3 ms·

> He didn’t support socialized medicine i'm a bit confused... wasn't Obamacare, like, that? (nb not a US citizen)

• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• dtech 8y ago
  Usually, the definition includes the government determining what (basic) insurance covers and what price the insurers pay to the hospitals. Those two things are missing in ACA/Obamacare. For example in The Netherlands, the government defines a extensive healthcare package that every insurer must provide to everyone, insurers must accept everyone for and all their clients must pay the same price, and they also determine what hospitals can charge for certain procedures. "Add-ons" like sport-related Physical Therapy are mostly unregulated. That's far more far-reaching than Obamacare, which allows age-based price discrimination, only mandates coverage of 10 categories and does not regulate hospital pricing.
  • uryga 8y ago
    i see. thanks for the explanation!
• simonh 8y ago
  It was just an broad extension of private health insurance. In fact it was very heavily based on a similar system implemented in Massachsets by, er, Republicans under Mitt Romney. That’s why Obama though he could get it through. The only reason the republicans fought it at the national level was because Obama. In fact until they turned on it for political strategy reasons it was quite popular with Republican representatives and saw extensive bipartisan review and amendment. The Republican narrative that it was pushed through without them having a say is flat out false. As a UK conservative I’ve had it up to my teeth with the US Republican Party. It seems like all they’ve got left is reactionaryism and nationalism. They’re now even dismantling trade deals largely built by free trade republicans, and can’t even support their own policies as soon as anyone else supports them too. They’re totally dysfunctional. I’m a big believer that any political party that has power for too long becomes corrupt. Success attracts mouthpiece politicians that parrrot the party line because it’s successful, without thinking through and living the basic principles. I’ve seen it happen to the Conservative party. I voted con in 1997 but we deserved that defeat. It happened to labour under Blair and Brown. The US republicans have had the same disease since the Bush eras and just can’t shake it. The fact the democrats have occupied the centre right had forced republicanism into a reactionary corner. As a conservative myself it horrible to watch. They’ve become a twisted parody of the party I once loved under Reagan. Oops. Rant.
• arcticbull 8y ago
  Nope, that was mandatory private insurance that you paid for yourself.