Obamacare is Single Payer with a time delay

[dflprincess]

30. In the meantime, the number of underinsured will continue to grow

as more employers and individuals find they can only afford "consumer driven" plans that have annual deductibles in the thousands.

The current legal limits for a high deductible plan are $6,250 for a single and $12,500 for a family. You pay this before insurance coughs up a dime except for some screening and preventative care (and what good does screening do if you have no money for the follow up?). Meanwhile the legal limits for pretax contributions to the Health Savings Account that are used to help sell these plans are $3,250 for a single and $6,450 for a family (you can contribute and extra $1,000 annually if you are 55 or over).

These plans are most detrimental for people with chronic conditions. There is a growing body of evidence that people with conditions that need monitoring (diabetes, asthma, heart failure to name a few) tend to delay routine tests and try to stretch medications.

So even with the Affordable "Care" Act the U.S. will remain a country where people pay insurance companies for a product they can't afford to use, wind up declaring bankruptcy when they can't avoid running up medical bills and die before they should have because they couldn't get the care they needed in time.