I agree that something needed to be done, but I disagree with what
was done.
Some states had already started high-risk pools for people that had problems getting insurance, that could have been expanded with some Federal assistance without turning the entire system on it's head, it would have been a good place to start.
Let me ask you this, are putting some money aside for retirement?
I don't make a lot but I put some away for the future every month because someday I'm going to be too old to work.
If I buy the stupidly overpriced mandated insurance then my monthly retirement savings will have to stop or at the very least be sharply reduced, I just don't make enough money to cover both every month.
So let's say I have a 1 in 100 chance of getting cancer or something else catastrophic, I have a 99 in 100 chance of getting old and having to stop work someday, which makes more sense financially? Rolling the dice as far as getting sick or betting on the near certainty that I'm going to get old?
Life has always been a crapshoot, that was what catastrophic insurance was for, but now you can no longer get that kind of coverage. I'm a middle-aged unmarried man who under the aca now has to carry maternity coverage
If I get sick I guess I pay for it like my parents and grandparents did, since I can no longer get the catastrophic coverage that was designed for situations like that. I already cover all my heathcare cost out of my pocket for my diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol and have those all pretty well under control. But under the aca I will still cover all those costs PLUS pay an additional $7800 per year for insurance with a $5000 deductible that will most likely never be met. How can that make sense to anybody?
I honestly believe that it's insurance itself that has been one the causes of the huge increases in healthcare costs, people no longer have to worry about how expensive a procedure or a device is they just say "do it" Nobody in the business of supplying healthcare hardware or services is going to even try to keep costs down or offer any kind of bargain for their products or services in that kind of situation, they are going to charge as much as they possibly can since the end-used isn't responsible for paying for it, and the insurer who is paying for it can just raise everybody's premiums a little to keep their profits up.
I worked for a time in an injection molding plant where they made a few parts for medical devices, you would not believe how much money they made off of those parts simply because the were "medical" items even though the manufacturing methods were identical to the methods used to make window thermometers and windshield wiper parts.