This is the problem with 'mercans ... you just don't get that medicine needs to be socialized and you object to it simply because you've been indictrinated that "socialism is evil". For healthcare though, it's different and needs to be so.
With everything said on this thread, I think the above statement cuts to the core of it. Those that have fought and continue to fight against the ACA do not agree, with good reason, that medicine “needs to be socialized”. And the reasons stem from much more than a characterization of socialism as “evil”.
What exactly is it about the healthcare market that makes it a unique market? I would say that there is nothing unique about it at all – but perhaps it may seem so now only after years/decades of government modification. Absent the modifications, the market would lower the cost of the care itself – allowing greater access and better care.
The ACA, however, can’t bring down the cost of the actual care. It may seek to find a way to pay for it in behalf of consumers, but that won’t solve the real issue – overpriced care. People, no matter how much faith you have in them, will not spend other people’s money as carefully as they spend their own. And they will never ration themselves in regards to free goods and services. The consumers NEED to be connected with the cost of the services or else the prices will continue to rise (the providers have no reason to lower the price). As prices rise, the benefactor will start to cry uncle and demand the prices to be lowered by law. Or the care will have to be rationed.
No body argues with the noble intentions of the ACA. But the moral thrust of those intentions seems to evaporate when the actual effects of the law are almost exactly the opposite of what was intended, even if that takes 10 or 20 years to play out. Everyone is covered, but there is less care for all, and the quality will go down too.
MMM