>>>From where I'm at, had the ACA existed 2 months sooner I would not be in debt $350,000 so for me that is a pretty darn good argument for the ACA.
>
>Yes... the out of pocket maximums and disallowance of pre-existing exclusions would have helped you heaps if you weren't able to access Hawaii's SHOP/Prepaid plans which are better than ACA on paper.
>
>But IMHO the ACA still shows all the PAYG faults, relying on huge subsidies rather than invested surplus to make policies "affordable." If society/taxpayer needs to pay massive subsidies to make a "private" scheme work, why perpetuate a system and allow huge dividends out of a model that by any business definition, already is a failure?
>
>>>As I've said before, it's not perfect but it's a step in the right direction. I don't want to rehash things I've said before, but as someone who's worked in the healthcare industry for many years I know that overall we're better off with it than before it existed.
>
>The likes of KG may recall that this has been my argument for the ACA since day 1, with calculations that the previous scheme had at most a decade before failure. Though the ACA has even less time: MHO it was a mistake a) to downplay the size and duration of required subsidies and b) not to be stricter about individual mandate. E.g. you could have wangled a mandate exemption - and maybe would have? Of course now that there's no individual mandate and subsidies in doubt, the ACA cannot possibly survive- insurers will have to bail even if they closely enforce open enrollment to prevent people waiting to be sick till they insure.

The ACA was doomed before it passed.
You just can't do things on that scale without a single vote from the other side.
The repub tax bill will be manna from heaven for the dems, if they handle it as well as the repubs handled the ACA.