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ACA Running Thread

Public health policy and healthcare financing aren’t the same thing, of course. They are also not at all points unrelated.


Of course MC4all, whatever that might actually end up looking like, wouldn’t be a panacea for healthcare access/delivery challenges.

We can do better on both fronts, however, by voting out politicians pretending that less regulation and lower taxes offer some real solutions to these things and rather voting for politicians who seem to understand that we can and should do better and that government has a proper/necessary role in effecting positive change.
 
CHDeac said:
Lower yes. But still devasting. Just less so.
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I don’t know. Take a look at how the Obama administration responded to Ebola. Very different strategy of not just being defensive. Reasonable to think that could have led to significantly different outcomes. I think it is lazy to say this was all inevitable. My only question is how much China would have allowed those types of measures within their country.
 
Right. There’s a massive difference between a Hillary administration building from Obama’s pandemic response vs. Trump ignoring pandemic and profiteering and providing chaotic leadership.
 
Tobacco Road said:
I don’t know. Take a look at how the Obama administration responded to Ebola. Very different strategy of not just being defensive. Reasonable to think that could have led to significantly different outcomes. I think it is lazy to say this was all inevitable. My only question is how much China would have allowed those types of measures within their country.
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But Ebola and COVID are very different through an epidemiological lens (one airborne, one not; origin; etc). I think its a false narrative to argue COVID would be much better if Obama was president. No doubt Obama did a good job on Ebola. And Trump poor on COVID. Just not sure how much Obama would have mattered given the nature of the disease and how the world operates in 2020. Now, I would argue without a doubt Obama would have been a much more reassuring voice to most of the country than Trump has been and there's some public value in that. This could be the one epidemiologists have been warning us about for some time and years of public health neglect made the outcome somewhat inevitable.
 
CHDeac said:
But Ebola and COVID are very different through an epidemiological lens (one airborne, one not; origin; etc). I think its a false narrative to argue COVID would be much better if Obama was president. No doubt Obama did a good job on Ebola. And Trump poor on COVID. Just not sure how much Obama would have mattered given the nature of the disease and how the world operates in 2020. Now, I would argue without a doubt Obama would have been a much more reassuring voice to most of the country than Trump has been and there's some public value in that. This could be the one epidemiologists have been warning us about for some time and years of public health neglect made the outcome somewhat inevitable.
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It's not at all a false narrative. First of all he wouldn't have fired or demoted the people in the NSA who specialized in this arena. Next, he has professionals in his Administration not just a troop of yes people whose fealty to Trump is more important than their ability to protect Americans. Moreover, if Obama had been told on Jan. 3 a pandemic was coming, like Trump ignored, actions would have been started. Obama wouldn't have lied repeatedly to the American public about the disease. Obama would have listened to the doctors and scientists.

It's absolutely illogical to say what you did. Other than Trump acolytes and brainwashed followers, I doubt you'd find any rational person who would agree with your inane premise that the nation's response wouldn't have been much better, much more science based and more effective had Obama still been in office.

I'm not saying there wouldn't have been any problem, but eight years of evidence shows it would have been more professionally and effectively handled by Obama.
 
Yet you don’t think a president who listened to the epidemiologists warn us would do better than one who doesn’t.
 
In post #7897, CH admits that it would be a marginally better response. What are you talking about Ph?
 
CHDeac said:
My broader point is there is a big difference between public heath policy and health care financing. Im a huge advocate for public health policy expansion but highly suspect of M4All. I think those can co-exist.
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There is a difference public health and health care until people start losing their jobs because of a massive public health crisis which means they also lose their employer provided health insurance. Then there is still a difference, but the two problems start to spiral. Fewer people seek health care early in the the illness because they have no insurance which means more people get sicker, putting greater strain on the healthcare system because more patients become critical ... etc. They become compounding problems.
 
bym051d said:
I can’t imagine anything Obama could’ve done different.

https://www.miamiherald.com/article241781571.html
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As the first alarms sounded in early January that an outbreak of a novel coronavirus in China might ignite a global pandemic, the Trump administration squandered nearly two months that could have been used to bolster the federal stockpile of critically needed medical supplies and equipment.

A review of federal purchasing contracts by The Associated Press shows federal agencies largely waited until mid-March to begin placing bulk orders of N95 respirator masks, mechanical ventilators and other equipment needed by front-line health care workers.
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mid MARCH?
 
avalon said:
mid MARCH?
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This is what I keep coming back to. Trump didn't cause the pandemic, of course, and some of these shortages were likely to happen at the beginning no matter who had been in office. But I don't think there's any doubt that a more competent POTUS and administration would do a far better job of organizing and leading the national response to all this. Historians are going to have a field day looking back on all this and seeing what could have been done better, or what was incredibly screwed up by the Trump administration.
 
I think Obama or Hilary would have ultimately left the lockdown decisions up to the states, much as we are seeing now. Americans don't like being told what to do in general, and redder states/counties would have aggressively pushed back on a Democratic president. But I think every governor would have had better information under Hilary, and been able to act much sooner, and as has been mentioned, out stockpiles and testing would be in a far better place. We would have suffered no matter what, but IMO it is unquestionably worse because of Trump.
 
RJKarl said:
It's not at all a false narrative. First of all he wouldn't have fired or demoted the people in the NSA who specialized in this arena. Next, he has professionals in his Administration not just a troop of yes people whose fealty to Trump is more important than their ability to protect Americans. Moreover, if Obama had been told on Jan. 3 a pandemic was coming, like Trump ignored, actions would have been started. Obama wouldn't have lied repeatedly to the American public about the disease. Obama would have listened to the doctors and scientists.

It's absolutely illogical to say what you did. Other than Trump acolytes and brainwashed followers, I doubt you'd find any rational person who would agree with your inane premise that the nation's response wouldn't have been much better, much more science based and more effective had Obama still been in office.

I'm not saying there wouldn't have been any problem, but eight years of evidence shows it would have been more professionally and effectively handled by Obama.
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I have the honor of working closely with an expert in this field, one who used to work at the CDC as the Associate Director of Policy. He was on the front lines of Ebola and SARS. He has noted to me several times that this was going to be really bad based on the epidemiology of the virus. It caught us (and the world) off guard in terms on how easily it spread etc. Short of a lock down month(s) before we did, this was going to be really bad based on the state of public health after arguably 2 decades of neglect and the virus itself.

PM if you want to chat more about my colleagues thoughts.

Hope everyone stays healthy.
 
On a different note, SCOTUS issued a big decision today in support of insurers and arguably the rule of law.

As a refresher, the ACA had a 3 year reinsurance program which was to provide a back stop against catastrophic losses and thereby encouraging exchange participation. When the shit hit the fan and insurers racked up huge losses 2014-2016 due to pricing uncertainty and other implementation screw ups, the Feds refused to pay (must be nice). Insurers sued and it ended up at SCOTUS. Decision was 8-1. I guess when the law says "shall pay" they really do mean "will pay"....Not sure of the political implications here given the program is over, but it is good to see the gov't being held accountable after the Trump administration basically said "sue us".
 
Former health care exec comes clean about spreading lies about Canada's health care system.

 
Trump administration filed their brief with the Supreme Court to overturn the ACA yesterday, with no plan for replacement. Which would reverse medicaid expansion and strike protections for those with pre-existing conditions, among other things. In the middle of a pandemic.
 
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