My problem with Obamacare

[frazzled]

37. Sorry to be blunt, but "deal with it."

This horse has left the barn and the train has left the station: it is the law of the land. If you're sitting around fretting about it and rehashing old arguments, and bemoaning why another plan wasn't passed (as if even this less than ideal one didn't get though by the skin of its teeth, and after much compromise)—especially if you're not applying for and in need of an individual plan yourself—then I have to say you're part of the problem and not part of the solution.

I imagine you might have been having "problems" with Social Security, too, when it first was passed and was being initiated. Because it was really pretty deficient. It left out a vast majority of people--mostly women and African Americans. There were no cost of living adjustments until 1975! (http://www.ssa.gov/cola/facts/ ). There were no survivor or disability benefits until 1956. It took decades to refine it to the program it is today.

For people who have been unable to get insurance in the past, it is already proving to be a godsend. For those of us who have been lucky to have employer insurance, even we are benefitting in large and small ways (I got a flu shot for free this year, when I used to have a co-pay for it; a colonoscopy, an expensive procedure, was also free). So even if you're not using the exchanges or getting Medicaid coverage, you're still benefiting.

Insurance companies are now regulated under this bill in ways they NEVER were before—they must spend a certain percentage of premiums on actual health care, not profits or executive compensation. Is it perfect? No. Far from it, but it will be improved over the years as Social Security was. If you aren't buying insurance on the exchange, I don't even know if you're entitled to an opinion on this.

But most of all, it's the law. It's here. Deal with it (and provide constructive ideas for implementing improvements). Doubting it is just destructive at this point in time.

(Apologies for being cranky in the holiday season.)