EmmaR, that is not entirely correct. The ACA does impact Medicare. There are $700million of Medicare cuts in the ACA. Unfortunately, I don't think anyone really knows what they are. That is partly where all the talk of "death panels" comes from. Whether you believe it or not; there are going to be some kind of reductions in Medicare services - who knows what they are. Unless you are VERY poor, or in one of the privileged groups getting exemptions you are going to be paying more, much more, for your healthcare for a number of reasons. You can't add millions of people to the free healthcare rolls without the money coming from someplace. Additionally, not near enough young healthy people will ever sign up to pay for this program. As of today, some 5 million people have LOST there healthcare and only about 300,000 have signed up. So right now there are several MORE million people without healthcare than before all this started. Just the opposite of what was intended. Anyone, and I mean anyone, who is not in a privileged group and makes more than about $25K a year will not be able to afford the new costs or will be paying much more. You can go to a several sites to see rates and costs now. One of the easiest to use is healthsherpa.com. You just put in your zip code, age, and income and see all the plans with there costs, subsidies, out of pocket expenses and co-pays. If you are a middle income person/family the costs are scary. None of this even addresses the fact that the federal system to actually pay your premiums is not yet useable or even in place. So no matter what you have signed up for, unless you are making payments, you don't have insurance. I don't even want to get into the doctor shortage issue that will become painfully clear as time passes; or the fact that millions more will lose insurance when there companies drop them next year.

kswl -- Well said. @ollliesmom - Of course there are people who did not want to sign up. There are states that are not making it easier. But it still does fill a need. Very imperfectly and sometimes badly. No question. It's infuriating all around. A friend of mine is a cancer survivor. She has been signed up with the only plan in my state that accepts the cancer hospital she goes to. Her plan has gone bankrupt. It's not clear what will happen. She has a little more than 2 weeks to figure it out. Fortunately, the hospital is large and influential and fighting for a longer extension. I'm all for capitalism and profit making. But if we must do it at the cost of the lives and health of our citizens, so that the president of health insurance company can have a private plane, then we need to ask ourselves what's important in our country and our culture.

Olliesmom, thank you for providing an explanation. I had the same problem on my pre-existing condition. One of the doctors that I worked with said that she would back me up all the way and what I found is that when the matter went to a review board the insurer had to admit there was not really a problem and give me a policy. I wonder if you can employ the same strategy (review board) to reduce your costs. Rather then hit Obamacare, maybe we should start a dialogue on the many sources of our current problems. Unfortunately the trend is to pick up a gun and shoot anybody we perceive as the source of our problems or who we think does not agree with our solution or who we think shouldn't exist anyway... Perhaps we can start one of those massive open online classes (MOOC) on the subject of how to have a dialogue without having a war, how to disagree politely, how to negotiate, how to have a difference of opinion and not use a gun…how, for instance, our politicians could actually work together to get something done in Washington.… Once we can get to the dialogue stage, I would like to open a discussion on how to fix Obamacare. Maybe it needs to be fixed or maybe it is just one cog in a much larger wheel of things that needs to be fixed. I can say with certainty that someone is making a profit on our health insurance misery. To me, that is just not right. My portion of my last employer "provided" PPO for profit premium was 700+ a month ( reportedly, this amount was one third of the actual cost) . My last policy directly with Kaiser reportedly a nonprofit HMO cost about $450 per month. So one possibility could be that we re-examine whether health insurance should be "for profit ." Not for profit, of course, shots the capitalist cow. We can't do that. No, no, no. Currently unfettered capitalism is non-negotiable, kind of like the NRA on guns. Actuaries also play political games and can be instrumental in swaying votes by setting premiums. The insurance companies want to get rid of Obamacare, and, oh surprise, premiums are really high! Going to go higher! Yes, I believe there is a political relationship between the continued existence of Obamacare and the premium you are paying. The actual economics of the situation are much less important. With the failure of the GOP, many "conservatives" are now proclaiming that they are libertarians. Libertarians pursue the "principle of nonaggression" which means that they don't tell people how to spend their money or live their lives. What they don't discuss openly is the fact that they seem intent on making sure no one else has money to spend and that really determines how you will live your life. Consider the subhuman Shrekli who is not just happy to raise the price of the drug, but raised it deliberately to the point where it is unaffordable (from $13+/month to $700+/month) and even though lack of the drug will literally kill people, he thinks it's funny. He appears to giggle about it. To me, this is the new face of the politics-laughing at others' misery (or outright ridiculing them). At this point, I do believe that the entire grand plan is to make sure that every penny the middle class has goes into the billionaires' pockets. In fact the billionaires were instrumental in getting the inheritance section of the tax code rewritten to ensure that the money stays in their pockets or in the pockets of the corporations they own and does not go anywhere other than to their children. Then there are corporations, they have perpetual existence and therefore have an opportunity to amass much greater amounts of wealth then any natural person. The current trend in estate planning is to set up a family office-a family owned corporation (or LLC or other entity) holding company that can exist in perpetuity. Maybe we should re-level the playing field by forcing these entities to disband every 70 years? The majority ownership of many significant corporations is defintely held by millionaires, wanna be billionaires. The billionaires want there to be nothing for you and certainly nothing for your children. They can most easily accomplish that with healthcare because you will be willing to pay/pay more in order to stay alive. They do not want benefits. They do not want pensions. They do not want minimum-wage. Eventually, in order to eat you will be happy to accept food for your labor. And if you have to sleep in a ditch, oh well. The fact that the Koch brothers' (they are libertarians) fortune was made in relation to Nazi Germany, a place where they worked slaves to death, doesn't exactly give me the warm fuzzies... Although it is amusing to watch the brothers realize that they may end up voting for Hillary, a woman they have spent millions of dollars trying to destroy, over Trump. You can see from the above but there's a lot to be discussed. And I'm sure you have your own opinions on everything that I've mentioned. But can we have a dialogue?

I know I've said this before but as a Canadian I had to have emergency surgery at the ER earlier this year. Walked in, didn't even have my health card because it was expired, walked out later that night never having signed anything or pay a cent. called the billing clerk at the hospital the next week with my new expiry date and she already had it. No muss no fuss no worries and no cash involved. I pay approximately 50% of my income in taxes and federal contributions off the top plus 15% sales tax on many items and services and I'm happy to do so. In return I have access to equitable and excellent public schools, Canada pension plan and employment insurance. Oh and it takes about 15 minutes to do my tax return. there are four main ways the Canadian System saves money and promotes efficiency: 1. Prices for services are set by the provincial governments who act as the public insurer. as we discussed for example a single issue office visit at a GP is $30 In my province. 2. A whole huge layer of middleman and complexity is removed because the system is so simple. What might be a whole wing for billing in an American hospital is a room in a Canadian hospital. Not to mention we don't have intermediate insurers taking a cut. 3. Government negotiate the price of prescription drugs. 4. Family doctors are trained to act as gatekeepers and cost managers. For example if they can solve your problem they wont refer you to a specialist. there's no such thing as an MRI on demand In Nova Scotia unless you want to pay $900 for a private one. This is the most frustrating aspect of the system. but it does make sense, essentially if you're demanding a bunch of testing that doesn't fit the gold standard of care you were likely to be denied.