This is a huge topic, the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. As a titular socialist I have long called for a single payer system similar to what they have in Canada. I have been known to call the American healthcare system the best that money can buy but I don't even know if that's true any more. So much to address here.
Like most Democrats I was expecting big things when Obama came to office. I think most of us were expecting a real attempt to do something to change the way healthcare is distributed in this country. Well, that among many other things.
Despite the rantings of the Right we literally got nothing. The level of disappointment with this president is so strong that I don't even feel I can support a Dem in the future (except Elizabeth Warren). Not that I would consider voting for anybody on the Right but I am just numb right now. And I know I am not alone.
Since Obama has been in office we've gotten nothing but rhetoric on reigning in the financial service and banking industries. Guantanamo is still open. Well you get the picture. Nothing has been done to control the gun violence in this country, people are still being ripped off at a record rate by any number of businesses out there. I have no idea what has been happening over the past five years.
The amazing healthcare compromise has been just that. A plan that was created by the Heritage Foundation, one of the most conservative DC think tanks, and implemented in Massachusetts by a Republican governor was the answer to our prayers for healthcare reform. From a president the Right describes as one of the most radical leftist politicians in the history of the presidency if not US history in general. See stories on record stock market levels in answer to this.
Everything is still in place. Same hospital administrators, same insurance companies. All that has changed is young people can stay on their parents' plans longer and people can't be turned down or cancelled for pre-existing conditions. I know there are other things in the act that make policies better but here's the rub:
I really don't know what's in there. I watch the news every day. Literally. If not MSNBC then Al Jazeera America. You would think I would have some clue. I read USA Today and the Huffington Post daily as well. Nothing. I am totally in the dark.
I went to healthcare.gov within the first few days of it being up and had been trying to read up on how I should go about getting coverage through the Kaiser Family Foundation website. The healthcare.gov website I won't dwell on. The problems there have been well covered. But it really seems like some amateurs put that thing together. I mean things where if I had gone to one of the offices where they were putting the thing together I would have said in the first thirty minutes oh hey, that needs to be fixed.
An example, just entering my freaking name. Yea that early into the experience. My name is the same as my great grandfather so I am a second, you know, II. There was no option for that on the drop down menu. There was Jr., Sr., III, IV. That means that whoever was doing that basic coding thinks that Jr. and II are the same thing. This is a common misconception but it is a misconception. A junior is named after the father. A second is named after another ancestor. Pretty basic. I mean how could that glaring of an error slip through the cracks? And that's probably a thirty second fix.
After selecting junior just to get through that part of the process I got hung up on identity verification like most people did in the early going.
Okay, well I'm in Alabama and from what I understand, when I am working I won't be making enough money to be eligible for Obamacare. The subsidies would be too costly. So I am one of many who should be using Medicare instead. Well Alabama is one of the several red states who chose not to set up public exchanges or expand Medicare for people like me. So ....
I'm not eligible for anything. Well technically I am now because I'm unemployed but when I do find work I will be back to being in that red state hole. So what do I do? Will I have to pay a penalty for not having a plan? No clue. Three years in and I can't find an answer to that. Nobody is covering that on the news. How many people are there out there in my situation? I would guess millions. But it's not being addressed.
I am on the Obama mailing list. I received a questionnaire from them a couple weeks back that I agreed to answer. It was all about public response to Obamacare. Did I know anybody signing up, that sort of thing. The answer was no. Nobody I know is talking about anything but how screwed up it is. Maybe it's just because I am in the middle of a patch of ignorance but literally nobody I have known is talking about signing up at all.
To add insult to injury, asking me to leave comments at the end of the questionnaire which I know won't be read by anybody, I was directed to a page asking me to give money to help spread the word. Seriously. You can waste time on questionnaires that are utterly meaningless when I still don't know what the hell is going on? And then ask me, an unemployed and disgruntled to say the least Dem for money? You really need a huge pair to go there.
Three years into this program and there has been almost no attempt to educate people on a large scale. I would be willing to bet that the majority of people who will end up on some kind of plan have no idea what to do right now at all. It's understandable that sign ups to this point have been so low; nobody knows what they're supposed to do. If a news consumer like me doesn't know then I can only imagine the general ignorance of the topic in the mainstream.
I do sincerely hope that things work out and in the future all of this turns out to be a boon to the average American. But as of now this is just a debacle of epic proportions. The administration needs to come up with a real and workable strategy of public outreach. I think, at this point, every mailbox in this country should have received a mailer explaining at least what the first steps should be for every American with a number for a hotline to answer questions. Perhaps something on the scale of the census going door to door to explain things.
Instead I fear that there will be a huge number of Americans who have to find out what to do after they receive notice of their first financial penalty.
At the very least the administration should be sending out a team of people to hit the major networks and try to explain everything instead of letting the usual pundits on the right and left spin things on their own. Right now I'm watching Chris Matthews ask liberal pundits their reaction to Republicans calling this Obama's Katrina. The answer to that is it doesn't matter; he's not going to be running again. Talk about people like me who need to know if it will feel like Katrina to me.
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