General

@ehnogi: Good luck with your debate.
It would be good if there were more serious debates on issues like this, and fewer instances of things being "tried in the media", or being dragged through kangaroo-courts for political reasons.

@BobR: These are going to be very good points for my debate. You're such a good source of ideas. Thanks for replying.

[quote=ehnogi]I think the main concern with people now is the sudden increase since the ACA fully became law. [/quote]

There IS NO "sudden increase".
Health Insurance premiums have increased on average by 4% since the ACA took effect, which is the LOWEST INCREASE in decades.
You're reacting to anecdotal reporting by the media of a very small proportion of the population affected negatively by individual situations.

[quote=ehnogi] I don't think anybody really questions the increasing costs of healthcare before this bill; [/quote]

The Affordable Care Act is NOT a "bill".
It's a LAW, passed by both houses of the U.S. Congress, signed by the President of the United States and upheld by the United States Supreme Court.
The Republican Party has been calling it a "bill" in an attempt to undermine it's significance and authority in the minds of people who don't understand the difference.

[quote=ehnogi]This particular increase regarding the bill however, has been very high across the nation's average in a short amount of time.[/quote]

Again, not true at all.
Many of the anecdotal reports (particularly on one specific "news" network) have been proven to be patently false. (ie: lies)
Others were caused by ignorance or intransigence.
In most cases people complaining their insurance premiums would be increasing by ungodly amounts simply hadn't understood the process and had misinterpreted what they were seeing. In most cases when a responsible journalist investigated their situations it turns out they'd ignored the tax rebates and subsidies that were available to help offset the cost and ended up paying LESS than they had previously for junk insurance.
In other cases followup to the on-air reports revealed the complainers simply refused to "participate in Obamacare" and would not do anything except cherrypick the worst scenario to get a spot on Hannity.

Again, health insurance premiums have on average increased by 4% since the Affordable Care Act took effect, which is the lowest rate of increase in decades.

This pie-chart shows the proportions of the various segments of the American population and the effects the ACA will have on them:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/chart-winners-and-losers-from-obamacare

The red wedge is the people you've talked about, the ones who will see an increase in their health insurance premiums because of the ACA.
The green wedge represents the people who didn't have or couldn't afford health care before the ACA, the true beneficiaries of the law.
And the blue "wedge" is the segment largely forgotten (or purposefully ignored), the proportion of people who are not affected by the law.
It rather puts in perspective the true effects on the population.

[quote=ehnogi]- No requirement to buy health insurance. [/quote]

Not exactly sure what you mean there. As far as I know there's no provision for waiving the individual mandate.
EVERYONE has to be covered by health care insurance, or pay a penalty.

[quote=ehnogi]Do you think that the costs are worth the benefits? It seems to me that you're making a case in favor of it. [/quote]

I'm not trying to make a case for anything, I've been trying to simply state the facts.
I've learned that arguing issues like this on Basilmarket is a self-defeating process, although it's difficult to keep it sounding neutral in the face of all the misinformation that's been spread over the years since the ACA was proposed.

The "benefits" in the case of the ACA are millions of people who will be able to receive health care at an affordable cost, or in many cases, receive health care AT ALL.
They also include better health care for people who had suffered under the predations of the private insurance industry to the detriment of their health.
The "costs" in most cases are exaggerated, misinformed, or simply made up for political ends. We won't know the reality for some time, but the intention of the law is to reduce the overall cost of health care for Americans.

With any large-scale program like this, it's going to be a long-term process of getting the details right.
Your 5-10 year future view will only begin to show the effects and benefits of something as large as this.
Focusing on anecdotal events is good for political gain, but shows very little (if anything) about the long-term effect of a major change like this.
Even the current positive effects are likely to be only a tiny indication of the eventual positive outcome, so yes- waiting 10 years to pass judgement is not a bad idea.

@Zoneflare4:

There is the concept of autonomous consumption' most economies force people to work a minimal set of hours to cover their cost of living [they're forced to either work, or be homeless]. When laid off an hourly job [low tier work], people attempt to find other jobs. By cutting hours of full time workers, companies must hire more part-time workers to make up the profit. I don't think that actual GDP would change dramatically, nor would inflation or significant change in the average of job availability.

I think they were actually making reforms to the idea of subsidizing hospitals. Because hospitals were rewarded for re-admissions, quality of patient care declined with the gains of funds through each admission. I believe that the ACA is an attempt to remedy bad hospital services. Also, a subsidy for uninsured care (or out-of-pocket costs) would have to be funded one way or another. That $125 has to come from somewhere..

@ehnogi: cause people will spend less which ends up with jobs laying off workers to compensate. They really need to go after how much a hospital charges for services. I mean $125 for me to get an injection with a perscription I bought? Seriously that's way too much.

[quote=Zoneflare4]@ehnogi simple. For instance a lot of companies are cutting their employees hours to below the the 32 hour mark so they won't be required to offer health care to them. To most who were getting 40 hours per week that's a huge hit plus being forced to pay over $200/mo inhealth care. Now if I have to pay that huge bill every month do you really think that I'm going to be wantng to go out to eat, travel, buy a car, or a house? No since I'm having to pay a bill that is equal to a car payment if not rent if I have children. That will ripple right into stores laying off staff and you know what happens after that.[/quote]

I understand that employee hours are being cut, but I don't understand how that would necessarily cause a depression. The bill is always subject to change, if I'm not mistaken.

ITT: Kids and young adults that haven't had to deal with insurance companies, crappy insurance from a job and the hazards of life working adults are exposed to weighing in on the matter. Thank you all for your opinion. I'm pleased to know y'all are so well versed on how the medical system works that you know better than most whether or not the ACA is worth it.

@ehnogi simple. For instance a lot of companies are cutting their employees hours to below the the 32 hour mark so they won't be required to offer health care to them. To most who were getting 40 hours per week that's a huge hit plus being forced to pay over $200/mo inhealth care. Now if I have to pay that huge bill every month do you really think that I'm going to be wantng to go out to eat, travel, buy a car, or a house? No since I'm having to pay a bill that is equal to a car payment if not rent if I have children. That will ripple right into stores laying off staff and you know what happens after that.

@BobR: I think the main concern with people now is the sudden increase since the ACA fully became law. I don't think anybody really questions the increasing costs of healthcare before this bill; I agree that this is pretty normal. This particular increase regarding the bill however, has been very high across the nation's average in a short amount of time. Like you said, providers adjusted their prices and coverage plans to cope with the new requirements.

I also severely worded my statement incorrectly. This would've been a more accurate statement on my part :

Single individuals making $45,960 / year or below may apply for one or more of the following :

- No requirement to buy health insurance.
- Have aid paying for premium
- Have aid paying for out-of-pocket costs

The brackets are adjusted by household size.

I know a couple of people who are RNs and the general consensus is that nurses do most of the work. I think that with the decline of primary care physicians, more nurses will take their place. When demands are suddenly high for a moderately well-paying job, people will jump on it quickly; especially with such a high rate of real unemployment. Becoming a nurse is relatively cheap and not very time-consuming compared to going to medical school.

I'm eager to see what happens 5-10 years in the future. Well. Anyway.

Do you think that the costs are worth the benefits? It seems to me that you're making a case in favor of it.
The costs are obviously open to interpretation, but I'm minimally referring to the monetary costs (fund 100 billion / year from 2009 ~ 2019) and current adjustments in employer-employee relations as well as many businesses affected by it.

@zoneflare4:

How will it cause a depression? What makes you say this?

@bobr while some parts of the do help the overall out come will result in an economic depression.

[quote=ehnogi]I just found out that although insurance premiums are increasing on the average, the increase only slightly effects the middle-class and below.[/quote]

What most people don't seem to understand or remember is that insurance premiums have ALWAYS increased.
Before the ACA, after the ACA, insurance premiums increase. Always have, always will.
The profit incentive from selling health insurance guarantees that companies will always increase premiums as their expenses increase. That's capitalism.

One large point of the entire ACA is to try to keep those increases to the minimum possible level by making changes to the ways health expenses are paid for, and in the ways companies are allowed to do business.

Before the ACA, health insurance companies could skim off any amount of premium payments they wanted, for "expenses".
Things like running the company, paying dividends to stockholders and buying their CEOs a new BMW every year, or another vacation house in the Bahamas. Ie: Profits.
Before the ACA it was not uncommon for companies to take 30 cents or more of each dollar spent on health insurance, so they only paid out 70 cents per dollar of what people were paying them to be insured. After the ACA, companies are required to spend no less than 80% of what's paid for insurance on actual health care. Millions of people have received rebate checks from their insurance companies for overpayments under this provision.

By way of contrast, Medicare (the government run health insurance program for seniors) has only 7% overhead, meaning 93 cents of every dollar goes toward actual health care.

Under the ACA, insurance premiums have risen on average by about 4%, which is the lowest annual increase in decades.

[quote=ehnogi] In fact, if you make about $46,000 / year or below (single, before taxes), you have the choice to have your premiums and out-of-pocket costs paid for. [/quote]

Under the normal health insurance provisions of the ACA, no one gets their health insurance "paid for".
There are "means tested" tax credits and subsidies available to HELP pay the cost of insurance premiums and expenses for the insurance policy you choose to buy. But it's not "free".

Part of the ACA expands the Federal government's contribution to State Medicaid programs which does pay for health care for people below certain income levels, and also increases the number of people covered by changing the requirements for coverage. Unfortunately many States have rejected the Federal dollars, which means millions of their citizens will not have health care when they easily could.

The issue of a deficit in the number of healthcare providers is a fairly serious one, and one which needs to be addressed.
The idea of allowing more health care to be performed by professionals other than actual doctors is one good approach, as well as attempts to do something about the high cost of medical education, to expand the number of people available to care for more people in the system.

[quote=BobR]Before the ACA, an insurance company could deny coverage for ANY reason at ANY time.

That means they could deny coverage to someone who presents with an existing illness at the time they try to sign up for insurance, essentially "cherry picking" only healthy policy holders who are less likely to need health care and insuring the highest possible profitability for the company.
Before the ACA, being a woman was a "pre-existing condition" and could result in a customer paying a higher price for a policy, or being denied a policy completely.
Being diabetic, having a history of cancer, even asthma, all could result in denial of coverage.

They could also CANCEL your insurance AFTER you've paid into the system for years, when you get sick and need it the most. Companies have entire departments of investigators which will go over a policy holder's application years after the fact, trying to find overlooked minor discrepancies to use as grounds for cancellation.
This means someone who is suddenly stricken with cancer and who needs very expensive cancer treatments and drugs may suddenly find their health insurance cancelled because they forgot to list a fever they had when they were 5 years old on their policy application. After paying into the company for years, they get NOTHING in return and the company makes out like a bandit.

After the ACA, these practices are prohibited, making health insurance a far more reliable product for consumers.

It also sets minimum standards for coverage, so policies will actually cover the kinds of things most people are likely to need help with.
Before the ACA, companies could sell low-cost "junk policies" which were filled with fine-print essentially rendering the policies worthless when you need to use them.
Such policies might limit your doctor visits to a maximum of 2 times a year, have super high deductibles per visit/treatment or have "caps" on the maximum amount the company would pay for a specific illness, during the course of a year, or for your entire life. If you got a disease which required long-term care or treatment, with a "junk policy" you'd likely end up paying most or all of your health expenses yourself, even after paying the insurance company for years.
The ACA has put a stop to this.

The hue and cry you hear about people's policies being cancelled "because of the ACA" are generally this type of "junk policy" which can no longer be sold.
The insurance companies were aware these policies could not be renewed after January 1, 2014, and yet they continued selling them to consumers right up until the last minute, without telling the policy holders that the junk insurance policies could not be offered after the end of this year. Instead they're sending cancellation letters to their customers "blaming" the ACA for the cancellation. A few of the companies are being up-front about it and telling their cancelled customers they can sign up for better insurance at lower cost, but many are taking advantage of the situation to "up-sell" these people to higher cost (higher profit) policies.

In most cases, when you hear people crying about "the policy they liked got cancelled", it's a junk policy and they only liked it because it was cheap.
In most of these cases, it's quite probable these people never had to try to obtain health benefits under the policy, so they hadn't run into the horror story that junk insurance can be.[/quote]

I understood that policies could be cancelled before the ACA was implemented, I just didn't think that this was legal afterward. Your latter statements cleared this up quite nicely, thanks.

@metaghost4:

What's wrong with the software?

@aznseal:

I just found out that although insurance premiums are increasing on the average, the increase only slightly effects the middle-class and below. In fact, if you make about $46,000 / year or below (single, before taxes), you have the choice to have your premiums and out-of-pocket costs paid for. For families of 4, that number increases to about 90k a year. What do you think about this? With the demand for nurse practitioners and primary care physicians on the rise, do you think that this will create incentive to subsidize or encourage students who may be thinking of pursuing jobs in the medical field? Perhaps this opens up more jobs, no?

[quote=ehnogi]I didn't think that chronic illnesses were grounds to deny insurance. Interesting. How are they doing this?[/quote]

Before the ACA, an insurance company could deny coverage for ANY reason at ANY time.

That means they could deny coverage to someone who presents with an existing illness at the time they try to sign up for insurance, essentially "cherry picking" only healthy policy holders who are less likely to need health care and insuring the highest possible profitability for the company.
Before the ACA, being a woman was a "pre-existing condition" and could result in a customer paying a higher price for a policy, or being denied a policy completely.
Being diabetic, having a history of cancer, even asthma, all could result in denial of coverage.

They could also CANCEL your insurance AFTER you've paid into the system for years, when you get sick and need it the most. Companies have entire departments of investigators which will go over a policy holder's application years after the fact, trying to find overlooked minor discrepancies to use as grounds for cancellation.
This means someone who is suddenly stricken with cancer and who needs very expensive cancer treatments and drugs may suddenly find their health insurance cancelled because they forgot to list a fever they had when they were 5 years old on their policy application. After paying into the company for years, they get NOTHING in return and the company makes out like a bandit.

After the ACA, these practices are prohibited, making health insurance a far more reliable product for consumers.

It also sets minimum standards for coverage, so policies will actually cover the kinds of things most people are likely to need help with.
Before the ACA, companies could sell low-cost "junk policies" which were filled with fine-print essentially rendering the policies worthless when you need to use them.
Such policies might limit your doctor visits to a maximum of 2 times a year, have super high deductibles per visit/treatment or have "caps" on the maximum amount the company would pay for a specific illness, during the course of a year, or for your entire life. If you got a disease which required long-term care or treatment, with a "junk policy" you'd likely end up paying most or all of your health expenses yourself, even after paying the insurance company for years.
The ACA has put a stop to this.

The hue and cry you hear about people's policies being cancelled "because of the ACA" are generally this type of "junk policy" which can no longer be sold.
The insurance companies were aware these policies could not be renewed after January 1, 2014, and yet they continued selling them to consumers right up until the last minute, without telling the policy holders that the junk insurance policies could not be offered after the end of this year. Instead they're sending cancellation letters to their customers "blaming" the ACA for the cancellation. A few of the companies are being up-front about it and telling their cancelled customers they can sign up for better insurance at lower cost, but many are taking advantage of the situation to "up-sell" these people to higher cost (higher profit) policies.

In most cases, when you hear people crying about "the policy they liked got cancelled", it's a junk policy and they only liked it because it was cheap.
In most of these cases, it's quite probable these people never had to try to obtain health benefits under the policy, so they hadn't run into the horror story that junk insurance can be.

[quote=fradddd]I really don't think that I will know enough about health care ever in my life to talk like those first few paragraphs on the first page.
Dunno how people know that stuff.[/quote]

I have to know about it because it's my career.

[quote=alainnlol]Too bad my parents have a great insurance plan already that's going to go up by $500 a month January 1, 2014 thanks to Obama and everyone who's too poor and pathetic to afford insurance themselves.[/quote]
So im guessing that a person who had cancer and got denied insurance is pathetic also? Another thing that you neglect to realize is that it was normally $400/mo without the ACA to get insurance without your work offering a plan, ive checked before.

[quote=alainnlol]Too bad my parents have a great insurance plan already that's going to go up by $500 a month January 1, 2014 thanks to Obama and everyone who's too poor and pathetic to afford insurance themselves.[/quote]

I 100% second this. My parents are pretty pissed about this.

@TrueAtheist: however like I said in my first post companies and employers can and already have started to cut their employees hours by as much as 11 hours per week. With the ACA in effect it would cause people to seek a second job which would put a major strain on the job market which is fragile already.

I really don't think that I will know enough about health care ever in my life to talk like those first few paragraphs on the first page.
Dunno how people know that stuff.

[quote=Zoneflare4]even if it means another recession or worse a depression?[/quote]

Both those are highly unlikely scenarios, the U.S. economy has been steadily recovering for the past several years.

So yes.

[quote=TrueAtheist]I support it because it's an ideological step in the right direction, despite its downfalls.[/quote]
even if it means another recession or worse a depression?

I support it because it's an ideological step in the right direction, despite its downfalls.

[quote=alainnlol]Too bad my parents have a great insurance plan already that's going to go up by $500 a month January 1, 2014 thanks to Obama and everyone who's too poor and pathetic to afford insurance themselves.[/quote]

We're in the same boat. ACA hurts the middle class in favor of "helping" the lower class.

[quote=basedgodx]smart talk that doesn't need to be happening

here's the thing; these college kids think theyre invincible and nothing will happen to them. as soon as they get into a car accident and mommys crappy insurance plan doesn't pay, they'll wish they had Obama care[/quote]

I have VA health insurance. Assumptions were refuted.

@Zoneflare4:

Mind if I ask you what your income bracket is? Just to have an idea of how premiums increase by income.

The ACA is bad for both the people and job market cause employers are cutting their employees hours so they dont have to be forced to offer them insurrance. So for employees who were working 40 hour/week this year will have their hours cut to 29 hours/week. Also the monthly prices are insane for me its almost $200/month and it goes up as you age. If it wasnt for my work to which is also cutting hours starting next year and getting rid of full time status, I would just choose not to pay for it and take the fine to which I would also refuse to pay even if it meant going to jail.

Dam, there is a lot of "smart talk'' going on here.

[quote=ehnogi]@aznseal:

Our fiat capitalist economy is a strange beast which is very responsive to our efforts to control it. Any large changes we make to affect both the market and economy will be met with immediate whiplash. With that being said, small changes do cause butterfly-effects that can only be predicted with slippery assumptions [unless you use precedents]. The Affordable Care Act was a huge change to a specific market, and we are now being met with reactions from other markets and our economy alike. I personally do not think that the Affordable Care Act has been greatly beneficial so far, but I have to play devil's advocate in order to find the truth.

I'm trying to figure out ways that this already four-year old bill can be improved to become more beneficial. I'm looking for a larger pool of opinions; preferably one without bias, which is hard to find.

With that being said...

If a large influx of patients occur with the Affordable Care Act, does that mean that these people were previously uninsured [which prevented them from receiving health care], or does it mean that re-admissions will have increased? To my understanding, unnecessary re-admissions are being penalized - which is an attempt to improve quality of care.

I didn't think that chronic illnesses were grounds to deny insurance. Interesting. How are they doing this?[/quote]

I think a good portion of it are the previously uninsured. Another portion are healthy 20-30 year olds who choose not to buy insurance. And yeah, chronic illnesses cause a lot of people to be denied. I'm not sure if they're allowed to specifically say it's that, but everyone knows that's the reason. They either get denied, or have their rates shoot up.

@aznseal:

Our fiat capitalist economy is a strange beast which is very responsive to our efforts to control it. Any large changes we make to affect both the market and economy will be met with immediate whiplash. With that being said, small changes do cause butterfly-effects that can only be predicted with slippery assumptions [unless you use precedents]. The Affordable Care Act was a huge change to a specific market, and we are now being met with reactions from other markets and our economy alike. I personally do not think that the Affordable Care Act has been greatly beneficial so far, but I have to play devil's advocate in order to find the truth.

I'm trying to figure out ways that this already four-year old bill can be improved to become more beneficial. I'm looking for a larger pool of opinions; preferably one without bias, which is hard to find.

With that being said...

If a large influx of patients occur with the Affordable Care Act, does that mean that these people were previously uninsured [which prevented them from receiving health care], or does it mean that re-admissions will have increased? To my understanding, unnecessary re-admissions are being penalized - which is an attempt to improve quality of care.

I didn't think that chronic illnesses were grounds to deny insurance. Interesting. How are they doing this?

[quote=ehnogi]So you're saying that the Affordable Care Act is detrimental to the quality of health care that patients receive. Is it common that you have to wait months for service after the implementation of this Act? I understand that health care funding itself has been cut; do you believe that the Affordable Care Act would do better with extra subsidies toward hospitals?

Your friends' coverage have decreased in quality but increased in premiums; what kind of coverages have been declined; (is it an age adjustment); and how much of an increase occurred in premiums? Do you think the denied coverage outweighs the new mandated coverage?

I also understand that businesses are lowering full-time employees by hiring more 30-or-below hour workers. We've been seeing this since 2007, but it seems sensible to continue to do so to avoid both health care coverage requirements as well as the tax stamped onto businesses. Do you think that incentives should be provided for businesses to keep full-time workers in order to circumvent this behavior?

You're saying that the checklists and accountability programs are becoming invasive, but the Secretary must update these standards annually. What kind of checks do you speak of, and how is this directly detrimental toward patient care? How do any of these items stunt medical innovation, or doctor-patient relations? Under the new care act, do you believe that doctors provided more incentive to treat patients correctly, or has this been a failed agenda?

Do patients with chronic illnesses receive less adequate treatment than before due to the Affordable Care Act? How, and why? How is medical research (assuming you're speaking about doctor-patient relations) discouraged by the Affordable Care Act; do the standards prevent doctors from carrying out former practices?

Do you believe that any of these issues can be improved by adjusting some of these annual standards implemented by the Affordable Care Act?[/quote]

I'm basing my assumptions on increased wait times by what happens in other countries with universal care. I think my friends pay around $40-50 more a month and their new plan gives less options. I didn't ask for the specifics, but I know that certain companies are holding back in preparation for the new patients. Like it or not, insurance companies want to make money. I feel like incentives should be given. The problem is that if giving the employees less hours is more financially beneficial than the incentives, then companies will continue to cut hours. And if the incentives outweigh the insurance, then we'll lose even more money. And it's invasive because the government and insurance companies will now dictate even more what doctors can and can not do for a patient. One example is when I worked at my city's hospital, I was following around a psychiatrist. The patient's insurance companies dictate how long they're allowed to let the patient stay, so even if the patient is not healthy, the hospital has to kick them out. This isn't so much as ACA's fault as it is the insurance companies, but I feel like with more pressure, the situations like this will be worse.

Under the new care, I feel like several things will happen. Doctors will not have the same incentive to treat patients as wholistially as before because 1) there will be too many patients and 2) they can't do what they used to be able to do. Furthermore, several doctors I know are planning to retire early because of this and how much it poops on their specialties. And even worse, I know of several doctors in private practice who will cease to see patients on any government funded insurance. This will now leave a demographic of people with crappy insurance and no one who will see them. This sounds cynical, but being a doctor is still a job. You have to care for your patients, but money is always a factor.

And yes, patients with chronic illnesses are being denied insurance right now because it causes the company to lose money. I don't know how these issues can be improved. To do it would have to rehaul our entire healthcare system. Right now I feel like too much power is in the hands of insurance companies and now I feel like the government wants a slice of the pie.

[quote=aznseal]It's made by politicians who aren't doctors. I'm against the ACA? Because it isn't universal healthcare. Insurance is not the same as healthcare. Everyone can have insurance up the wazoo but it's useless when you have to wait months for service. Healthcare is a great thing to have; insurance is useless when healthcare isn't there. Who's going to provide all of the extra health care? Who's going to pay for the influx of patients who won't get adequate care. Many of my friends' insurances now cover less for more money in preparation for ACA. Companies are lowering hours to get around the ACA requirements. ACA does NOTHING in regards to actual care.

Also, it limits what I can do in my future career. As someone puts it: One of the chief complaints I see is the increasing bureaucracy. The accountable care organizations are effectively dictating to doctors how to practice medicine. The checklists and accountability programs are getting so invasive, that doctors are not able to practice how they want to practice. The amount of time and amount of patients doctors have to see are being increasingly mandated. This is not medicine. This is mass produced factory bull crap. I call a spade a spade, and if we increasingly go in this direction, then we lose the essential part of medicine. Medicine is an art, it requires a natural bond and intuition between doctor and patient. There is a lot more unknown about the human body than known, and in that VERY large realm of uncertainty, a doctor must be able to have autonomy and ability to use their intuition and skills to pursue both the conventional and unconventional styles of treatment for their patients. One can argue that factory style medicine will empower more patients and that might be true. But the glory of medicine is in discovery, is in the serendipitous trials that lead to innovative styles of treatments. Think rituximab revealing autoimmunity in CFS patients. Think IVIG now being seen as a possible treatment in Alzheimers. Discoveries like this require going outside the box, going outside the factory, and it is not a huge leap to say that modern discoveries of medicine are made everyday in the clinics. They certainly are, but they are becoming more rare owing to the increased bureaucracy and the subsequent consequence will be reduced innovation, reduced specialized care, and general screwing over of patients with chronic illnesses that do not have current adequate treatments. This factory style medicine will necessarily blunt medical innovation as it has already done by effectively pricing out and litigating risk for medical research.

Affordable Care Act is good if you are a statistical patient with a high statistical disease. This is what happens when politicians, lawyers, and economists have their input on medicine.[/quote]

So you're saying that the Affordable Care Act is detrimental to the quality of health care that patients receive. Is it common that you have to wait months for service after the implementation of this Act? I understand that health care funding itself has been cut; do you believe that the Affordable Care Act would do better with extra subsidies toward hospitals?

Your friends' coverage have decreased in quality but increased in premiums; what kind of coverages have been declined; (is it an age adjustment); and how much of an increase occurred in premiums? Do you think the denied coverage outweighs the new mandated coverage?

I also understand that businesses are lowering full-time employees by hiring more 30-or-below hour workers. We've been seeing this since 2007, but it seems sensible to continue to do so to avoid both health care coverage requirements as well as the tax stamped onto businesses. Do you think that incentives should be provided for businesses to keep full-time workers in order to circumvent this behavior?

You're saying that the checklists and accountability programs are becoming invasive, but the Secretary must update these standards annually. What kind of checks do you speak of, and how is this directly detrimental toward patient care? How do any of these items stunt medical innovation, or doctor-patient relations? Under the new care act, do you believe that doctors provided more incentive to treat patients correctly, or has this been a failed agenda?

Do patients with chronic illnesses receive less adequate treatment than before due to the Affordable Care Act? How, and why? How is medical research (assuming you're speaking about doctor-patient relations) discouraged by the Affordable Care Act; do the standards prevent doctors from carrying out former practices?

Do you believe that any of these issues can be improved by adjusting some of these annual standards implemented by the Affordable Care Act?

It's made by politicians who aren't doctors. I'm against the ACA? Because it isn't universal healthcare. Insurance is not the same as healthcare. Everyone can have insurance up the wazoo but it's useless when you have to wait months for service. Healthcare is a great thing to have; insurance is useless when healthcare isn't there. Who's going to provide all of the extra health care? Who's going to pay for the influx of patients who won't get adequate care. Many of my friends' insurances now cover less for more money in preparation for ACA. Companies are lowering hours to get around the ACA requirements. ACA does NOTHING in regards to actual care.

Also, it limits what I can do in my future career. As someone puts it: One of the chief complaints I see is the increasing bureaucracy. The accountable care organizations are effectively dictating to doctors how to practice medicine. The checklists and accountability programs are getting so invasive, that doctors are not able to practice how they want to practice. The amount of time and amount of patients doctors have to see are being increasingly mandated. This is not medicine. This is mass produced factory bull crap. I call a spade a spade, and if we increasingly go in this direction, then we lose the essential part of medicine. Medicine is an art, it requires a natural bond and intuition between doctor and patient. There is a lot more unknown about the human body than known, and in that VERY large realm of uncertainty, a doctor must be able to have autonomy and ability to use their intuition and skills to pursue both the conventional and unconventional styles of treatment for their patients. One can argue that factory style medicine will empower more patients and that might be true. But the glory of medicine is in discovery, is in the serendipitous trials that lead to innovative styles of treatments. Think rituximab revealing autoimmunity in CFS patients. Think IVIG now being seen as a possible treatment in Alzheimers. Discoveries like this require going outside the box, going outside the factory, and it is not a huge leap to say that modern discoveries of medicine are made everyday in the clinics. They certainly are, but they are becoming more rare owing to the increased bureaucracy and the subsequent consequence will be reduced innovation, reduced specialized care, and general screwing over of patients with chronic illnesses that do not have current adequate treatments. This factory style medicine will necessarily blunt medical innovation as it has already done by effectively pricing out and litigating risk for medical research.

Affordable Care Act is good if you are a statistical patient with a high statistical disease. This is what happens when politicians, lawyers, and economists have their input on medicine.

@aznseal: Why isn't it worth the benefits?

No it's not worth the benefits at all lol.