2. Nothing. It's perfect.
Democrats ITT are very clearly not saying it's perfect because they want single payer garbage. Any clear independent mind knows this is a series of great ideas; better than single payer and better than our insurance system prior. The more I examine it the more I am convinced. I can't think of one bad thing about the Affordable Care Act.
I guess the proof is in the pudding. Cost increases have decreased substantially...but the more I think about...all that was, was the pressure of baby boomers aging. As they increasingly used medical services year after year and each year the next year cohort of people increased...they forced hospitals to borrow or raise rates to add the required facilities for the increasing and increadingly older population of medical patients.
While other areas of the economy deflated...as youth became more dispersed in the 80s and 90s...the youth institutions...schools, playgrounds, roller skating rinks, small local ski hills, childrens clubs...deflated and decayed. I was born in 85 and in the 90s were playing on playgrounds built for our parents. My brother permanently disfigured his thumb requiring surgery from a faulty tire swing. Its no wonder moms got all frantic...the combination of old schools, rusting playground equipment, and the maryjihwanna and 'that rap hell' made us kids special snowflakes in a dangerous world no longer suitable for children...the kids nowadays are this times a bajillion zillion.
But i digress...
If you use intuition and common sense...the rising medical costs should have been no surprise. An aging population means medical services will increasingly be required even if overall population doesn't change at all. So more older people who need more services as the younger proportion declines. This also pushes prices higher than the rate of inflation. Also new technologies developed to tackle the aging society issue have their costs built in as the big baby boomer age group enters elderhood.
That cost increases collapsed as the economy went into crisis and people lost their insurance and sought medical care less and focused on price more...should not be a surprise. That prices haven't renounded because Obamacare spread out the cost by taking more from the young and giving to the old...through private markets...should be no surprise.
But the cost pressure is still there and will be felt in the various specialized medical fields that deal with the 'young' elderly, then the middle, then the advanced elderly.
Look for doctor visits to get cheaper even as putting senile hippie mom in a nursing home is going to be cost prohibitive.
The point is...does a private sector insurance industry pay for and distribute these cost pressures more efficiently than a single source public program?
Id say it allowed America, like few others...to price our demographic pressures into the system effectively...something that could be ignored or swept under the rug in a poorly administered public system. Japan, for example...is super duoer mega f**ked. And unless China really has an FDR moment with old age insurance and medical care...they're 20 years behind Japan but actually catching up since their aging process started later but has progressed even more quickly.
So...maybe you're right. But only if you don't believe a public system can respond effectively to demand pressures through expansion and innovation.
