He won both times because he ran a better campaign and more people wanted him in office. Unless you have something that shows differently, I'll take your point as pure conjecture, pulled out of your nether regions.
You can't have it both ways. You mentioned his reelection in a previous post being an indication of public endorsement for Obamacare. Now you're saying it's not (which would go against your previous point on why Republicans shouldn't be fighting this battle anymore). Which is it?
So far, anecdotally, I've seen plenty of folks who will benefit from their state's healthcare exchanges. I have family in NC whose rates will increase a bit, but a) Their Governor refused state exchanges, and b) Their present insurance increased premiums by shifting the costs. Sadly, ACA doesn't address cost-shifting...yet.
I wasn't speaking anecdotally. They ran a story on one of the major cable news networks, can't remember which, a few weeks ago about states that would see increased or lower premiums. Most states will see an increase, and we don't live in a fairy tale land where people can just move to the states with cheaper premiums. It depends on what laws were in effect prior to the ACA and what insurance providers already covered in that state.
No, that is incorrect, no matter how many times this old wive's tale is repeated. In the exit
Polling I saw in 2010
Showed the economy being the chief reason people were in satisfied with
him.
"
Nowhere is this dissatisfaction more strongly felt than with Mr. Obama's handling of the economy, the issue viewed as the most important facing the country by 62 percent of the midterm electorate."
http://m.cbsnews.com/blogsfullstory.rbml?feed_id=71&catid=20021591&videofeed=null
So because the economy was the number 1 issue, the couldn't possibly also be against Obamacare? Considering that the employer mandate has a cutoff at part-time, you don't think that will cause a massive reduction in work hours across the country? Actually, it already caused the reduction because successful businesses plan ahead.
Do you realize why the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation came up with the individual mandate? (Speakkio, I'm 99% sure you do, but for other folks...). Because spreading costs among a greater (and healthier/younger) populace brings costs down. No one who is the least bit educated on the law would implement the ACA without the mandate; some estimates have an increase of approx 27% in individual costs without the mandate. Then Cruz and his ilk would have raised a fuss and pointed at the failure of the ACA and how expensive it is - a failure sold to folks like you who don't know better.
I'm aware of the theoretical reasoning behind the individual mandate. No, I don't care which party came up with it because I'm not a Republican shill like Hannity. If the GOP were still beating the drum for repealing the ACA altogether, I'd be with you in saying they're being stupid. But the compromise bill passed by the House on Sep 30 was fairly reasonable in my opinion -- not because it chips away at the ACA like the GOP wants, but because it at least acknowledges some flaws in the law and gives the government time to correct course.
What bugs me is that we have changed the concept of insurance actually was meant to be. Insurance isn't something you sign up for so everyone else can foot the bill for a lardtard's diabetes, high cholesterol medication, and knee specialist appointments because he feels like gorging himself with food. It isn't something everyone signs up for so a smoker can have his lung cancer treatment 'for free.' And as heartless as this sounds, it's also not supposed to pay for terminally ill patients who seek experimental cancer treatment running hundreds of thousands of dollars to increase their chances of living by 2% or to keep 85 year old people alive another 2 or 3 years.
Insurance is supposed to be a group of low-risk individuals pooling their money together to pay for a catastrophe that would be unaffordable in one lump sum. Stuff like crap, my appendix burst. Oh darn, I tore my ACL. I fell and I need stitches. Etc. It's not supposed to be something that pays for chronic care nor is it supposed to pay for routine care, but that's what people expect it to do and the ACA has now legislated that stigma. I can't purchase homeowners insurance AFTER my home catches fire and expect them to foot the bill, but people expect to get health insurance after they get a condition and have everyone else subsidize their care. That's not why insurance exists.
If you believe everyone has a right to that sort of care, fine, but the optimal solution to that is a single payer, non-profit healthcare system.
I'm just glad folks are finally going to be responsible enough to get insurance, instead of waiting to go to the ER and having me, the tax payer pick up the tab.
Huh?
If you go to the ER without insurance, they patch you up and send you a bill. If you're a responsible citizen who cares about his credit score, you pay the bill. If you're a broke hobo without insurance not signed up for medicaid who doesn't care about credit, you don't pay the bill. Do you think that the broke hobos are going to sign up for $500/month health insurance plans? No. Their healthcare costs are still spread to everyone else. While we're talking about hospitals, before I mandated insurance coverage I would probably try to have someone figure out
why it costs over $376/minute to use the operating room (and $90 for a bottle of salt water) because oftentimes the fee schedules paid by insurance companies have no rhyme or reason to them.
$500+/month for 60% coverage is a lot of money. That's $6,000/year. Add your annual checkup and bloodwork, and now you're at $6,300/year. Everytime you get sick, add another $100 to that cost because the insurance company is only paying half of the visit and meds.
When I was post-college working entry level jobs, I wouldn't be able to afford that, and I was living with my parents. I chose to go into debt if a catastrophe happened. Today, if I were to spend $500/month toward health insurance, I'd have to do a lot of shifting of money around. Mostly, I'd have to take the money from retirement savings which would just put more burden on the next generation like Boomers currently love to do. Frankly, if I were in a position to afford $500/mo for 60% insurance (or close to $1000/mo for full coverage), I'd rather put it into my own emergency healthcare savings account. After about 5 years, I'd have enough to cover most medical emergencies for my entire family. The bonus is that if I'm lucky enough to stay healthy, I can stop putting more money into the account and still have the funds. If I stop paying my insurance premiums, the coverage stops.
Why take time from work or call ahead to make an appointment when you can just walk into the hospital and get free care?
Probably because they work jobs where they don't get paid for going to the doctor and may have a boss that gets on their ass the second it looks like they're not busting their ass. If you're living paycheck-to-paycheck for $9/hour, you can't afford to take 1.5 hours off to see Dr. Smith for 10 minutes to write you an antibiotic for a cough (15 min drive there to arrive for your appointment, sit in the waiting room for 20 minutes because they're over-booked, get called into the room to wait for 5 minutes, nurse comes in and spends 5 minutes taking your vitals, then you wait another 15 minutes for the doctor to finally come in and listen to your lungs before he finally writes you a prescription, then 15 minutes back to work).
I actually find it fairly obnoxious that few doctors work around the everyday-man's work schedule.
