Every American loves someone who will soon have existential need of Obamacare

Actually, the Final Solution is Single Payer Healthcare.

Before long, Single Payer will be the only way to save our tush.

At http://blogs.ngm.com/blog_central/2009/12/the-cost-of-care.html, Click to enlarge graphic.

Dear J,

Thanks for your email.

Obamacare is an overarching, comprehensive system for American healthcare.

Within this overarching system, Medicare (as we currently know it) will remain unchanged. (Nota Bene: Romney-Ryan represent mortal threat to Medicare. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/10/romney-ryan-medicare-vouchers-are.html)

Fundamentally, Obamacare is a plan to achieve "universal" healthcare. It accomplishes this goal by using the conservative Republican model set forth by Mitt Romney and the Heritage-Foundation. 

Central to the success of the Romneycare-Obamacare is The Individual Mandate.

Here is the linchpin: Additional "mandated" money will be paid by healthy young people -- who, in the past, have foregone purchase of private health insurance. This influx of "young blood" (and money) will provide funding to pay the cost of insurance for everyone.

Since Romneycare-Obamacare are "free market" solutions, there is a lot of competition and newly devised diversity, including so-called "health exchanges" in which individual citizens who previously "paid retail" can now purchase insurance "wholesale."  (Over time, it has become clear that an "individual mandate" is THE ONLY WAY to enact a "free market" solution to the requirements of universal healthcare.) 

Do not concern yourself with the (distracting) "structural details" of Obamacare, but focus instead on the the following fundamentals:

1.) Under Obamacare, Medicare coverage will remain the same as it is now but will operate within a new structural framework that encourages increasingly intelligent solutions while minimizing waste and fraud.

2.) Under Obamacare, Medicaid coverage will expand to include poor people who cannot currently afford private insurance.

3.) The federal government will provide monetary supplement to those families who are not eligible for Medicare or Medicaid so that they can purchase private insurance that is currently either too expensive for them or would impose financial hardship on the family budget.

Everything else is detail. 

Do not get lost in the weeds. 

The GOP's deliberate decision to "get lost in the weeds" is what prevents Americans from seeing Obamacare as beneficially  as they see Social Security. 

Mark my words. If Romney were to repeal Obamacare, (which he has no intention of doing because too many Big Business sectors want Obamacare), then you, I and every other American will - within ten years - have a loved one who cannot afford health insurance. As a result, our loved ones will die early or endure lasting physical damage that Obamacare would have prevented.

Here is a webpage that explains Obamacare simply. http://politicalirony.com/2012/07/02/obamacare-explained-so-everyone-can-understand-it/  This webpage includes the following link to a more detailed explanation of Obamacare. http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/vrt9x/obamacare_pointbypoint/ (This webpage provides waayyyyyy more information than you need.)

Basically, Obamacare is Romneycare (first implemented in Massachusetts in 2006).

Notably, Romneycare is applauded by a decisive majority of satisfied Massachusetts residents. 

 1.) http://politicalirony.com/2012/07/02/obamacare-explained-so-everyone-can-understand-it/

 2.) http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/wonkbook-romneycare-is-working----and-obamacare-might-be-too/2012/02/27/gIQAOoJedR_blog.html

Excerpt: "Romneycare succeeded in expanding access to health care in Massachusetts. Over 95 percent of the state's residents are insured. It's also popular. A February poll found that 62 percent approved of the law, and only 33 percent disapproved. Whether it's controlling costs has been less obvious."

In American politics, such lofty approval (coupled with such limited disapproval) indicates political satisfaction of a very high order. 

Remember. 

In any society, 25% o 30% of the population is made up of religious fanatics and ungodly rich people.

Both these constituencies will, by their nature, complain stridently about any policy not based on totally unregulated laissez faire free markets. 

Yes, free markets are powerful engines of productivity and efficiency. But they also sacrifice large numbers of intractably needy people to the crunching jaws of Social Darwinism. 

Sure, America can go there. 

But when we get there, we will find ourselves in "Sudan."

The irony, of course, is that religious fanatics (and other "conservatives") quickly assume that programs like Social Security and Medicare were handed down by God Himself - newly dispensed 11th and 12th commandments. 

Given the brevity of Americans' "historical memory," "whiney conservative gringos" immediately forget that these "socialist" programs have are rooted in long, hard, liberal-and-progressive struggle against the dead-weight of American "conservatism." 

World War II bomber pilot George McGovern put it best: http://humanities.psydeshow.org/political/mcgovern.htm

Mark my words. If Etch-a-Sketch is elected, Medicare will immediately embark a downhill slope deliberately designed to become more precipitous with the passage of time. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/10/romney-ryan-medicare-vouchers-are.html

Pax

Alan

On Sat, Oct 13, 2012 at 9:14 AM, john tarantino <john_tarantino@bellsouth.net> wrote:

Alan, I'm confused about Obamacare. Will we have two options for our health care? like my current medicare. Or, will it become automatic that everone will move over to Obama care? Explain please.

John

----- Original Message -----

From: Alan Archibald

To: Rich Shaw

Cc: Holly Reid ; Denise Dickinson

Sent: Friday, October 12, 2012 10:29 PM

Subject: Frontline, Medicare and The GOP's Trojan Horse

Dear R,

Thanks for your company today and for suggesting we visit the Pittsboro Food    Co-op.

Here is the link to that new Frontline documentary which tracks the lives for Obama and Romney. It is entitled, "The Choice, 2012" and is superb. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/choice-2012/

And here is a post about the $90 billion "green energy" figure bandied in the first debate which we also discussed on the road home to Hillsborough. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/10/did-obama-really-spend-90-billion-on.html

If interested, here is my post devoted to New York Times' "live" fact-checking of the Biden-Ryan debate. 

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/10/new-york-times-fact-checks-biden-ryan.html

Finally, I draw your attention to "Comparing Republican and Democratic Medicare Claims." 

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/10/new-york-times-fact-checks-biden-ryan.html

Medicare vouchers are the Trojan Horse deceptively designed by the GOP to build a beachhead that will gut government social services, making the public sector as "pay to play" as the private sector.  http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/10/comparing-republican-and-democratic.html

Pax,

Alan

(I have posted this correspondence at http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/10/romney-ryan-medicare-vouchers-are.html)

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