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If the Supreme Court Ends Obamacare, Here’s What It Would Mean

Greenbeard

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The NY Times has a good (but woefully incomplete) look today at some of the things that would change if the GOP succeeds in getting the Affordable Care Act struck down. The return of pre-existing conditions, dismantling of the marketplaces and Medicaid expansion, end of protections from caps on coverage, premium and other cost hikes for Medicare beneficiaries.

Oral arguments before the Supreme Court are the week after Election Day.

If the Supreme Court Ends Obamacare, Here’s What It Would Mean
If the health law were struck down, more than 12 million low-income adults who have gained Medicaid coverage through the law’s expansion of the program could lose it.
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The Urban Institute estimated that nationwide, without the A.C.A., the cost of care for people who cannot pay for it could increase as much as $50.2 billion.
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And this is what 20 Republican Secretaries of State sued for in federal court to make sure it happens. The ACA (Obamacare) is ruled unconstitutional.

Neither Donald Trump nor the GOP in Congress have any alternative healthcare plan prepared.

Citizens can sink or swim, the insurance companies can deny healthcare coverage for any reason, and hospital/pharma corporations can charge what ever prices they want.
 

Yes, Republicans and libertarians are cruel and they don't give a damn if others suffer. Of the 50 western developed nations, every one of them, or the vast majority of them, have some version of UHC, and in this country, UHC won't fly, and ACA, which is a half baked measure in the direction, but it does help many Americans including myself, they are trying to kill.
 
If the A.C.A. is struck down, Medicare beneficiaries would have to pay more for preventive care, like a wellness visit or diabetes check, which are now free.
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They're not free, somebody is paying for them.

This one quote sums up the entire idiotic situation regarding Obamacare. All the ACA does is rob Peter to pay for Paul's medical care. It does not solve the problem, which is the price of healthcare in the US.

Cue Greenbeard to inform me that thanks to the ACA, the price of healthcare is only rising at 5.478877% per year instead of 5.482544452% thus beating any and all estimates and proving once and for all what a resounding success Obamacare has turned out to be.
 
I just went on Medicare and went to my first Dr. appt. today. Medicare has a $191 dollar yearly deductible. I go twice a year. Medicare costs $1,500 more per year than my obamacare plan from last year. The obamacare plan high deductible and the 20% out of pocket Medicare fee are equal for a $40,000 surgery, and face it, that's like a minimum surgical expense.

I'm seriously considering quitting the Medicare scam.
 
It would be a political disaster for the Republican party.

I always said that Trump should thank McCain for saving his presidency. If Republicans had successfully repealed Obamacare they would have been 100% responsible for the replacement and the issues people would have with the replacement.

Same thing applies if the Court strikes down ObamaCare. Republicans would be responsible for an alternative.

At that point, I would support packing the court.

When I was younger I thought that FDR was wrong to try and pack the court. But having read what those justices were doing to his New Deal I totally agree with him. They were "activist judges."

If one judge hadn't unexpectadly switched from the conservative side to the liberal side, we wouldn't have Social Security or minimum wage.



It's shocking that working-class people vote for conservatives who have for decades tried to crush them .

Maybe someone knows this history better than I do can chime in. But it seems that FDR's threat to pack the court may have influenced this sudden switch by Roberts. If they had struck down the entire New Deal the court would certainly have been packed.
 

Taking responsibility is not what the GOP does. They've already signaled their intent to burn down the health care system and blame the Democrats.

That said, the 2018 midterms would suggest that the ruse wouldn't work and that taking away so many people's health care would indeed be a political disaster for the Republican Party. But even so, it's been clear for the past decade that they simply are not capable of coming up with a health care plan.
 

Why is this happening? it is because Trump does not like Obama. He no care about the people including you.
 

"but it does help many Americans including myself, they are trying to kill"

They in this case are the Democrats... Killing the economy will be worse than COVID!

There is a fate worse than death, and it's not living your life while you are alive!!
 
America did fine before 2010. Now we've spent $2 trillion with no noticeable improvement. Also, paying for pre-existing conditions is NOT insurance; it's welfare.
 
Scorps2000 said:
"but it does help many Americans including myself, they are trying to kill"

They in this case are the Democrats... Killing the economy will be worse than COVID!

There is a fate worse than death, and it's not living your life while you are alive!!
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Democrats will not kill the economy, the economy trump inherited that was doing nothing but getting better year after year was built by Democrats.

Question: trump is doing all he can to kill off ACA, but where is the replacement he promised?

So trump and the Cons know how to tear things apart, they just don't know how to build or fix anything
 
Mashmont said:
America did fine before 2010. Now we've spent $2 trillion with no noticeable improvement. Also, paying for pre-existing conditions is NOT insurance; it's welfare.
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You've got your numbers mixed up. The ACA was supposed to cost $940 billion over the past decade; it ended up costing hundreds of billions of dollars less than that. Meanwhile, it saved about $2.7 trillion in total national health spending over that period.

As for other noticeable improvements, the American health system has seen them on virtually every metric under the ACA.

Tens of millions gained coverage.
Health care cost growth slowed down and more health care providers shifted toward more efficient business models.
Families enjoyed better financial security.
Health outcomes improved.
Patient safety improved.

All of which the GOP seeks to reverse. In addition to bringing back pre-existing conditions!
 
This is from government reports.
We are learning so many, if not all, government agencies are deep-state corrupt.
 
it's looking more and more to me like pre-existing conditions protections are toast. this makes me nervous, as most of us have pre-existing conditions. COVID will be a pre-existing condition, too, and potentially a very expensive one. so far, 7.1 million people have been infected in the US. what happens to them when they can't afford high risk insurance and employers continue to hire people as "independent contractors" instead of as full employees?
 
Mashmont said:
This is from government reports.
We are learning so many, if not all, government agencies are deep-state corrupt.
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This flaccid response is a good reminder that it is indeed hard to deny the myriad and obvious improvements to American health care (and at a bargain cost!).
 
Greenbeard said:
This flaccid response is a good reminder that it is indeed hard to deny the myriad and obvious improvements to American health care (and at a bargain cost!).
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$2 trillion isn't a bargain. For less money, we could have bought deluxe private policies for all those people for these ten years and wouldn't have had to create another massive govenment beaurocracy. But health care was never the objective, of course. It was government control.
 
Once they realize the COVID threat was largely a fantasy, things will get better.
 
Mashmont said:
$2 trillion isn't a bargain.
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We spent a few hundred billion. We ended up saving almost $3 trillion, while covering tens of millions more Americans, demonstrably improving a range of health outcomes, and improving the entire health system.

A bargain!
 
Greenbeard said:
We spent a few hundred billion. We ended up saving almost $3 trillion, while covering tens of millions more Americans, demonstrably improving a range of health outcomes, and improving the entire health system.

A bargain!
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That's ridiculous. Government is NEVER more efficient than the private sector in arenas in which both compete. Your figures are made up.
 

If the Dems get unified control and kill the filibuster, pre-existing condition protections can be saved. If the GOP has any power next year to continue their quest to kill those protections, I don't know what happens.
 
Mashmont said:
That's ridiculous. Government is NEVER more efficient than the private sector in arenas in which both compete. Your figures are made up.
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You seem confused as to what the Affordable Care Act is. Color me shocked.
 

The idea that the 16A makes everything and anything federally funded (or mandated?) into a (new?) Constitutional federal power should be challenged. Warping the “taxation of income from all sources” into federal permission to add a fine (in the form of an income tax penalty) for how someone did not later elect to spend their income was ridiculous.

It may be a great idea to mandate that folks own more energy efficient cars or home appliances, but that does not mean that it is constitutional to fine them (by taxIng their income more) for not having done so. Pretending that the 16A intentionally granted such a new federal power is moronic.
 
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Mashmont said:
Once they realize the COVID threat was largely a fantasy, things will get better.
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i don't do fake reality. please refer to this post if you are confused.
 
Brief anecdote, as an entrepreneur I've found that I actually appreciate paying incrementally more for health insurance as my income goes up, because it is reassuring to me that, if my income goes back down, my health insurance costs will drop and remain manageable.

I've found I feel resentful of the fact that when people just barely exceed Medicaid eligibility their economic wellbeing drops dramatically. I feel resentful of the fact that I can go from paying $2,400 per year for premiums to paying over $12,000 on the same premiums once my income crosses an arbitrary threshold by one penny (this is an ACA flaw). It would be really nice to just focus on making more money by knowing that my insurance costs will always hover at a predictable percentage of my income. I think it actually works. It makes this social benefit seem universal rather than privately transactional. Despite long-ago criticisms of ACA, I think it has the potential to be a very functional policy. I'm cynical of government, but I'm frankly even more cynical toward unregulated insurance companies because I've witnessed them doing things that are basically fraudulent.
 
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