I'd write (much more) about how wildly flawed the Affordable Care Act is, but since I work in public health and my organization is funded through the ACA, I've been writing and sprinting around in heels all day, so this will do for the moment:
The Affordable Care Act is better than anything we could expect to see in the near future had it been struck down, and we can't wait another 18 years: the status quo is the definition of unsustainable and the human cost is too great.
What don't you like about it?
ReplyDeleteHi there.
DeleteI'm a single-payer/Medicare for all advocate.
I think requiring people to buy insurance they may not be able to afford to use from profit-seeking private health insurers when government is fully capable of providing health care coverage is crappy policy. I don't think the insurance regulations the ACA introduces are sufficient to guard regular little people against the inherent profit-seeking motive of private insurers. Jon Walker over at FireDogLake wrote months ago something to the effect of “the power imbalance between a big corporation and a sick person with mounting medical bills is too great and ACA’s regulations are much too little to compensate for the imbalance.”
What do you think?
Hello,
DeleteI think it's an imperfect system but the best compromise we are likely to get right now. I agree with your sentiment that ushering the public into the private is a dangerous game (and I could go on and on about how the run-it-like-a-business mentality is incredibly damaging). Admittedly, I did not pay much attention to these issues until I started work in a hospital -- as a receptionist for an office of clinical trials -- and the business-model approach to health broke my heart.
I asked because admist the deluge of celebratory Tweets and Facebook messages, I was interested to see a negative comment from the Left. I also think you have neat perspectives on public health. :)
Just started following you, too :-) I'm really glad you wrote. I don't have much experience with the clinical side of health and health care, so I'm curious to hear more about what you witness over there. I see the tyranny of economic language and business values everywhere, in the way we approach our classrooms, natural resources, and just people. I always think of Wendell Berry and how we've got this all turned around. We should be asking, "What's an economy for?" rather than allowing the market to determine what people's health, lives, dignity and aspirations are worth.
DeleteWell, thanks! :) The biggest hang-up, I've realized, is not the hospitals themselves but pharmaceutical companies, which is what got me thinking about the whole system in the first place. With as prosperous as these corporate giants are, it's amazing to me how little responsibility they claim with funding. I have long been wary of corporate influence and intervention in education, and a lot of these same fears are mirrored in the health sphere. I don't know that universal health care is the answer -- my opinions are in the nebulous stage between college-found liberalness and an upbringing so Right-leaning I nearly fell over -- but I'm very interested in learning and absorbing, at least.
ReplyDelete