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The ugly duckling of Obamacare is showing a few minor signs that it may yet turn into a cygnet, but how long before it matures into a swan?
Positive endorsements from satisfied recipients of new medical insurance coverage give us hope after the negativism of the last three years and then the hopeless launching of the scheme. I'm happy for the satisfied citizens and an improvement in public health and hope, beyond hope, that the younger and healthier elements of our population will start to sign up. Right now, I see an increased drainage of government money in the direction of subsidies for the less wealthy of the new sign-ups, without any apparent financial stress to the medical insurance companies involved. We really need the young folks to bulk up the insurance pools, but I'm puzzled as to whether this diminishes the drain on government money or not. The hope is that lower premiums will ensue, but I'm sure the medical insurance companies will not be the losers in this whereas the government may.
Congress faces a long haul as bits and pieces of the ACA are cleaned up and we can adopt a system of least drainage on the government coffers. We beat around the bush, endlessly, where health care is concerned, yet a system similar to "Medicare for all" seems the best bet for now. This gives maximum flexibility for people as they move from job to job, from one income level to another, or one age group to another; there is one central administrative point allowing efficiency in the dispensing of money to the medical industry and, therefore, a following shrinkage in the needed industries' billing departments. It's a hot potato to suggest and handle, but the VA system could be cut back to a large extent if its monies were absorbed into such a Medicare system and ex-service people then treated in the general civilian system.
Donald Hart, Baltimore
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