• @leadore
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    13 days ago

    If you want to see how it was before the ACA, watch Michael Moore’s documentary “Sicko”. You’ll understand how the ACA is an improvement, regardless of its flaws and failure to be The Ideal One True Universal Healthcare we wish for.

    Trying to get something, anything, passed to improve the HC situation took decades of fights. Read the history of it. Did you know Nixon tried to get universal coverage done back in the late '70’s, but Ted Kennedy decided to make the perfect be the enemy of the good and led the effort against it, killing it (before he died he said that was his biggest regret). He and the unions calculated that if they killed it they could deny Nixon a win (sound familiar?) and get single-payer next time there was a Dem president, which of course they couldn’t. Clinton tried to do it, HRC led the effort and they were inundated with massive opposition. It got nowhere, not even close.

    Next up, Obama. However imperfect it is, it was a significant accomplishment to get the ACA done. It was hoped it could continue to be improved and worked on going forward. Instead it’s been a constant battle just to keep it from being repealed.

    • sunzu2
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      03 days ago

      I have seen sicko…

      Calling ACA an improvement is an insult though.

      Sure it made a few people get access but rest of population pays more for less now and still get claims denied.

      These limp dick positions just provides political cover for poor policy.

      • @leadore
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        3 days ago

        These limp dick positions just provides political cover for poor policy

        If you want to criticize me for my position on the issue, my position is that we should have universal healthcare at least on a par with the other developed countries.

        My post was me griping about how pretty much impossible it has been to do anything about health care in this country for decades, and even the little we’ve gained is still under threat of being taken away. It took decades to get even the protections of the ACA passed (not allowing them to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions being IMO the most important one, which IS an improvement that has saved a lot of suffering and my life, among others, followed by expansion of Medicaid, which has also saved lives).

        So yes, I did say things were even worse before the ACA and they were. That’s a fact, whether you want to admit it or not. If they repeal the ACA, it will cause more suffering and death. That’s a fact.

        • sunzu2
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          23 days ago

          That’s all fair but defending a failed project after is failed is backwards looking.

          ACA needs to be analyy and the reforms can’t repeat the same mistakes.

          My position is that the justification how it was the best we gonna get, is how we got here.

          • @leadore
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            03 days ago

            I think “how we got here” is more because of the massive and powerful opposition to health care reform by the Powers That Be, not because of regular people being grateful that we made a small amount of progress in spite of them.

            • sunzu2
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              03 days ago

              Then why white wash aca as anything but a 15 year set back?

      • @[email protected]
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        03 days ago

        Having watched from the outside, you guys were getting more for less for decades before ACA got passed. Then, for a brief moment, things got better overall and the downward trend continued. Blaming the cause of the one blip where quality improved for some small portion of the population (estimated to be over 10 million) for the overall downward trend before and after sounds silly.