*** OFFICIAL 2020 Democratic Presidential Nomination Race Thread ***

[Dan Druff]

Biden laughably failed to defend attacks on Obamacare -- basically what he supports as his health care plan -- when his opponents were claiming that his insurance plan "leaves 10 million Americans not covered". What? Obamacare guarantees acceptance regardless of preexisting conditions, and also subsidizes healthcare (to the point of premiums being free) for low and lower-middle class Americans. So yes, his plan does cover everyone who puts out the most minimal effort to sign up. Sleepy Joe didn't articulate this and just uttered 1-liners like a dope.

The federal subsidies for a Obamacare plan issued by an private health insurance company are not sufficient enough to make health insurance affordable for millions of the working poor and lower middle class. That’s why the ACA also included the option for states to opt into expanding Medicaid to include individuals and families making too much income to qualify for pre-ACA Medicare but too little to afford a private Obamacare plan. And lots of “red” states refuse to accept expanded Medicare, leaving those folks out in the lurch re not being able to afford health care insurance.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...ured-obamacare

Then this could be tweaked to where these gaps could be covered. Not that I support this fully (the ACA is a disaster and needs to be torn down and replaced), but this isn't really a reason throw up your hands and replace ACA with socialized medicine.

BTW, you just heard one of the "working poor" on PFA Radio last night who has a free ACA plan. That would be one Ken Scalir. So it's BS to say that the "working poor" are left out. Honestly, when you cut through the BS of that Vox article, the real issue of uninsured comes from either people voluntarily choosing to skip having insurance (especially young people), and people who actually CAN afford the premiums based upon their income, but spend their money unwisely and then cant pay the premiums. But at some point, personal responsibility really needs to kick in.

I realize it's more complicated than that and there are some tweaks necessary to get more people covered, but honestly this isn't the major problem with the ACA. The ACA sucks because it's poorly written, it's based upon faulty economics, and most of the good doctors won't take it.