In a striking bit of timing considering today’s ruling in Virginia, that ABC News/Washington Post poll also finds support for the Affordable Care Act at an all-time low of 43 percent, down from a peak of 48 percent in November of 2009. Meanwhile, 52 percent of respondents oppose the law. At the extremes, more are “strongly” opposed to the law (37 percent) than “strongly” support it (22 percent).
But the poll also shows ambivalence — and small-c conservatism — over what to do about it.
People who don’t support the law fragment on how to proceed, with a plurality in this group, 38 percent, saying they’d rather wait and see before deciding on a direction. Among the rest, 30 percent would repeal parts of the law, while about as many, 29 percent, favor repealing all of it.
More here.
I don't find this to be alarming. Democrats support Obamacare and Republicans oppose it.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI’m 63 and got laid off 18 months ago. My former employer told me he was paying $900 per month for my health insurance. I did a little looking around and found an acceptable, $5000 deductible policy for $350 per month. That’s $550 per month cheaper. There is potential for huge savings in that number, and here’s how to get it.
1 Remove the tax deductibility of health insurance costs from employers and transfer it to employees.
2 Have the same insurance company offer employees several plans to choose from.
3 Require employers to increase the wages of employees by the amount of their health insurance costs. (no net cost to business, possible savings)
4 Require health insurance companies to accept the transfer between employee and employer.
In my case, my employer would save $550 per month. (He pays $900 less on health insurance and $350 more in wages.) The program could be structured to pass some of those savings to the employee, like a 50/50 split.
If the average savings per month was $300 (mine would be $550), this would reduce the cost of health insurance by approximately $360 Billion per year. 100M employees X $300 per month X 12 months. $200 per month savings would be $240B per year.
Implicit in this plan is the assumption that most people would select a high deductible plan and start paying for their own routine medical costs - checkups, labs, etc. But that would be THEIR choice, not someone else’s. If young people think they can’t afford a high deductible, they might want to ask their parents to help in case of a catastrophic injury or illness. Implicit also is the assumption that this would be acceptable to insurance companies, and I don’t know about that. But they are offering these policies for sale to the general public, and presumably they are making money on them.
It does not solve the uninsured problem, of whom I am one, by choice. But it does expose the cost of insurance to market forces, it does not require any government bureaucracy (the new law has more than 100 boards and commissions), it eliminates the portability problem, it gives people real control over their health insurance, and no cost to the taxpayer. And it frees up significant amounts of cash for charity or other purposes, some of which could be used to cover uninsured critical cases.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNo surprise, since this is open enrollment period.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo another way of putting this is to say that only 15% of the people favor the Republican position of full repeal. Seems like THAT should be the headline.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWingnuts hate it and rational reality based centrists like it
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRepeal. Find an approach that addresses causes of medical cost growth: Medical malpractice suits which drive up the cost via malpractice insurance and medical procedures which are selected by the doctor for the express purpose of providing a defense in the event of being sued. Permit doctors discretion to deny health care to sue happy parties, to include any lawyers.
Put the FDA out of business, along with all their bureaucrats whose main function is to prevent development of new medicines and new procedures. Replace them with private safety and effectiveness functions whose reports can be used by private parties to make decisions, but whose reports can not be used in a court of law.
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