My insurance co. sent me a letter which said that nothing will be changing, but I have a high-deductible health plan and an HSA. You all can debate back and forth all day, but has the gov't. been involved in anything which brought (apples to apples) costs down?
I have multiple relatives and friends that are farmers and they are all multimillionaires. I hope you don't honestly believe that just because the government throws subsidies at ag and energy that somehow our food prices would be higher without the handouts to millionaires.
Like so many other government programs have succeeded? Look at the DEA and the war on drugs for example. Billions upon billions flushed down the toilet and yet anyone can buy drugs anywhere in the country. It's a sort of a still free country. You're entitled to your doubts. Obamacare has already failed by any real standards. What is your unrealistic hope that somehow despite history and all evidence to the contrary. This time will be different based on? Epic fail pie, until premiums decline AS PROMISED until we can keep our plans/doctors AS PROMISED Obamacare has in fact FAILED! _______________________- That is an incredibly stupid statement by Soros.
Sure they're cheap, but what is the real cost? Factor in subsidies to farmers (my dad gets $ every year), the cost of foreign entanglements for cheap oil, plus the massive sums of dollars to fund the various bureaucracies, etc. etc. Like I said, apples to apples.
The question was whether or not the government has been involved in anything that brought costs down? Asked and answered.
I second your thought on the DEA and "War on Drugs". It's not working . Let's change. I don't think all government programs are bad. I want to wait on Obamaney and see what happens. You know me well enough that I'll be right there with you if I see that it is making things worse, not better. It is just way too soon to know. The main thing I'll be looking at is our per capita medical costs. Are they increasing more slowly, or even declining, or are we still going up with inflation (6%/Yr) as now. If we can go up less than 6% ave over the next two years and bring close to 38 million more under coverage I won't be ecstatic, but I'll give the government some credit for heading in the right direction. I think many believe this is only a starting point for medical reform. I want to see prescribing pharmacists in all 50 States next. (Medical care and college tuition have both been going up lock step with actual consumer inflation, which exceeds the official government figure of course.) That statement by Soros is an example he uses of reflexivity.
In the past, Tao, which is all we have to go on since as Yogi said, "the future is still ahead of us," a healthy person could not get identical coverage of a group policy for any less than the group rate and often times it was more. But the difference was that individuals in the group could not be cancelled and could not be turned down for pre-existing condition. So even if the rates were identical, the group policy was a better deal by far.
That is an awful lot of money especially when you consider how much you are paying into medicare on top of that. The insurance companies will cover you at $12K per year while you are healthy, and then dump you on the government when you're old and sick!