The Affordable Care Act

Alright folks, time for another opinion post.

The Affordable Care Act was passed into law exactly 4 years ago yesterday and I am absolutely sick of hearing complaints about this law. Almost every other developed country has some system of national healthcare that provides for its' citizens. Here in New Zealand it's called the ACC. These systems of healthcare provide innumerable benefits to the citizens as well as create a much more cost effective solution than privatized insurance. I actually find it really surprising how many problems the ACC solves that aren't just related to actual health insurance. For example you cannot sue a company if you get injured at one of their facilities because you just go get taken care of by the ACC. It also gives incentives to the medical industry here to advocate for preventative health procedures instead of waiting for something bad to happen and then dealing with it. I don't think many Americans understand the magnitude of the difference between those two options and the cost savings involved in the use of preventative measures. For example bike helmets are required by law to be worn at all times while riding bikes because the ACC knows it will just have to pay more when someone gets hit by a car without a helmet on. It's just the little things that make a huge difference.

Now, why doesn't the U.S. already have something like this when every other country seems to have figured out a system that works for them? Well first off America is built on greed, sorry, I meant capitalism. We love to rake in as much cash as we can as cheaply as we can with as little effort on our own part as we can. As John Keynes once said "Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone." So before "ObamaCare" insurance companies could deny you coverage for a laundry list of reasons that meant most of the people that really need health coverage (i.e. the unprofitable ones with preexisting conditions) went without it and the people that don't have a large need for it at the moment got it. This meant that the costs were unevenly distributed towards the medical facilities that have to provide care to these people without insurance. So what happens then? Either the poor patients get saddled with monumental amounts of debt or the medical centers have to take a hit in the wallet and go without pay and the insurance companies stay nice and happy making money. I don't know about you, but that sounds like a piss poor excuse for a health care system to me.

So why are we still fighting the Affordable Care Act? Well, some politicians believe that every American is entitled to the right to roll over on everyone else and make the whole country worse. They believe that the Affordable Care Act infringes on the right to choice by making people acquire health care and by making insurers accept everyone. But wait, wouldn't having everyone be covered by insurance spread the costs out more evenly across the public thereby creating a more efficient and plausible system while allowing Americans to live more healthy and enjoyable lives? Why yes, yes it would.

As of the deadline of March 31st 7,000,000 people had signed up for health coverage provided to them under the affordable care act. That's despite the fact that the website was crashed for the first month and the fact that there are continuing problems with the technical systems. SEVEN MILLION PEOPLE. If that's not enough to convince you of public interest in this program you need to go back to the fifth grade and relearn why empirical evidence is. That's roughly 2.3 percent of the total population and about 15 percent of the uninsured population and they aren't even done signing people up yet! Now THAT is a mandate from the people.

Now, I am also not saying that the Affordable Care Act is perfect. I think that there are quite a few flaws not only in the actual implementation of the law but also within the structure of the law. HOWEVER, THAT DOES NOT MEAN IT SHOULDN'T BE DONE. We have to work to fix the flaws in the system, improve participation in the markets, and increase efficiency. The constitution was originally written without the bill of rights and some of the opposition to the Constitution said that we needed a guarantee of rights. So what did we do? We fixed the already existing system to suit us (i.e. adding the Bill of Rights) and we have continued to do so for the next 230 odd years (the other 17 amendments) that it has been the law of this land. I am confident that all those things will come in time and soon people will look back at these politicians opposing national health care and laugh at how backwards they are.

If you want some history on the progress or U.S. healthcare check out this video from Barack Obama's Facebook page: Click Here (It is a bit biased but hey, it's an opinion post so I can do that)

Cheers everybody!