"Sometimes you just have to pee in the sink."

I miscalculated. I'd better support Obama. The guy blows me away. ;-)

Great stat that puts everything in perspective for me:

"Among those who don't like Obamacare, nearly half admit that their dislike has nothing much to do with the law itself. They're just mad at Obama and/or Washington DC."

Link

Nonsense. I was born in 1962.

Beyond that, S-CHiP's record has been proven, and that was in 1997.

If, IF, Medicaid expansion holds up, then ACA will clearly surpass S-CHiP. If it doesn't, then I don't see it.

The regulatory reforms, the exchanges, etc., will fail imo.

The ACA did nothing to remove insurance as the barrier to actual care.

"Public option" was to the reform debate what "Change you can believe in" was to the Obama campaign: bumper stickers so devoid of meaning people could make them mean whatever they wanted.

I have no doubt there are people who have been helped, but I can tell you that some states - and MD is one of them - have had insurance plans for quite some time that covered those with pre-existing conditions or who had been denied insurance in the private market.  That people who lived in states where such a thing did not exist can now access coverage is a good thing - one's ability to access care should not depend on where one lives within the same country.

It remains to be seen how much of the Act will perform as advertised, since so much of it is still on hold; I will maintain until I have no breath to do so that one doesn't call something a crisis and then delay implementation for some four years.  It's like calling 911 and being told someone will be walking to your location, and the supplies needed to treat you will be along later.

We will never know how this would have turned out, how much more progress might have been made, if we had a president who believed in a Medicare for All-type program, and spent his valuable time and political capital on something other than catering to insurance and Big Pharma.

Medical treatment has always recognized triage. Treat the ones you can save, first.

Triage is also determined by the amount and kind of treatment available.

By taking $500 billion from Medicare, Obamacare will reduce both the numbers and types of doctors as well as reducing the hospitals and facilities.

This is a self made shortage and, like most shortages, will lead to rationing.

When something is rationed someone must be the ones who determine who gets the rationed material.  

Since you are speaking of medical care, not sugar, which was rationed in WWII, triage comes back into play. If you are 80 and have a problem you are less likely to survive than if you are 65 and have a problem. Since a shortage exists the 85 year old is sent home with pain killers to die. The 65 year old is treated.

Who makes the decision? A panel does. A Death Panel.

BTW - Something very similar now exists. Treatments must be approved and patients cannot be kept in the hospital when they pass certain "tests" even if the doctor thinks they should.

It also happens in Rx Part D. If your doctor changes your medication, say a BP med, you may well discover that the pharmacy calls to tell you your insurance company, following Medicare rules, wants the doctor to tell them why he has changed the med. Hopefully they will approve the Doc's decision.

Far from ignoring the din, a leader committed to preserving and protecting these lifelines would face it head-on, counter it with facts, and embark on an educational campaign designed to shut these people the frack up.  In other words, LEAD. for crying out loud.

It isn't "simply" a matter of saying no, it's a matter of refusing to be led in the wrong direction just because the politicians and pundits are screaming in his ear to say yes, and leading in the right direction.

But, golly, that's just so much harder than taking the path of least resistance and hoping you can find some way to make it seem not so bad - maybe postpone it for a few years, so when the inevitable sh!t hits the fan, it won't matter - to him.

Who even knows at this point whether Obama even gives a damn about the people who depend on the safety net?

By your reasoning, if "enough sentiment" existed for Obama jumping off a building, you'd have him negotiating for doing it from the second floor, instead of providing the obvious reasons why, sentinent or no, that made no sense.  And then you'd tell us what a huge victory that was.

"Entitlement Reform" is code for cutting one way or another, and shifting not curbing the costs.  The ACA, to its credit, attempts to deal with the real issue: health care--availability, improvements and costs.  The jury is out on most of these objectives, but objectives they are and need to be tried and tested.  It does not engender confidence that the president, himself, has such doubts about ACA and its potential interactions with Medicare that he needs to "reform" it at this time--or use Medicare as a bargaining chip for his bigger war.  

His stance on social security is also curious: After rejected by Congress, the president empaneled his own " Cat Food i" with long term enemies of such an entitlement: Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles to "study" social security as a part of deficit reduction.  This "presidential committee" was staffed by the Peterson Foundation and Peterson Foundation supported groups. Pete Peterson  is another long term enemy of social security.