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We already had free health care for indigent people, even illegal aliens could walk into any community health care center and receive free health care. The only

by D9u 13y ago

We already had free health care for indigent people, even illegal aliens could walk into any community health care center and receive free health care. The only real effect I've noticed is a lot of people complaining about various aspects of the ACA. This health care debate is nothing new, and has been in the works for at least 20 years. One could say that health care reform was inevitable, and would have been enacted in some form, or another, regardless of who the President happened to be at the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_health_care_plan_of_1993 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_health_care_plan_of_19... http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/10/24/2828261/ http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/10/24/2828261/

mturmon 13y ago
"One could say that health care reform was inevitable, and would have been enacted in some form, or another, regardless of who the President happened to be at the time." But that would clearly be erroneous. For example, Hillary Clinton's effort in 1993 (your first link) was plowed under. And it came very close to happening with ACA as well. ACA passed only using the reconciliation mechanism in the Senate, and survived the Roberts court on a 5-4 vote. It's not inevitable at all.
dragonwriter 13y ago
> This health care debate is nothing new, and has been in the works for at least 20 years. One could say that health care reform was inevitable The debate over universal health insurance at least 60 years old (Eisenhower's reinsurance proposal was intended to acheive that by providing public insurance to insurers against overly-high expenses), and the history of efforts in the domain provides no basis to conclude that something would have been adopted in the 2009-2012 term no matter who was elected in 2008. It might have been "inevitable" eventually (though even that there is little evidence supporting), but whether it would have been now, or 20 years from now, or another 60 years before major steps were taken toward universal coverage, well, that's another question.

by D9u 13y ago

mturmon 13y ago

"One could say that health care reform was inevitable, and would have been enacted in some form, or another, regardless of who the President happened to be at the time." But that would clearly be erroneous. For example, Hillary Clinton's effort in 1993 (your first link) was plowed under. And it came very close to happening with ACA as well. ACA passed only using the reconciliation mechanism in the Senate, and survived the Roberts court on a 5-4 vote. It's not inevitable at all.

dragonwriter 13y ago

> This health care debate is nothing new, and has been in the works for at least 20 years. One could say that health care reform was inevitable The debate over universal health insurance at least 60 years old (Eisenhower's reinsurance proposal was intended to acheive that by providing public insurance to insurers against overly-high expenses), and the history of efforts in the domain provides no basis to conclude that something would have been adopted in the 2009-2012 term no matter who was elected in 2008. It might have been "inevitable" eventually (though even that there is little evidence supporting), but whether it would have been now, or 20 years from now, or another 60 years before major steps were taken toward universal coverage, well, that's another question.