More people are getting more care, that's awesome. Those are all medical needs that, prior to this legislation, were not being met. I want to high five everyone who voted for the ACA.

republicans and democrats both suck. if they didnt then our country wouldnt be falling apart.

if medicare is a guide it will be 30x what it was projected to be within 20 years.

Noir: Prioritizing what? Corruption? Payoffs? Higher costs for lower quality care?

HotDogBun: What part of the bill causes our current care to be expanded to "more care"? Is it being donated by aliens? Because more and more doctors are dropping coverage by government providers because of the low payout for services and more are retiring early to avoid the headache and low payout.

"More care" sounds great. But what part of this bill produces more care?

And what standard of "medical care" are we talking about providing for those who don't have it now? Cuba's level of care? Maybe North Korea's? Because part of this bill includes taxing the crap out of desirable healthcare. How exactly are we making good care more available by taxing the crap out of it? Or doesn't the best care matter -- I want too much healthcare? I should have a harder time getting more in order to provide crappy healthcare to all, even those who choose to buy other things over it?

People with cars worth more than a few grand, houses, kids, who eat out, who drink, who do X Y Z can afford healthcare; they choose not to.

If you want to provide healthcare to the poor, that's great.

But this bill doesn't provide "free" healthcare for the poor.

But this bill does things like tax me to pay for contraceptives and herpes medication and HIV medication--I'm not sure how this helps provide care for the poor, but I am sure it punishes responsible behavior and saddles responsible people with the costs of irresponsible people. Nice disincentive.

How is taxing good healthcare I want to provide my family substantially more a solution? I'm all for helping the poor, but somewhere between providing herpes and HIV meds, contraceptives, cell phones, air conditioning, cable TV, apartments and houses, I'd love to not have good healthcare for my own family made substantially more expensive because I need to fund a bloated, fraud-ridden government program often disincentivizing responsible behavior.

Paininside: In the free market, the cash rewards the best producers. This motivates higher quality and quantity production, resulting in more and better quality stuff at lower prices, increasing all of our standards of living.

When government cronies pay off their sponsors AKA handlers, the money is reward for corruption and begets more of it.

To pretend that taxing money out of the economy and giving it away to anyone is equally good for us all is stupid and disgustingly ignorant.

V.Kemp

American allready has the highest cost in the world for mediocre care from the system they have had over the last decades. I believe it will overall lower costs in the new system

Noir: Most of that cost is because of government involvement. Despite what you believe, it is a simple fact that the new legislation will increase costs even more. In addition to the indirect increases in cost, much of it is direct--Some of which I referenced previously. Want some examples? Everyone will now be chipping in for STD medications, contraceptives, and birth control, regardless of if they do or even can have use of them. People with good healthcare plans (shouldn't the goal be to get as many people good healthcare as possible?) will now have HUGE taxes levied upon them.

Increasing the cost of healthcare doesn't help more people get healthcare. Taxing the crap out of good healthcare does not help more people get good healthcare.

This legislation is silly (corrupt) on its face. It's about extending government control over healthcare. The claim that it will cut costs is absolutely ridiculous and laughable on its face. If its intended purpose was to increase coverage for the poor, the bill wouldn't be thousands of pages long and still not provide low-income care on the backs of the taxpayers.

As for "mediocre," you two are just ignorant, cocky children. America has the best healthcare in the world. Period. The ONLY measure you ignorant brats can claim America ranks behind anyone on is measures of national "availability." I specify the word "national" because most of America's programs providing healthcare to the poor are handled on the state level, even when involving huge sums of federal money.

It's really embarrassing that you're so ignorant and yet you have the nerve to post such trash anyway. The simple fact is that our money not only buys us the best technology and specialists on earth, but develops new technologies that save lives. You can pretend that your government is benevolent and wise and does the same with your tax dollars, but your government is neither benevolent nor wise and, on top of that, you simply don't have the money to contribute to the advancements of the age that America has.

If you want to argue that America should provide healthcare to 100%, I respect that argument. But the ONLY measure you can rate America behind ANYwhere else in the world is availability--a flawed measure, because the ratings you refer to ignore the MAJORITY of low-income healthcare ("free") provided to the poor in the US. It's at best ignorant, at worst deceitful to even make such a silly claim.

On top of this, you ignore that America has simply the best healthcare available to anyone anywhere in the world. And it's available to middle-income America if they prioritize it. And it would be MORE available to middle-America if government didn't make it SO much more expensive with bizarre regulations and huge taxes.

US heathcare as an average is mediocre-bad for the standards of a Western country, but if you pay for it you can get the best of the best.
It's just that the average person that needs to visit the hospital can't afford those more expensive clinics, and those even lower in the economic picking order get stuck in the clinics that we in Europe consider pitiful.

V. Kemp claims the best healthcare is even accesible to middle-income Americans if they prioritize it. I do not think he is aware of the costs of the treatment of a simple bone fracture when there is no coverage by insurancies, let alone therapies for more chronic disorders: prioritizing those would mean that people will not be able to afford a lot of other things they'd like and may even have to change their lifestyle, effectively downgrading them from middle-class to lower-class. You'll have middle-income Americans with sub-middle living standards.

V. Kemp goes on to claim that government regulation is what is making healthcare so much more expensive. I believe a larger part of these costs come from the sue-anything-and-everything mentality: because of this many doctors, not only those working in public facilities but also those in private practices, will up the prices of treatments just to create a pool of money that they can fall back on when/if they get hit with a large lawsuit.

Another large stress on the medical sector that drives up the prices is the amount of healthcare for morbidly obese and diseases/syndromes associated with adiposity, salt-rich diets (such as hypertension). The average American lifestyle is just not that healthy, and that causes an increase in the medical bills as compared to other, "healthier" nations.
Then there is the point of the private practices that over above-average care for above-average prices. These create a flow of good doctors away from more public and cheaper facilities to these private practices, effectively creating a system where there are 2 extremes in the healthcare: good & expensive vs cheap & mediocre/bad.

For average-poor people to be able to get decent care, there needs to be a change in the system: either improvement of the "bad" clinics or making the "good" clinics more accessible for the average-poor people (a change in lifestyle for a majority of Americans being unlikely).
An example of the latter is a medcare program such as Obamacare.
I believe it is too soon as of now to see whether Obamacare is effective (and exactly how effective and whether it justifies the costs). I think what we're seeing now is a big initial increase in the costs because the system needed to be overhauled for this new system to be implemented, and I expect these costs to drop in the coming years. It's an investment that may pay off in the future. Leave it alone and check again in 5 years.

Noir:  "human development index ratings"?!

...Hahahahahahahahahahahaha. I'm not going to argue with whatever statistics your propaganda ministry tells you verify that your healthcare is better than mine. My bad. You're right. You didn't tell me who donated the best healthcare to you free of charge, but I'll ignore the fact that you ducked the question and trust that you're right.

RisingDown:
"and those even lower in the economic picking order get stuck in the clinics that we in Europe consider pitiful."

And yet, by my lower-middle-class standards, the best you can get in Europe I consider pitiful. Nobody is donating the best specialists and newest technologies to your socialist healthcare systems. You simply don't have in your hospitals what I have access to. You constantly ignore this paramount fact and refer to faulty availability measures to rate anything above American healthcare.

"effectively creating a system where there are 2 extremes in the healthcare: good & expensive vs cheap & mediocre/bad."

The same exists in your country, except the gap between the rich and the poor is much, much wider. The rich come to America for care I can afford on my lower-middle-class income. Your middle class have no top-notch care available for their middle-income as I do--Additionally, they are saddled with paying for your crappy global healthcare, whether they're satisfied with it or not.

I'm a free man and I have better healthcare than you do. You sound jealous. You make references to unhealthy people as if I care. I'm not their babysitter, and, in a free market, their stupid lifestyle decisions spike their cost of healthcare--not mine.

Maybe you should get education/training for an occupation other than "babysitter." I'm not a babysitter. My healthcare is better than yours. Consider this well.

" I think what we're seeing now is a big initial increase in the costs because the system needed to be overhauled for this new system to be implemented, and I expect these costs to drop in the coming years. It's an investment that may pay off in the future. Leave it alone and check again in 5 years."

This is just stupid, ignorant, childish nonsense. Are you 12?

Use your head. Where is your explanation of the mechanics which will, eventually, you claim, decrease costs? Everything "Obamacare" does increases costs. Overhead. Stupid mandates saddling responsible people with the additional costs of irresponsible people: That's a direct disincentive for healthy behavior, which obviously only increases total costs.

Cutting doctor compensation only lowers the quality of care and, as we've seen repeatedly with the "doctor fix," only goes so far.

Healthcare companies didn't jump on board because they thought they'd get less money with this legislation.

Government involvement is the biggest source of cost increases in healthcare. From massively restricting competition and removing all costs of care from the customer (aka patient), the whole system has gone haywire, with customers (patients) having lost all grasp or where the real costs are and having lost all responsibility for picking up that tab when their behavior vastly increases those costs.

There's also the simple matter of freedom. I obviously think you're a bunch of ignorant, naive children. I don't want you involved in my healthcare. Anywhere. Ever. It's my responsibility to take care of myself, and the free market assists me greatly.

You're arguing that you know better than I do, and you can provide better than the free market. Let's pretend that's ever been the case regarding anything. What happens when healthcare companies, rather than you benevolent geniuses, guide (aka buy) politicians to milk us customers/taxpayers for all they can? It happens with every other regulatory agency. Giving more corrupt people at the top more control is asking to be extorted. It's like wanting the mob to extort you because, somehow, you actually convinced yourself they're going to protect you from the legitimate threat of... yourself.

Current rising costs are real money.

Projections of future savings presume a treatment cost and a certain rate of inflation.  All those projected hypothetical savings and $5 will get you a cup of Starbucks coffee.

@V.Kemp

"The same exists in your country, except the gap between the rich and the poor is much, much wider. The rich come to America for care I can afford on my lower-middle-class income. Your middle class have no top-notch care available for their middle-income as I do--Additionally, they are saddled with paying for your crappy global healthcare, whether they're satisfied with it or not."

What exactly is this top-notch care that we don't have for our middle-income?

My healthcare is better than yours. This is a fact. I have things available to me that don't even exist in your country.

This is a good thing. It's wonderful. It saves lives. You don't seem to understand that this is desirable.

Socialized medicine threatens this top-notch healthcare. Government involvement already hinders competition and bloats prices. More government involvement not only further increases costs, but reduces rewards for performance and innovation--harming progress in the entire fields of medicine.

Mr. Blackfish: In addition to more technology and better specialists because we don't pay ours with rice and beans, I have choices in medical care provided by the free market for middle-income. Middle-income earners in nations with socialized care are burdened by paying for poor quality socialized medicine. If they cannot afford better than the government-run socialized care, they're stuck with whatever bureaucrats deem cost-effective and affordable.

This is a bad thing. It's terrible. It kills people. You don't seem to understand that this is bad.

I'm arguing for progress in medicine and better healthcare for more people. You're arguing for bureaucrats deciding what you should buy (because you're too stupid to figure it out for yourself), deciding what they can afford to provide for you, and deciding whose lives aren't worth the cost of care. You're arguing we should all have good medical care made more difficult to obtain by burdening everyone with paying for low quality socialized care. I want good medical care to be more affordable; you want it to be more expensive.

Why are you so satisfied with poor quality medical care? I guess I value my life and life in general too much to appreciate your complacency.