Is Obamacare failing?

Obamacare is a nightmare, those that can't see it yet will pretty soon.

CPT Jack Durish - As I said in my other post on this topic because things didn't go as predicted. Healthy (but shortsighted) people didn't sign up, they would rather buy cigarettes and beer than insurance that they may (or may not) use sick people signed up, and costs were higher than expected.

SPC David Hannaman - I won't argue with that. That's the problem the ACA didn't address. What do you do with people who don't have the good sense to protect themselves but turn up expecting to be taken care of even though they can't afford to pay for it? Many advocate the single-payer plan (socialized medicine) and end up in the same predicament as England and Canada. Long waiting line for inadequate care. I think there is another solution but the Democrats weren't willing to discuss alternatives. They were focused on single-payer and, when they couldn't get it, devise a system that would bring down the existing private insurance industries and force us into single-payer.

CPT Jack Durish - You're preachin' to the choir Sir. When I was between "good jobs" in 2013 I bought an individual plan for my family, $500 a month. That was a big chunk of my income, but I paid it because three years prior my daughter had spent some time in the hospital and I knew firsthand that an unexpected illness cost more than our house several times over.

It made me do some figuring, and two people (the parents presumably) smoking a pack a day quitting smoking would pay for insurance, or a family of four dining out 5 times a month, or a payment on a new car.

Yes, it's about priorities, and if I had mine messed up my daughter might have lost her leg or life.

ACA doesn't "bring down private insurance" it created huge profits for them... and for hospital systems... this is first hand experience.

If it were television, cellphones, or just about anything else I would say "suck it up buttercup" and drive on, but this is health, and like I said earlier the "shortsighted" will make a house payment, and go on smoking before they get insurance, until it progresses into something life threatening and they will seek medical attention from the most expensive (and only available) source.

This doesn't make sense as a society. Production for that individual drops to zero and their expense to society goes through the roof. I walked through the emergency room at Cook Children's hundreds of times thinking "If we opened a few free clinics in the right neighborhoods this place would be empty, real emergency's would be triaged quickly, and it would cost the taxpayer a fraction of what this costs."

But that would mean we as a society would have to make a commitment to help those unable (physically, mentally or because they lack the education) to take care of themselves.

No, we can't have a 100% socialized healthcare system. Innovation would drop to zero like it did in every other socialist government, but we also have a responsibility to take care of those that find themselves between a rock and a hard place. Kicking a person when they're down doesn't help them pull themselves up by the bootstraps.