[lin83]

> We needed healthcare reform. What we got was the ACA.

> What we needed was them to bring back Glass-Steagall in the wake of sub-prime crisis. What we got was ?????

Wealthy powerful interests who fund politicans on both sides ensure those reforms fail or are watered down to nothing. This is not about complexity. It's simple corruption.

[s1artibartfast]

This is a convincing narrative but It ignores the reality that a significant portion of the population doesn't want these reforms.

[sky-kedge0749]

You think a significant portion of the population has strong feelings on separating commercial from investment banking?

[s1artibartfast]

No. I was addressing the ACA. Should have been more clear

[sky-kedge0749]

Having keenly paid attention while the ACA was debated and passed and implemented I would say a lot of those opposed were as clueless about it as they are about Glass-Steagall.

[ok123456]

Yeah. Okay the "death panels" was just people cynically pretending palliative care wasn't a thing.

The only real net beneficiaries of the ACA were the insurance companies. People are compelled to get high deductible insurance. And that's enforced through the tax-code for some reason???

They made a minor concession about denials for preexisting conditions. But, now they just claim everything is 'not medically necessary' instead.

People need healthcare. Not 11,000 pages of more bureaucratic nonsense.

[sky-kedge0749]

The big benefit of the ACA is that anyone can buy real, solid health insurance just like they were ordering something off Amazon, and if they fall into certain categories the government will pay for it. That's huge. I don't know if you had experience buying insurance before the ACA but it was a lot worse, putting it mildly. If the insurance companies made out then it was a "take my money, please!" situation from the perspective of the buyers. People before the ACA paid a lot of money to even get to the point where they had an insurance card in hand and a number to call to argue about benefits, or they did without entirely and envied those who had that.

I still remember Obama having a televised meeting with Republicans from Congress and each of the Republicans had this big stack of papers next to them as a sort of prop to suggest to the folks at home that it was some bureaucratic government takeover. What nonsense. The U.S. government is a complicated thing, so is healthcare, and put it all together and yeah it might take a few pages. Bills like that get passed all the time. And even as careful as the authors were, Republicans were happy to read the law closely and take advantage of every loophole they could, with the Medicaid expansion nonsense and the endless lawsuits on technicalities.

[s1artibartfast]

I think they understood the difference between single payer and private payers, and mandated private insurance. When it comes to the weird regulations imposed by the ACA, I agree most people, including representatives, still don't know what it entailed.

[sky-kedge0749]

I'm not sure they understood it, for example people like pre-existing condition protections but not mandated coverage, but the latter was intended to support the former. Basically people wanted the benefit but not the cost, which we might say is good politics but bad understanding.

[ok123456]

That's one part of it. The other part is just plain narcissism.

The inability to come up with simple reforms stems from they see themselves as uniquely qualified to manage the affairs of state. They went to the best schools. They have all the best policy positions. If you have any disagreements about policy, it's simply because you don't understand. This is the prevailing attitude despite an abysmal performance over the past 40 years after they completely abandoned the New Deal.