozens of countries that have successfully integrated some form of single-payer healthcare into their economy, and I can link to the overall healthcare results and cost savings. Hell, in this thread I already have. These aren't even controversial or contested statistics.

That's the problem with trying something new/innovative. There is no proven track record. A big difference between the recent conservative proposals and Obamacare is that they are incremental and each step could stand alone. Obamacare has popular provisions in it, to be sure- but they are completely unsustainable without the mandate and forcing people into paying for coverage they don't need.

Single-payer healthcare has facts, empiricism, and real-world results. Private sector healthcare has ideology (and in the USA, inertia). Explain to me which of these proposals, on this basis, is more "conservative."

Single-payer... as implemented in some countries... would be an improvement over what we have now. But Obamacare is not such a plan. It adds more expense and bureaucracy to an already bloated system while still trying to call itself "market based".

[Lemur]

There have been Republican proposals.

I appreciate that you can say that with a straight face. Yes, proposals were made, especially around the time Obamacare was being introduced. No, none of them were serious, or intended to do anything but prolong the status quo. (The more recent proposals are ... well, read for yourself.)

The "Heritage Plan" never had widespread support among conservatives. If it had, something like it would have passed when the GOP had control of congress and the White House.

So let's see what sorts of "reforms" the Republicans passed when they had control of the Federal government ... hmmm ... would it look like a massive, unfunded giveaway to seniors and the Pharma industry? Is that the sort of conservative reform we can look forward to?

That's the problem with trying something new/innovative. There is no proven track record.

Two thoughts:

(1) Basing national healthcare on principals and ideology that you self-describe as having "no proven track record" in this context is literally playing with people's lives. If the line where free-market absolutism meets reality is not as smooth as you believe it to be, you will get people killed for your grand theory. (And in such an occurrence you would probably argue that we just didn't apply Free-Market-Everything perfectly or purely enough; after all, a Sacred Truth cannot be wrong, it can only be wrongly applied.) Hence my repeated comparisons to communism in this thread. There really is a disturbing and precise parallel.

(2) Advocates of large-scale, untested, unproven new applications of ideology cannot ever be described as "conservative," unless we want to throw the English language under a large fleet of buses. The correct term is radical.