# Obamacare- Explain it to me!



## CaptainWildChild (Dec 26, 2012)

Hi people, while I was folding the laundry I watched the news and the reporter said that the obamacare is not going so well.
That there were only about 150 000 that had shown interest in it, now that strikes odd to me. Why is there so little interest in the USA about the obamacare? When the obamacare was presented I was happy because to me as a swede, healthcare is something for everyone and should be free and obamacare was a step to a better world for many people. 
With obamacare I thought it would help poor people so they can put more money on education (since it is so expensive) and instead of having young people quiting school because they can't afford it (maybe because their parents are sick I don't know) and have to help out bringing some money to the household. When people can afford education the poverty will go down. 
To me all americans seems to be cheap, selfish and inhumane with their "every man for himself" "I don't care that they can't afford healthcare for their dying mom, they can work more!" But this is just prejudice of mine, I want to know the real reasons to why obamacare dosen't work.

Now I don't mean to offend americans it is just my opinion and genuine interest. It would be nice to have americans answer this but anyone who has good knowledge about this can answer.


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## McSwiggins (Apr 2, 2013)

Personally, I believe that "universal healthcare" is as fictitous as purple unicorns and utopia. Obamacare seems to be pursued by F-doms that deeply value the outcome of healthcare, but none of them can answer the questions that is killing Obamacare right now: the question of how (will it work)? That is inherently a Te question, and so far no one in the US government (or among liberal F-doms) can answer it. 

But to answer your question, Obamacare is contingent on people "signing up" for and purchasing a health insurance plan via a website. That website does not work. It does not have the correct functionality, and its servers cannot handle adequate traffic to support the demand. Thus, people cannot sign up via the website. Not only that, but the 150k that you mention have only gone to the website and put an insurance plan in a shopping cart. They have not actually purchased a plan, and therefore they do not have health insurance. If they get in a car accident tonight, they will be uninsured. 

This goes to the basic principles of America: not that it's every man for himself, but that government is inherently incompetent. The private sector outperforms the public sector in virtually every aspect of our society. From delivering mail to providing education, and everything in between. Those of us with private healthcare plans will sleep well tonight. But for those who accessed the Obamacare website, put a plan in the shopping cart, but cannot execute a transaction -- they are the ones left wondering when the government will get its incompetent act together, fix the website, and finish the purchase transaction so that they can have health insureance.


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## Hurricane Matthew (Nov 9, 2012)

CaptainWildChild said:


> To me all americans seems to be cheap, selfish and inhumane with their "every man for himself" "I don't care that they can't afford healthcare for their dying mom, they can work more!" But this is just prejudice of mine, I want to know the real reasons to why obamacare dosen't work.


I've lived in the US for most of my life and have never met anyone like that :/ Most are helpful and honest, at least in my corner of the country. The US has 317 million people living here, so it doesn't make sense to generalize like that.

But yeah, as @_McSwiggins_ has already said, the website the government is using is completely non-functional, so even if you supported Obamacare and wanted coverage, you can't get it right now. In my state, zero people have been able to use it. Also, it is not really a "universal healthcare" plan, but a convoluted mess involving insurance. The entire bill itself is thousands of pages long and most/all of the politicians who voted for it didn't even read it to see what they were passing. I'd be surprised if anyone had a true understanding of 100% what is really inside the Obamacare bill and this fact has made a lot of people untrustworthy of it. It's complicated and not anything like the "universal healthcare" laws of other countries. If anything, it's making healthcare more expensive than before because of all the requirements Obamacare is placing on insurance companies, forcing rate hikes on people. There's a lot of stories going around about how people can't keep their current doctors and losing their insurance altogether. I don't understand the reasons, but apparently my uncle in another state ((minimum wage Wal Mart worker)) cannot cover his daughter under Obamacare, even though it was promised that children and young adults under the age of 26 will be covered. A lot of broken promises have happened already, making people more than a little upset. It was also never actually created to help poor people since it mainly deals with insurance and people who are already employed.

This isn't a simple matter and if foreign media outlets are making it that way, then they're misunderstanding the entire situation and oversimplifying it. Nothing about this is "every man for himself" or "I don't care that people can't afford healthcare". The whole thing is a mess and an embarrassment to the Obama administration since nobody running the show knows what they're doing.


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## Abraxas (May 28, 2011)

Generally speaking, America is a capitalist patriarchy. Having socialized medicine won't work within the context of this country unless laws are passed restructuring the economic system drastically, moving the entire framework of society towards socialization. But, that would contradict the very constitution of this nation, and so it will never happen. Thus, any form of socialized medicine is more-or-less doomed to failure.

In any case, socialized healthcare programs that America currently has (funded by the federal government) primarily serve only to weaken and impoverish the middle and working class and drive down wages as a result of more lower wage job competition due to the sustained population of under-class poor families and minorities who would otherwise be without care and die or migrate to other countries.

Federal programs come out of taxes, and America levies a regressive tax on it's citizens - that is, if you are poor, you don't have as much money to spend, and so the taxes you pay constitute a much bigger sacrifice to you than they would if you were rich. Thus, the rich actually pay significantly less taxes than the poor do because the proportion of their earnings that get taken are substantially smaller compared to how much they gross quarterly.

This means that federal healthcare programs don't really help. They end up making things worse by putting a HUGE burden on the US debt, which ultimately gets shouldered primarily by the weak and poverty stricken working class and under class.

The alternative is privatized medicine, which is the way most people go. This is the lesser of evils for the most part because it reduces the national debt and thus relieves the tax burden that the poor have to carry. While it does mean that more people are denied healthcare, the alternative - an endlessly rising national debt that enslaves everyone in the country who isn't already rich and/or powerful - is far worse of a scenario.

It's not that it's a bad idea to have socialized medicine, it's just that it won't work in the context of the American capitalist institutions. It doesn't serve the interests of the ruling capitalist upper class. It only serves to make things worse for everyone.


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## PowerShell (Feb 3, 2013)

CaptainWildChild said:


> When the obamacare was presented I was happy because to me as a swede, healthcare is something for everyone and should be free and obamacare was a step to a better world for many people.


First off, there isn't any "free" health care. Your taxes are way higher in your country to pay for it. We pay for it with private insurance (and also people showing up to the emergency room uninsured and we indirectly subsidize that through higher costs). Obamacare was actually the idea of the Heritage Foundation (a conservative think tank) and was the Republican rebuttal to "HillaryCare" in the early 1990's.

The reason it's taking so much heat is because the implementation flat out sucks. The website wasn't working and people weren't allowed to login so they could purchase insurance from a private insurance company. I'm not sure if it was because of the Republicans defunding things and holding things up or just incompetent leadership and a poorly managed implementation. I think it's a bit of both. Plain and simple, the implementation sucks and that's why so many people are pissed off.


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## A Skylark (Jan 16, 2013)

McSwiggins said:


> Personally, I believe that "universal healthcare" is as fictitous as purple unicorns and utopia.


There are plenty of places with universal healthcare, and it works pretty damn well if you do it properly.

But I think @Abraxas put it well- Obamacare is not really the same thing as universal healthcare, and as awesome of an idea as it is, America isn't ready. This step forwards has only pulled them two steps back. Like you, OP, I tend to think of good healthcare as a right, not some capitalist puppet master making people's lives a continual struggle for well-being. But for as rich and "first-world" as it is, the US system has too many problems to make it work right now. The "freedoms" their country is founded on just don't mesh with any vaguely socialist policies.

I wish Obamacare would work. But sadly, the world doesn't work like that yet.


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## CaptainWildChild (Dec 26, 2012)

Okay thanks for the answers everybody! 

I can't really comprehend the "universal healthcare is fictious " I mean there are plenty of countries that has it and it works..

When I was in school we had a course, Civics, this course runned thorugh the exact time when the election were on going in the united states. So we would all follow the election and we would also at the same time write an assignment that would focus on the election (on USA) analyze, compare between states and on an international level. 
We could write whatever we wanted as long as it was tied to the election. The questions I raised was like if poor people could effect political decisions in USA such as the election, how, why or why not, is USA really that democratic etc etc..

The result was massive research and the more I read ,the more questions were raised.. What I noticed then was how many people that couldn't afford healthcare and because of that they fell into poverty or close to that. The gap between the poor and the rich only grows. If I could have the way I wanted, education and healthcare would be free through taxes so everyone will have an even chance (or at least more even) to a better life 

So I thought that if poor people have access to better healthcare they have a better chance to a better life and therefore there will be less people to give out tax-money(?) (I noticed that there are sevral programs that costs a fortune for people that don't have alot, this money could go to other stuff like paying off debts..) 
I thought that obamacare would be a success but obviously not :frustrating:

I am quite sure that I do not know what I'm talking about since I don't live in the USA and really can't understand how it works properley... But the answers I have recieved now has helped very much, it is easier to understand and it comes from real (american??) people and not just that five minute long explantion on the news.


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## VCTN (Nov 10, 2013)

its obama having his hands full with politics. If he had no opposition, there would be no problem but people fight him every inch of progress


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## Abraxas (May 28, 2011)

Again, it's not that universal healthcare can't work, or wouldn't work in _any_ given context.

It's just that it can't work, or wouldn't work, in an _American_ context because this country is capitalist.

Universal healthcare is a purely socialist notion, and socialism is basically the ideological opposite of capitalism, and the very constitution of this country was formed to institute capitalism as the foundation of this nation.

The basic idea is this: if you're going to go with capitalism, you go all the way - that is, you go laissez-faire. But America is semi-democratic, meaning, it tries to have it both ways. Democracy and representation are both staples of a socialist society and in fact, you cannot have socialism without true democracy and representation. That is why socialist countries have always been faced with issues of rampant corruption and exploitation historically - countries like the Soviet Union and China foremost, which were/are both totalitarian rather than democratic.

America is a country of people who can't make up their minds, basically. We want everything for free and we refuse to either pay the bill or work for what we have. We want equality and liberty, but we also want wealth and power. Unfortunately, you can't have both at the same time - or at least, you can't have both at first. You have to choose one and work hard for the other, or give one up entirely and make exceptions.

America tends to prefer wealth and power more than equality and liberty, and so you are going to have problems when you try to institute socialist programs that are funded by taxes.

If America wants some kind of "universal healthcare" it seems to me like it would make more sense to have it run off donations provided for by bleeding heart rich upper-class citizens and middle-class/working-class citizens who want to earn reputation points with the working-class as part of some kind of marketing campaign to compete in the market. In fact, we already do have that - there are lots of non-profit organizations all over the country which offer very limited but free healthcare to the needy. But the problem is, they don't get enough donations and they are also all divided - instead of just one huge nation-wide organization, we have several. There is no single free healthcare monopoly into which all the donation money could be dumped in order to consolidate the resources made available to the needy.

And so, round and round we go. When we stop, nobody knows.


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## -Halo- (Sep 22, 2011)

It's pretty much what @Abraxas said. We have two ideals that work in theory when you haven't thought it through, but when implemented, the logic of the philosophies just contradict each other to the point where all of the esoteric capitalist vs socialist arguments actually play out. The result is a mess.

Personally I opt for private insurance. I want nothing to do with this mess. While we have a pretty large federal government, we have many "sovereign" states with too many different standards of economics, resources, laws and so on to be able to realistically implement something like this on such a large blanket federal level. It would basically turn economics upside down to try and implement a universal health care. That is why it is not what you know to be "universal" or "free". That is why there is an option to use Obamacare or keep your insurance, but even this is proving difficult. 

I am probably one of the ones you refer to concerning capitalist dogmas. While I am not idealistic or much of a person who is into ideology, I don't want to be economically interdependent with others unless it is in bussiness. I want options. I want the pragmatic stance that let's me rely on my self, or give if I choose to, but not by coercion or law. You be responsible for you, I'll be responsible for me, and when I see you in the crossroads, we'll both be happy. Honestly, nobody is responsible for another's success or failure. While yes there are leverages and unfair playing fields as well as disparities, you also have the choice to take advantage and play the game. I don't view America as the type of place where one should be complacent with the idea of simply having a job. While for the most part, this is very sustainable, the best bet is to run your own show and keep a contingency plan. The competition incites growth as it should, and for the most part everybody has access to everything they need and more. Even ghetto people walk around with smartphones that access the wealth of human knowledge, have clean water, shelter and so on. Kings and Queens of yore didn't have any of this let alone commoners. This is a result of capitalism and government institutions backing people's rights. 

I'm not here to debate any of that. But rather explain what is probably considered a common vanilla american capitalist attitude. Like @Abraxas said, I don't mind if people have what they need at the expense of some liberties, but the trade off has to be worth it, and it has to work in reality. Currently this isn't the case for economic as well as ideological reasons.


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## yentipeee (Jun 19, 2013)

CaptainWildChild said:


> Okay thanks for the answers everybody!
> 
> I can't really comprehend the "universal healthcare is fictious " I mean there are plenty of countries that has it and it works..
> 
> ...


Hälsningar, I know exactly what you mean, but there is a huge cultural gap. I’m Canadian, have lived in the EU for many years and now in the US I’m about to buy private insurance on the new Obamacare website.

Basically, US is the only western country that doesn’t have universal healthcare. In Canada and EU healthcare is better, and the per capita cost is about half that of the US.

Here, healthcare is just a “financial product”, not a social good, and it feels like an enormous insurance scam. Insurance companies are just unnecessary middlemen and they’re there only because US Congress are basically employees of the multinationals and special interests. Which brings us back to politics and whether democracy really exists in this country.


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## COcowboy (Aug 15, 2012)

One portion of the population works for a living. Another portion votes for a living. The voters expect the workers to support them, and they vote for the candidate and the initiatives which support that objective. I don't wish anybody to go without healthcare, but let me make a voluntary choice in the matter.


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## iceblock (Sep 29, 2013)

yentipeee said:


> In Canada and EU healthcare is better, and the per capita cost is about half that of the US.


Canadian politicians can't get to an American hospital fast enough when they become ill. 

Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams


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## PowerShell (Feb 3, 2013)

iceblock said:


> Canadian politicians can't get to an American hospital fast enough when they become ill.
> 
> Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams


The USA has the best healthcare system if you can pay for it. Sucks for the 99% of other people.


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## Killionaire (Oct 13, 2009)

Obamacare is designed to destroy our health care system and all private health insurance companies, so that the government can use this crisis as an excuse to institute a "single payer" system, which means the government pays for all health care. "Single payer" is a communist health care system. It will result in much higher taxes and poor quality health care. Then the tyrannical US government will have total control over all our health care and will have the power of life and death over every American. We will have lost all our freedom with regards to medical care. The US government does a very bad job with almost everything. They will ruin our health care. America has already been destroyed to a large extent in many ways. Obamacare will destroy America even more. Businesses will suffer. People will lose jobs.

Obama is the biggest liar who's ever been President of the USA. He lies about everything and breaks all his promises. Stupid, ignorant people still like Obama just because he pretends to care about poor people. In reality he's a communist who is trying to destroy America and turn it into a communist nation in which everyone is a slave except for the ruling class, such as the Wall Street bankers. Nathan Rothschild, an international banker, paid Carl Marx to write his books on communism. Communism was designed to destroy the middle class and enslave everyone except the ruling class. America has gradually become more communist and the middle class has been destroyed quite a bit in the past several decades, while the super rich ruling class has become much richer. All this was planned. They want *you* to be poor.


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## PowerShell (Feb 3, 2013)

Killionaire said:


> Obamacare is designed to destroy our health care system and destroy all private health insurance companies, so that they will have an excuse to institute a "single payer" system, which means the government pays for all health care. "Single payer" is a communist health care system. It will result in higher taxes and poor quality health care. And under this communist system, the tyrranical government will have total control of our health care and will have the power of life and death over every American. The US government does a bad job with almost everything, and they are going to ruin our health care and they're going to destroy America.


So the Heritage Foundation has been plotting communism for 25+ years?


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## Shale (Jan 17, 2012)

Easy explanation!






In addition, it's near to impossible to give universal healthcare when only 50% of our population pays their taxes. I'm not against the idea of affordable healthcare, but the way it is presented is entirely wrong. I do believe we need to move to FairTax or Flat Tax first to recoup the costs within our budget in order to pay for such a system, and even at that time it needs to be optional. You get what you pay for, you cannot expect to have the best coverage or best doctors under a plan designed for the poor. In a capitalistic county it just doesn't work that way.

If you are from another country, let me please just state first that there is health coverage provided by the government for children, pregnant mothers and the elderly. The affordable healthcare act was designed to broaden this spectrum.


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## PowerShell (Feb 3, 2013)

Shale said:


> In addition, it's near to impossible to give universal healthcare when only 50% of our population pays their taxes.


Which also includes huge corporations like GE :wink:


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## Killionaire (Oct 13, 2009)

From what I've been hearing, health care _*was*_ affordable in the 60's, before the government got involved and before health care insurance was invented. I want to just get rid of everything that's been done and go back to how it was in the 60's. Government just makes things worse.


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## PowerShell (Feb 3, 2013)

Killionaire said:


> From what I've been hearing, health care _*was*_ affordable in the 60's, before the government got involved and before health care insurance was invented. I want to just get rid of everything that's been done and go back to how it was in the 60's. Government just makes things worse.


Yeah and the technology wasn't there, as well as the life expectancy. Back in the 1960's cars were very cheap and easy to work on. Sure they didn't last as long and were gas guzzlers, but we should go back to carburetors and distributors. Also, airbags and should belts are overrated!

You do realize before Medicare, old people just died instead of being taken care of? It also was shown in the life expectancy improvements. Another thing, how come per capita, we spend way more per capita than other countries that do have universal health care and yet their life expectancies are just as high as ours, if not better?


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## Shale (Jan 17, 2012)

PowerShell said:


> Which also includes huge corporations like GE :wink:


Absolutely! I was never implying it was the poor, middle class or illegals evading the tax system. What they can contribute is pennies compared to the 1% who know all the loopholes in how to hide their profits.


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## Shale (Jan 17, 2012)

Killionaire said:


> From what I've been hearing, health care _*was*_ affordable in the 60's, before the government got involved and before health care insurance was invented. I want to just get rid of everything that's been done and go back to how it was in the 60's. Government just makes things worse.


This is what my inlaws say all the time. They had Blue Cross/Blue Shield plans. It was for emergencies only. They think it should go back to the way it was as well.


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## PowerShell (Feb 3, 2013)

Shale said:


> This is what my inlaws say all the time. They had Blue Cross/Blue Shield plans. It was for emergencies only. They think it should go back to the way it was as well.


Also, people didn't go to the doctor as much back then. People are a lot more proactive with their health.


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## Killionaire (Oct 13, 2009)




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## PowerShell (Feb 3, 2013)

Killionaire said:


> View attachment 87438


Let me guess? New World Order or some other conspiracy?


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## Abraxas (May 28, 2011)

PowerShell said:


> Let me guess? New World Order or some other conspiracy?


Actually, it pretty much summarizes the conflict perspective in sociology.










Lott, David. (2013, Fall.) Model of Class Society. _Principals of Sociology: 101, Section 2005._ College of Southern Nevada, Las Vegas, NV. Retrieved from https://csn.instructure.com/courses/1070658/files#SOC 101 - 2005 - 2006 - 2014 - 2015 FALL 2013


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## yentipeee (Jun 19, 2013)

I've been trying to login to healthcare.gov for 2 weeks now, the website is broken. ANy ideas?


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## herkapernikis (Apr 27, 2014)

Obamacare passed when the Democrats had a majority in the house and the senate. This means that any provisions he put in the bill were passed (even though it is 12 MILLION words long. He couldn't get everything he needed in this bill that they regularly changed after it was passed?) were made good and sure there were some speed bumps from the house after Republicans regained control but for the most part it was truly an issue of incompetence on the part of the current administration.


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## Elistra (Apr 6, 2013)

Oh fuck all, don't tell me we're going to go on about conspiracy theories now?

That bullshit always makes me laugh. The notion that a bunch of cranky, decrepit old men who measure out their lives in handfuls of pills to support their own failing organs are somehow working for the downfall of civilization.....

Seriously? In any collapse situation, people like that would be the first against the wall. No doubt about it.

Hmm... Ben Bernake (or someone similar) whose electronically stored millions have suddenly become irrelevant and worthless fighting it out with a seventeen year-old kid for the last can of Spaghetti-O's down at the local Speedway. 

My bet is on the kid, and so is yours if you have any fucking sense.


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