How do supporters of Obamacare (are any left?) respond to this video -- Obamacare, Deconstructed?

Proud supporter here. I'll make it simple.  Health care is really hard.  The left is going to get us to good health care policy.  It would be nice if the right would toss in and help us make it better and do so faster, but if they don't, we are going to get it done anyway. We are going to get it done because it's the right, humane, just and true thing to do for our people and our future. Maybe I'll just link Chris Hayes.  He nails this: http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/hayes-only-way-out-through HAYES: There is no separating yourself from this law.  That goes for all of us on the left. If you think the ACA can go down  and leave you unscathed, you are sorely mistaken. We are all in the same  boat. [...] Health care is something every single person uses and every time, in  every country a society has decided to reform the delivery of it, it has  been done against the kicking and screaming and sabotage and backlash  and rage of entrenched interest and reactionaries. There is a reason almost a centuries' worth of presidents and  congresses tried and failed to pass health care reform. There is a  reason passing and maintaining the Affordable Care Act has been so  arduous; because it is the most ambitious piece of social legislation in  this country in a generation. And so amidst the deserved criticisms and bad press and the undeserved hysteria and shameful gloating, one thing is clear. The only path left for those of us left committed to the goal of  health care for all is forward. No retreat. No surrender. No going back.  The only way out is through. This won't be the last battle. Others will come and there will be  more after that and there's never, ever going to be some calm final  equilibrium where everything works and no one's trying to take health  care away. There is only struggle today, tomorrow, forever, because nothing worth doing ever came without it. The real question naysayers need to be asking themselves is just why they find it so damn important to make sure so many Americans must continue to endure not being insured, their lives at risk every single day.  Personally, I would not be sleeping very well with that on my mind.  It's really not OK.  We can do better. Either you are on board to make it better, or you are not.  It's that simple.  We will do better.

I'll answer a few that I have time for. In fact, these doctors were members of “Doctors for America,” formerly known as “Doctors for Obama” and were asked to wear lab coats for the cameras. Some who didn’t were provided coats by Obama’s staff. Yeah, it's called a sales pitch. It's cheesy. That doesn't make the actual policy terrible. This isn't the first time a politician used supporters as props, so why the extra scrutiny now? Said the President: “Small businesses are critical to our economy, a key engine of growth and job creation." But to date, 40% of businesses have frozen hiring, 20% laid off workers, 18% cut hours, and 24% might drop coverage. All of these interesting stats are from a Gallup survey in May 2013, before the exchanges came online. So then what part of the ACA is to blame for all of this? Is it eliminating rejecting applicants based on pre-existing conditions? Is it prohibiting rescission? 24% might drop coverage doesn't mean 24% will drop coverage, and it most definitely won't mean that those 24% will be uninsured. And an employer dropping coverage isn't necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes it's a really good thing: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/16/trader-joes-cut-health-benefits-last-week-heres-its-side-of-the-story/ And now infamously: “No matter what you’ve heard, if you like your doctor or health care plan, you can keep it.” Yeah, he oversold it. You could even say he was dishonest, and he should be held accountable for that. But if there's outrage over this, were the same people outraged by the Lie of the Year? (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2009/dec/18/politifact-lie-year-death-panels/.) To reiterate, the President doesn't get off the hook for his broken promise, but the outcome is that people will be offered substantially better plans that can actually be considered insurance. People should read up on this: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/29/this-is-why-obamacare-is-cancelling-some-peoples-insurance-plans/ The President stated, “I absolutely reject that notion (of an individual mandate).” But his lawyers argued very differently in front of the Supreme Court, cynically arguing two opposing arguments to achieve their desired outcome. You (the original poster) are misquoting here. It's not the President rejects the notion of the mandate. He rejected the notion of the mandate being a tax. You can rail against the individual mandate. But about 10 years ago, a Republican governor proposed the same mandate and sold it as personal responsibility. That's how insurance works - you pool risk to prevent financial ruin, and the ACA was designed to avoid financial ruin. Otherwise, it's not insurance to just pay into a system the moment you encounter a catastrophic event. That's called a handout. Do you buy life insurance after someone dies? Do you buy auto insurance after an accident? Yet in this country, if you run into an emergency life threatening situation and you don't have insurance, federal law prohibits most hospitals from turning you away. That liberal Ronald Reagan signed the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Medical_Treatment_and_Active_Labor_Act into law in 1986. This is how crazy the opposition has become. Heritage is (was?) a conservative group who proposed the original health plan that the ACA was modeled after. Mitt Romney passed it in Massachusetts. It's a Republican plan. Also, there was a bipartisan bill proposed in the Senate in 2007 and 2009 called the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthy_Americans_Act (or the Wyden-Bennett Act). It had nine Republican cosponsors, and it had some similarities with the ACA, such as setting up state exchanges and calling for an individual mandate. Americans earning more than $46,000 get no help paying premiums, while congress members, who receive $174,000, have 75% of their health premiums paid for – the bill being picked up by all Americans earning more than $18,000. So if the argument is that we should increase subsidies for (single) people (without children) earning more than $46k (assuming this is above the 400% federal poverty threshold for subsidy eligibility), then yes, maybe we should. But I've never heard the opposition propose this... ever. If the argument is that we should reduce or eliminate tax benefits employer-sponsored plans, then yes, maybe we should. But I've never heard the opposition propose this... ever. The video concludes on a chilling quote by Ronald Reagan: “One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It’s very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project. Now, the advocates of this bill, when you try to oppose it, challenge you on an emotional basis. They say, “What would you do, throw these poor, old people out to die with no medical attention?” Ah, socialism. If the video is implying, or outright saying, that the ACA is socialism, maybe they should look up the definition of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism. Actually, let me do it: Socialism is an economic system characterised by social ownership of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy. "Social ownership" may refer to cooperative enterprises, common ownership, state ownership, citizen ownership of equity, or any combination of these. There is no common ownership. There is no public option. There is an expansion of Medicaid in some states, and an expansion of the private insurance customer pool in all states. The best thing to do for criticisms of the ACA is to first test the knowledge of the critic. What does the ACA do? What part of the law is problematic, and what's the proposal to fix it? I'm not certain the authors of the video can answer the first question accurately.

Because Obamacare is AWESOME. I know, I'm a Certified Covered CA Insurance AGENT (not Navigator/Counselor.) I'm helping people every day get affordable insurance plans who haven't had insurance in either years or, in some cases, EVER. The insurance companies are finally being forced to cover claims, play fair, insure everyone, and compete in a FAIR MARKET. The TEAGOP and the Professional Obama Hatersâ„¢ can spew their lies from now until the end of time, and it's not going to matter one whit because it's already a giant success. So the website has some traffic problems. So? Everyone with a website wishes they had those kinds of problems. As for "You can keep your plan/doctor." Tell me what part of that is a lie to anyone with a functioning brainstem who lives in the real world, and understands it. Yes, you can keep your plan. Many people are. If you have a Grandfathered plan, that your Insurance Company hasn't cancelled of it's own volition, then feel free to keep it. Does the TEAGOP want the Government to pass a law stating a private company cannot discontinue a product if it wants to? Wouldn't that be a "government takeover" of private industry? If you got a plan AFTER March 2010, that wasn't ACA compliant, then your insurance company was responsible for telling you that plan was only temporary, and would be cancelled Dec 31, 2013, not the POTUS. As for keeping your Dr - Of course you can "keep" your doctor, just like you have always been able to keep them. Unless they retire, or die, or stop taking insurance, or choose to not renew their contract with any given carrier, like ALWAYS. Or again, is the TEAGOP suggesting that the Government mandate how doctors run their business? If your Employer changed your plan, then take it up with them. Or should the Government be able to tell employers they can't change what healthcare plans they offer? Or better yet, stop whining and go check out your state exchange for yourself. If your state is one of those who's GOPer Gov has been actively trying to make the ACA fail, and you don't have a state exchange website, then CALL AN INSURANCE AGENT. Most of them are certified to sell OBAMACARE. We can use what we've always used for over a century, PAPER APPLICATIONS.

IMHO I think single payer national healthcare was the way to go.  But the right pushed back too hard for that. So Obama goes with the Romneycare, the Cato institutes, and the Heritage Foundation's baby.  In other words, he went with the GOPer plan.  But as the right has done since day one of the Obamam Admin, not only does it have to be their idea, they  have to implement it.  If Obama moves on it, it's no good, even if it is their idea.  The GOP is bankrupt on ideas and ethics.  I back this plan in part because the GOP doesn't.  I also back it because it is better than what we have now.  I see it as a step  towards national healthcare - single payer. ( socialized healthcare, if that's what you want to call it.  Many other countries do it that way and better than we do.

Anything to do with employers isn't worth talking about right now. Employers, especially small ones, don't know how this is going to shake out yet. So some are freezing hiring. Some think they might stop offering benefits. This is normal when businesses face uncertainty. If we based decisions on what happens during this period of any kind of change, we'd never change anything. What matters is what businesses do after the change has been implemented, and then adjusted. And adjusted some more. Personally, I think we're going to end up with no employees who are at or near minimum wage getting employer benefits. That's the way the math seems to take us - the penalties are low and make it cheaper to pay $1 more per hour than it is to offer health insurance, and people making $8 an hour will take $9 and free insurance from an exchange over employer benefits every time. But I don't know. Nobody does yet. As for rates, everyone knew how this was going to go. Poor people will pay less. The middle class will pay more. The rich won't participate. Someone has to pay for that additional risk, and it was always going to fall on people who are currently insured but not financially weightless. What happened with Congress was a mistake - one made by the Republicans, I might add. They passed a bill regarding Congressional health coverage without consulting the OMB. Stupid, but bipartisan stupid and they are trying to reverse it. Illegal immigrants aren't covered by the ACA. There is an awful lot wrong with this law. It won't achieve any of its objectives, and it isn't sustainable, as it stands now. It's going to require considerable modification before it can achieve any improvement over our current system. But the arguments being used against it are mostly ridiculous.

Let's deconstruct these claims to separate fact from friction (partisan politics). CLAIM- 70% of American physicians disagree with the plan With no source cited let look at a recent Deloitte study on this issue. The support for the ACA has improved from 2011 to 2012 as more information on the law has become available. 44% of responding doctors said the the ACA was a "good start", 38% felt it was "a step in the wrong direction"  and 18% did not know. http://www.deloitte.com/assets/Dcom-UnitedStates/Local%20Assets/Documents/us_chs_2013SurveyofUSPhysicians_031813.pdf . The results varied by specialty Regarding the impact on businesses CLAIM- 40% of businesses have frozen hiring, 20% laid off workers, 18% cut hours, and 24% might drop coverage. No source, but it is clear that 40% of all US business have not frozen hireling due to the ACA. Just not true. CLAIM-  Americans earning more than $46,000 get no help paying premiums, while congress members, who receive $174,000, have 75% of their health premiums paid for – the bill being picked up by all Americans earning more than $18,000. Congress like most Americans with full time jobs receive health care subsidizes from their employers, so to suggest that all Americans who earn under $46K will have to pay 100% of premiums is again false. Also Americans earning $18,000 typically fall below the threshold for minimum  federal taxes. CLAIM - The only natural result of these changes (greater demand for Health Care)  is longer wait times and poorer quality care. Massachusetts has the most per-capita doctors of any state, with the longest wait times, and Obamacare is  implementing the same changes on a larger scale. This statement contradicts itself- it claims that Mass. has more doctors per capita under an ObamaCare type system, so in reality greater access to health care did not create a shortage, and also suggests that Mass. has the longest wait times. Why with more doctors are wait times longer? Sounds like fear mongering. CLAIM - Independent Payment Advisory Board is a rationing board. This is same old crap that claims that  the IPAB is a death panel (Fact Check's "Lie of the Year"). Here is what the ACA Law actually states - Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, page 490: The proposal shall not include any recommendation to ration health care, raise revenues or Medicare beneficiary premiums under section 1818, 1818A, or 1839, increase Medicare beneficiary costs sharing (including deductibles, coinsurance, and copayments), or otherwise restrict benefits or modify eligibility criteria CLAIM- The video concludes on a chilling quote by Ronald Reagan.... “One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. Regan died in 2004, six years before the ACA was passed. The quote was a Regan quote but it was regarding Medicare. Care to tell the seniors that they are participants in socialist medicine. Medicare, by the way, uses private not government health care providers. If you want to attack socialized medicine in the US why look to the Veterans Health administration. ENDING THOUGHT- If the Affordable Care Act is so bad, why do its opponents have to lie with crap like this video to scare people against it? The ACA is far from perfect, but it is a good start. If you want nonpartisan information on ObamaCare visit http://www.ezobamacare.com/

The health care system in the U.S. is a mess. It is convoluted and expensive and the outcome really isn't any better, and often worse, than other first world countries. Personally, I think it is very inefficient to have so many different government-run or controlled healthcare systems: the V.A., Medicare and "Obamacare". A single, unified system would be much more efficient, but insurers will actively work to prevent that from ever happening. The pharmaceutical lobby also bought off politicians. Preventing the govenrment from negotiating drug prices is absurd. Also, most money in healthcare is spent in the final couple weeks of someone's life, i.e. it's fairly certain the person is going to die but doctors keep trying to save them anyway. Whenever someone addresses this, the right-wing screams "death panels!" so this continues. The three biggest improvements we could make to health care in the U.S. would be: 1. Consolidate all of the various government healthcare programs into one. 2. Allow the government to negotiate drug prices, just as insurance companies do. 3. Shift terminally ill people with no hope of recovery into palliative care rather than endlessly resuscitating them and putting them through unnecessary pain and suffering while racking up huge healthcare costs.

OK I couldn't get through the whole thing.  I'll just address the first point about the AMA and doctors. I don't care what 70% of doctors think.  They are going to act in their best interest which probably means they don't want to work any harder than they already are and probably want to make more money than they currently do.  Obamacare may do the opposite.  That's perfectly understandable.  I say the same thing about my job.  I would like to work the same amount or even a little less and get paid more, please.  In reality health care reform that attacked prices would mean that we in-source doctors from overseas and/or finance new med schools which would drive down doctor wages.  It would have an immediate and dramatic effect on any state close to Mexico, I could guarantee that. Obamacare actually increases the monopoly the AMA has, although it will likely result in more paperwork for doctor offices, somewhat overworking doctors but more likely making them hire more staff which will cut into their profit margins and/or force them to raise prices.  But generally speaking the ACA is good for the medical industry.

According to the poll below, doctors are nearly evenly split on Obamacare, with 52% unfavorable vs. 48% favorable, so where do you get the nonsense that 70% disagree with it? http://kff.org/health-reform/poll-finding/kaiser-family-foundation-commonwealth-fund-2015-national-survey-of-primary-care-providers/ One of the biggest arguments your own article makes against Obamacare is that too many people will have healthcare causing a doctor shortage.  So we should just let these people go without??  Can you say "death panel"?  Is that what you are in favor of?  Because if you throw the millions of newly insured people off of their health insurace people WILL die.