Quote:
Originally Posted by dead_battery
. Symbol and suchfriends make very good points. Obamacare isnt even enough but its at least a start and is very necessary.
|
It is crucially necessary. In all the "middle-class" debates about the mandate, what has been lost is the substantive benefits to poorer people, and the long term big arc benefits to society as a whole. When "poor" people visit ERs, public hospitals, and subsidized neighborhood clinics for healthcare, who pays for this? Magic? Smoke and mirrors? NO. The taxpayers pay this, and they pay an exaggerated rate because of all the gimmicks in place to appease the conservatives ideologues who don't want to admit that by and large, we already have socialized medicine, why not go all in then?
So it would be actually cheaper for ALL taxpayers to expand medicare and increase subsidies for health-care for the poor and working poor people. In California we have Medicaid, but you have to have children to be enrolled. Medicaid, while expensive, has actually saved probably TWICE what it costs by allowing preventative care for families, and by subsidizing their doctor visits to replace the ER. Medicaid works, and it can work better. What California is doing for the ACA is they are expanding Medicaid to included people without children, through the government subsidies. People can either use the subsidies in California to buy a private plan through "the exchange" or can apply for Medicaid or actually some weird combination of both.