Yes, health insurance costs rise every year. Partly due to increasing costs, but also due to the age of the insured.
The question isn’t whether the ACA raised costs—those were always going to go up. The question is whether a the ACA made them go up less than not having it. For me, the before and after trend was remarkable. And I had higher quality insurance without lifetime maximums or arbitrary exclusions.
Republicans did their level best to neuter the bill and prevent Democrats from having a “win,” and for the most part, I’d say they succeeded. The lack of a public option and the removal of mandatory coverage were both important parts of making it work well. But in the first 5 years or so, it was definitely an improvement. I think it could be again… if Republicans cared more about serving the country than pandering to their base.
No. That wasn't the promise. Obama said that his plan was going to cut a family's bills by $2500.
Now you may say that inflation has to creep in and I think that's fair. If oil rises in price, that affects everything. But the premise was always that the magic of the ACA would lower premiums.
I recall the "magic" of the aca actually being focused on junk insurance so bad they look like scams, a marketplace to facilitate apples-to-apples competition, and most importantly, making it illegal to deny coverage to people because of genetic tests or public/stolen information like that (a great thing to see the 23&me breach coming).
My impression was it would be painful in a lot of ways but we need better competition and better protection in order to have the private insurance industry actually work for people instead of abuse them and health insurance is too important (and complicated, and too much history of dishonesty) for laissez faire.
The question isn’t whether the ACA raised costs—those were always going to go up. The question is whether a the ACA made them go up less than not having it. For me, the before and after trend was remarkable. And I had higher quality insurance without lifetime maximums or arbitrary exclusions.
Republicans did their level best to neuter the bill and prevent Democrats from having a “win,” and for the most part, I’d say they succeeded. The lack of a public option and the removal of mandatory coverage were both important parts of making it work well. But in the first 5 years or so, it was definitely an improvement. I think it could be again… if Republicans cared more about serving the country than pandering to their base.