No, President Obama Is Not A Hall-of-Fame-Worthy BS Artist, aka Why I Defend The ACA

[woo me with science]

83. Unfortunately, you speak for a lot of people.

Last edited Sat Mar 1, 2014, 03:15 AM - Edit history (4)

Quite a few people have posted at DU with their personal stories of struggling to afford care under the ACA, and they were met with the same contempt and accusations of lying you see here. This thread showcases the level of compassion of the corporate Third Way, the sort of contempt that always seems to go along with advocating corporate/Republican policies.

We're lectured that it's impossible that costs could outweigh ability to pay under the ACA, even though your own example shows that's not the case. Millions of Americans survive on an income that is just above cutoffs for subsidies or that, even with subsidies, cannot possibly meet the deductibles and copays demanded by these companies in order to access care and leave enough to live on. Then figure in the explosion of other siphons in our pockets while corporate politicians are in power, and the figures you cite are beyond obscene.

Rather than address the core problem in our health system - outrageous costs going to corporate middlemen - the ACA "solves" the problem by using taxpayer money/subsidies to ensure first and foremost that the vultures are paid. The predatory system is entrenched and expanded through mandate, but its most malignant effects are camouflaged because politicians can brag about reducing out of pocket costs for some...but with taxpayer money, *not* by demanding any real reduction in the profit-sucking itself.

You are right; the numbers demanded from the middle class drive people *out* of the middle class. And the much-trumpeted benefits to the poor are siphoned from the middle class, as well. Siphoning money from the middle class to the top is by now a familiar result (and, if we are honest, goal) of Third Way corporate policies. Like Third Way policies re: private prisons and war/drones/empire, Third Way policy in health care is morally bankrupt. It abets a parasitic industry that provides no real service, but extracts massive profits from the very existence of human suffering and pain.

The responses in this thread deliberately sidestep this main idea. Instead, they try to divert to arguments about this or that feature of ACA that have been played out here ad nauseum and don't change the central point. Yes, some people pay less, but the corporate profiteering is nevertheless protected and taxpayers make up the difference, not the corporations. There is bragging about limiting administrative costs, but that claim has been repeatedly shown to be hollow. For example, in the thread below; not only is the most relevant comparison to Medicare steadfastly avoided, but the corporate posters use a sleight of hand that focuses on what insurers refund rather than what they get to keep...when what they get to keep is unconscionable:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023939013#post48

Ditto for claims of limiting premiums. The fact is that premium increases under ten percent are not even reviewed under the ACA. Does your income increase by ten percent each year?

And so on...

Third Way talking points for ACA are a little bit like their talking points for the Military Industrial Complex. Just as we are repeatedly wooed by promises of troop "drawdowns" or "withdrawals" during election years, only to find that the money was merely diverted to another bloody mission or to pay for replacement mercenary troops while the military budget and the scope of the MIC overall continue to grow....all these claims of savings here and there in the ACA distract from the fundamental reality of corporate health insurance: Corporate profits continue to grow obscenely as money is siphoned from the people to the corporate bigwigs...as ransom for mere access to a doctor.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/03/22/1761011/health-insurers-threaten-to-increase-premiums-even-as-profits-soar/#