How much has Obamacare saved the American people?

PostmodernProphet said:
they did not.......if you had bothered to read my post you would have already known that I was paying for it......and as I have already told you the price was exactly the same you're obviously an idiot for pretending it would have gone down.......as for my insurance.....when Obamacare went into effect for self-employed people in 2014, my premiums doubled......
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Unless you're willing to share your records, there's no way to confirm if your anecdotes are being relayed accurately. However, we can look at average data nationally. What we know from that is that AVERAGE healthcare spending has been growing MUCH more slowly since Obamacare passed than it was growing in prior eras. In fact, as I pointed out in the top post, before Obamacare, there was NEVER a period of this length with as little healthcare inflation as there's been since Obamacare became law. Regardless of whether you're lying about your personal experience, or your personal experience is merely atypical, the fact is we've seen the cost curve bent considerably since Obamacare was signed into law.
 
Oneuli said:
Unless you're willing to share your records, there's no way to confirm if your anecdotes are being relayed accurately. However, we can look at average data nationally. What we know from that is that AVERAGE healthcare spending has been growing MUCH more slowly since Obamacare passed than it was growing in prior eras. In fact, as I pointed out in the top post, before Obamacare, there was NEVER a period of this length with as little healthcare inflation as there's been since Obamacare became law. Regardless of whether you're lying about your personal experience, or your personal experience is merely atypical, the fact is we've seen the cost curve bent considerably since Obamacare was signed into law.
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Most who make his argument, never mention that the coverage in the new policy was much greater than the bare bones policy he had previously.

Now, he can debate whether he thinks he needed 'free' preventive procedures included in the new policy or not.

For me, my premiums halved, while my coverage doubled.

Until House Republicans de funded risk corridors, and my ins. company went out of business. Along with 12 others across the country.
 
Oneuli said:
Unless you're willing to share your records, there's no way to confirm if your anecdotes are being relayed accurately. However, we can look at average data nationally. What we know from that is that AVERAGE healthcare spending has been growing MUCH more slowly since Obamacare passed than it was growing in prior eras. In fact, as I pointed out in the top post, before Obamacare, there was NEVER a period of this length with as little healthcare inflation as there's been since Obamacare became law. Regardless of whether you're lying about your personal experience, or your personal experience is merely atypical, the fact is we've seen the cost curve bent considerably since Obamacare was signed into law.
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I find it strange that lib'ruls keep saying what I experienced and what nearly everyone else experience in exchange for some nebulous belief that it must after all, have helped someone, since that's what they intended.......
 
Getin the ring said:
OMG, 23 pages of facts to refute, and you are still defending Obamcare,
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As you can see, I take on each "fact" in turn. Generally speaking, we find out that the "facts' were nothing of the sort. For example, a few posts back, I replied to something claiming the 1980s has "explosive economic growth." I showed that, in fact, they had the second-worst growth of any of the tracked 20th-century decades, with only the decade of the Great Depression being worse.

Now, what's interesting is that it doesn't matter how many of these fake facts I take down, because ultimately the conservative opinions aren't based on facts. They cite those "facts" not because they believe they're important evidence that led them to their conclusion, but rather because they hope they'll be a smoke screen. When I cut through that smoke screen, it makes no difference to them.

I'm different. If you want to cite an ACTUAL fact that contradicts something I said, I'll consider it carefully and there's a real chance my opinions will change as a result, because my opinions are the result of the facts I have learned, rather than me regarding "facts" as whatever is convenient for defending my opinions. But, as you know, people in this thread haven't been able to find facts that contradict what I've said. Instead, all they can do is try to change the subject.... for example the continued attempt to change the subject to whether or not Obama was honest in how he sold Obamacare.

When you are able to convince yourself that the health care costs are up, a lot since Obamacare
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Nobody is denying health care costs are up since Obamacare became law. You can say they're up "a lot," if you like. That's just semantics. But, will you also admit that they've risen at a slower rate than in any previous time period of that length? If they're up "a lot," then that means that every other period before Obamacare saw cost growth that was "more than a lot." And that's the point.

do you even know what "stimulus" is?
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Yes.

It's printing fake money
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Incorrect. Have you considered taking an Economics class, so you're able to discuss these things intelligently?
 
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PostmodernProphet said:
and the net result was to increase costs, whenever they went into effect.....
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If so, how do you explain the FACT that healthcare inflation since Obamacare became law wasn't just below average, but actually was lower than in ANY historical period of this length before Obamacare went into effect? If the result of Obamacare was to increase costs, then why have costs been rising at a record-low rate since Obamacare was passed?
 
Oneuli said:
What was the deficit when Bush left office? What was it when Obama left office? Was that an improvement or not? These are not hard questions.
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the national debt was just under $10T when Bush left.......it was just under $20T when Obama left (in fact it passed $20T before Trump signed a budget)........I don't consider that improvement, or a hard question.......
 
Oneuli said:
Now, tell me-- about which two-term president can that not be said?

Good luck.
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the doubling of the national debt can be said of two presidents........Bush and Obama.......the bad news is that Obama came after Bush so his fuck up compounds Bush's fuck up.......
 
PostmodernProphet said:
35% to 10% is "only managing to beat"?........what does that mean for Obama who had an average of 2.1% over eight years?......
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Yes, obviously. Which part of that are you struggling with?

Anyway, you dodged the questions, so I'll try again:

Now that you know that the 1980s didn't have 'explosive economic growth,' has this changed any of your political opinions?
 
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Oneuli said:
If so, how do you explain the FACT that healthcare inflation since Obamacare became law wasn't just below average, but actually was lower than in ANY historical period of this length before Obamacare went into effect? If the result of Obamacare was to increase costs, then why have costs been rising at a record-low rate since Obamacare was passed?
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you always want to play with percentages.........health care costs went up when the promise was they would go down.......so the rate of increase in one year was a smaller increase than it was a previous year......that ignores the fact that the increase in the previous year was outrageous........stop playing games and admit that Obama care did NOT do what was promised.......
 
Oneuli said:
Yes, obviously. Which part of that are you struggling with?

Anyway, you dodged the questions, so I'll try again:

Anyway, now that you know that the 1980s didn't have 'explosive economic growth,' has this changed any of your political opinions?
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the 80's had an average growth rate of over 3.5% only slightly less than the 3.7% of the 70s.......where does Obama fall compared to that growth?......
 
Oneuli said:
What "explosive economic growth"? Here's what fascinates me about conservatives: if you repeat a talking point to them often enough, they just accept it as true, even if it's the exact opposite of the truth, and they never once think to check for themselves. See here:

https://www.thebalance.com/us-gdp-by-year-3305543
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDPC1

Here's real GDP growth by decade, in the 20th century, best to worst:

1940s 72.4%
1960s 54.3%
1950s 52.4%
1990s 42.4%
1970s 37.9%
1980s 35.8%
1930s 10.2%

The 80s were the second-worst decade of the 20th century for economic growth (at least starting with the 30s) -- only managing to beat out the decade of the Great Depression.



What would make you imagine I'm trying to treat it as a figment of the imagination? If you try to locate what part of what I said tried to spin it that way, and reread that, you should realize you're mistaken, and I did no such thing. There was a dotcom bubble, to be certain, and a big devaluation of the NASDAQ index. I've never denied that.



Incorrect. The surpluses were based on then-current accounting. Yes, they also projected future surpluses (before Bush's catastrophic upper-class tax cuts changed the math), but we ran actual deficits for several years at the end of the Clinton presidency.

Anyway, now that you know that the 1980s didn't have 'explosive economic growth,' has this changed any of your political opinions. I'm betting not, and I'll tell you why: I'm betting that your political opinions have absolutely nothing to do with the evidence, and thus finding out you were mistaken about the evidence will have no impact on those opinions. My experience with conservatives is that they come at these things from the opposite direction as me. In my case, I read up on the evidence, and then I form my opinions around what I discover. With conservatives, they start out with an immutable opinion, and then they assert the existence of evidence to support that opinion. As such, when they find out that the real world stubbornly refuses to line up with their assertions, they simply assert new "evidence," rather than reexamining their opinions.
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Clearly you need to be repeated over and over. I'm talking simple economics, not partisan politics which you are having trouble getting through.

The '40', '50's and '60's were their own time because of WWII and the fallout afterwards. There's no going back to those days unless you have some way of recreating that geo-political situation. The mid '80's did boom economically. We have 7.2% gdp growth in 1984, something we haven't come close to since. The late '90's boomed as well. We haven't had a year over 3% GDP growth since 2005 although it could possibly happen this year. Again, these are just the facts.

I'll say it until I'm blue in the face, you're trying to spin a partisan political narrative and then accuse others of not changing their mind. What you are doing is partisanship ma'am.
 
Althea said:
Most who make his argument, never mention that the coverage in the new policy was much greater than the bare bones policy he had previously.

Now, he can debate whether he thinks he needed 'free' preventive procedures included in the new policy or not.

For me, my premiums halved, while my coverage doubled.

Until House Republicans de funded risk corridors, and my ins. company went out of business. Along with 12 others across the country.
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That's why I focus on total healthcare costs, rather than focusing on just one aspect (e.g., premiums, deductibles, copays, out-of-pocket expenses, etc.) In an unregulated market you could theoretically offer a health insurance plan that has a $99 deductible and a provision that voids the policy once you've had $100 of healthcare expenses. You could charge $2 for the policy and still make money on it, since it will never pay out more than $1. And that $2 policy would greatly reduce the average premium, even though the policy would be worthless.

That's obviously an extreme case, but it's just to illustrate the principle. Before Obamacare, we had predatory insurers that offered up policies that were effectively worthless, once you read the fine print. Basically, they were the Trump University of policies: a discount cost for something that isn't worth the paper it's printed on. Obamacare set standards for insurance, which weeded out the snakeoil policies. That exerted upward pressure on average premiums. Yet, surprisingly, even with that, average premiums have risen slower than normal. But, more importantly, total healthcare costs have risen MUCH slower than normal.
 
PostmodernProphet said:
I find it strange that lib'ruls keep saying what I experienced and what nearly everyone else experience in exchange for some nebulous belief that it must after all, have helped someone, since that's what they intended.......
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That's not what liberals are saying, as you know. What they're doing is pointing to the actual statistics proving what a big improvement it's been.... to which conservatives counter by asserting personal experiences that are supposedly different.
 
Oneuli said:
That's not what liberals are saying, as you know. What they're doing is pointing to the actual statistics proving what a big improvement it's been.... to which conservatives counter by asserting personal experiences that are supposedly different.
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you never did indicate if your "statistics" included the federal subsidies paid to finance Obamacare.......do you know?.......
 
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