On 2 Nov 2013, at 8:29, Lisa XXXXX wrote:

> We actually have a really good policy with United HeatlhCare, which is
> getting cancelled – we have had the insurance for almost 15 years now. Also,
> the insurance at my work will (because of Obamacare – it says so on the
> paperwork they sent) no longer cover my spouse if he can get coverage through
> his own employer (which he can). Also, because of Obamacare, the premiums
> are going up under my company’s insurance (yes, it says that on the
> paperwork, too).

Insurance companies that are strapped because of ever increasing medical care prices (with no end in sight) are more than happy to blame their impending bankruptcy on anything other than they can’t make the same profit the had been making. If Obamacare had not come along, it would have been something else.

The fact is they have been increasing their cost to employers every year, and various thresholds are eventually met where employers can’t afford it anymore and still make their own profit margins. Obama is the best diversion that ever happened to them. It gives them an excuse.

In fact, what I *think* I see is that Obamacare really is just a signpost along the way to full single payer government health care in the USA for several convincing reasons:

1. The price of health care shows no signs of any *real* decrease in price over time. It continues to climb yearly and the occasional smidge dip lower than usual means nothing. It’s like celebrating because the price of gasoline went down five cents from four dollars a gallon to three ninety five. The long term is that it’s going up and will continue to do so as long as we run a “customer satisfaction maxim”.

2. The private sector of health care insurance will eventually find that it can no longer make a profit. Most will tank for the simple reason that they cannot risk-manage. If they MUST accept every applicant and they can’t charge the sicker ones more or dump them like auto insurers do, think about how long that situation can last.

3. When the day comes that the private health insurance sector gives up the ghost, and that day will come, there is only ONE sector that can accommodate taking care of the entire citizenry, warts and all, without going broke from feeding the endless desires of the endlessly sick. The government because it can simply tax it away, or hide it with the already big national debt.

4. Everyone now is fixated with the seeming evils of the ACA of 2008, which stripped to it’s essence is not really a bad plan. Especially not if you compare it to what’s coming. If the forces of *real* evil, the same guys that literally want to take the food out of the mouthes of the disadvantaged are successful in killing the ACA, then in one step we go right back to the private sector that refuses to insure or underinsure at least 30% possibly 40% of the American public.

5. A third of the American public at risk for financial collapse if one of the family unit gets unexpectedly sick is a VERY VERY big problem for the country. Every nickel it WILL take to keep them literally alive will come out of the tax base. So pay me now or pay me later as the band plays on.

6. Those standing in front of CNN camera holding big “No Government Medicine” signs are clueless. Guess what? Fully 50% of the American population, possibly more are already covered by some form of government medicine, including I might add, the same Republican senators and congressmen that want to destroy it.

7. A big majority of the rest of the world manages to indemnify their ENTIRE population with (their) government sponsored health care and last time I looked, they’re still managing. these governments have in the past learned the lesson we’re about to learn, that open-ended demand for health care services cannot be sustained. It must be rationed in some form, hopefully intelligently designed.

So, Lisa, I very strongly suspect the change, when it comes, and it will, possibly in my lifetime, will be that you’ll be complaining you have to wait a month for a non-emergent MRI and also a month for non-emergent surgery. But what you won’t complain about is if you get unexpectedly sick because your former employee insurance has dumped you, you’re liable for financial ruin forever.