American Studies Week 10 Blog: Healthcare
Find
and analyse any website or web video opposing or criticising US healthcare
reform (“Obamacare.”) What arguments are made? Can you empathise with them?
Source:
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/9-reasons-why-many-liberals-absolutely-hate-obamacare
In an article entitled ‘9 Reasons Why Many Liberals
Absolutely Hate Obamacare’, Michael Snyder provides a pretty damning assessment
of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. He notes that whilst the preceding U.S.
healthcare system was undeniably ‘a complete and total mess’, Obamacare has
been a ‘colossal fiasco’ that cannot adequately be described by words such as ‘disaster’
and ‘catastrophe’; even terms as strong as these fail to capture the enormity
of the opportunity missed by the current U.S. administration. To support his
damning verdict, Snyder puts forward nine main reasons why Americans in general
and Liberals in particular hate Obamacare.
Several of these criticisms are levelled at the Obamacare
website (https://www.healthcare.gov/) that was supposed to
guide people into the system. Snyder claims that the website has been a ‘colossal
technical failure’, which has led to those trying to gain access to care
experiencing all sorts of problems. As just one example of the way it has proved
‘nearly impossible to sign up for health insurance policy,’ he highlights the
case of Janice Baker who, as reported by USA Today, had to wait seven hours to
enrol into Obamacare. He also notes that in several regions of the country the
website offers the option of purchasing insurance from only one company, and goes
on to repeat the claim made by the Washington Post that many people who
believed that they had successfully enrolled had in fact not done so at all. Snyder
also believes that many liberals are ‘absolutely mortified’ by the fact that it
cost over 93 million dollars to construct a website that has, so far, only
produced negative results.
Snyder is also critical of Obamacare for other
reasons: these include the fact that (1) It has caused insurance premiums to
skyrocket; (2) Employer-based insurance
cover is being reduced; (3) Obama broke the promise he made publicly that
people could keep their current insurance programs; and (4) The new system has
caused many doctors to lose their jobs because of government cuts to Medicare.
Snyder also argues that people find Obamacare
extremely complicated and suggests that this is not surprising given that the
document creating it is over 11 million words long. He concludes by stating
that while it seems as though Obamacare is here to stay, the manner of its
implementation proves that ‘our politicians in Washington D.C do not seem to
really care about us’.
Whilst these criticisms levelled at Obamacare
appear to be justified, it seems as though they can also be countered quite easily.
For example the arguments raised in relation to the website are flimsy, as it
could be easily be said any new website us likely to experience problems in its
early stages and that such problems are usually only temporary. After all, has
there ever been a case where a massive government website has not experienced
major problems leading to a media furore in the first year after its launch? With
regards to the increases in premiums, there is evidence to suggest otherwise (such
as the case of Julie Boonstra) and we have to remember that under Obamacare the
government subsidizes part of the costs for those earning up to a maximum of
400% of the Federal Poverty Level. It could also be argued that attributing the
blame for people having their insurance policies cancelled solely to Obamacare
is unfair, given that it is the insurance companies that are responsible for
carrying out the cancellations. Finally, it has to be said that Obamacare,
despite its problems and the delays in its implementation, has to an extent
achieved the aim of making healthcare available to many more people by
preventing healthcare companies from discriminating against those who have pre-existing
conditions etc.
However, it has to be admitted that Snyder’s
arguments do highlight a certain lack of foresight by the Obama administration,
since it clearly failed to realize the possible negative impacts that healthcare
reform would have on many people. We have to understand that people will
naturally be confused and worry if their insurance is suddenly cancelled and it
has not helped that the Obamacare website has failed on multiple occasions. To
a degree, then, the Obama administration should be held accountable on the
grounds that it should have been more prepared to deal with problems regardless
of whether they were expected or unexpected.
Despite its positives, it is of my opinion that Obamacare
cannot be seen as a permanent solution to the problem of healthcare in the
United States. For example, it is hard to argue against Michael Moore’s notion
that the ‘individual mandate’ that is the basis of the Obamacare, is simply a ‘pro-insurance-industry
plan’ that helps fill the coffers of the insurance companies. It has also
failed to tackle what is perhaps the most crucial problem of healthcare in the
United States, which is its astronomical cost. Unless spending in this area
is reduced, people will continually be
forced to pay high medical bills or go without medical treatment, which they
would not need to do if they lived in any other country in the Western
hemisphere.
To conclude, it is hard to sympathize with all of
the claims that Snyder makes, but he does have some justification for some of
what he says. From a personal perspective, I believe that healthcare should take
its place under the umbrella of Locke’s inalienable rights to ‘Life, Liberty
and Pursuit of Happiness’. Therefore I agree with Michael Moore’s view that
there is a need for a system along the lines of the ‘Medicare-for-all’ model,
in which the government institutionalizes healthcare as a public service and
makes it universal. Though many Americans will undoubtedly claim that such an
system is socialist and will endanger their constitutional values, they seem to
forget that they already have various state institutions in the form of fire
fighters and the police, whilst they only have to look over Atlantic Ocean to
witness that a public health service does not necessarily result in a socialist
country with no ‘freedom’.
Other
Sources
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