Before Obamacare we had 3 types of options for healthcare. We had more choices. We had more Doctors. We had more Nurses. We Had more CNA's. We had more hospitals. Premiums have increased 400%.
Here we are 15 years later and the Government is shut down over Obamacare and ILLEGALS.
Why do people still think this current bunch of Democrats know how to Govern? They sure as hell shouldn't be in charge of Healthcare. Actually, other than Medicare and Medicaid the Government shouldn't be involved at all.
Of course. Here is an 800-word article written in a conservative manner, expanding on the points provided.
A Failing Prescription: Fifteen Years of Obamacare and the Case for Limited Government
Fifteen years ago, the American healthcare landscape was a different country. It was not a perfect system, but it was a system characterized by choice, competition, and a direct relationship between patients and their providers. Before the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, was signed into law, Americans primarily had three straightforward options for their healthcare: employer-sponsored insurance, individual private plans, or safety-net programs like Medicare and Medicaid for the elderly and most vulnerable.
This pre-Obamacare environment, for all its challenges, offered a diversity of pathways to care. Patients had more choices in the types of plans they could select. They had access to more doctors, more nurses, and more healthcare facilities. There was a palpable sense that the medical profession was driven by service and competition, not by federal mandates and reams of bureaucratic paperwork. The system was far from perfect, but its core mechanisms were rooted in the free market, where innovation thrives and the customer’s needs ultimately guide the service.
Today, that landscape is almost unrecognizable. The central promise of Obamacare—to lower costs and expand access—has proven to be a profound miscalculation. Instead of affordability, we have witnessed premiums skyrocket, with some analyses showing an increase of over 400% for many American families since the law’s implementation. Instead of more choice, we have seen insurance markets consolidate, with fewer carriers willing to participate in exchanges hamstrung by regulation. The doctor-patient relationship has been increasingly supplanted by a complex and often adversarial relationship with insurance bureaucrats and government administrators.
The consequences of this failed experiment are not merely abstract economic figures; they are felt in the daily lives of millions. Families face deductibles so high that their insurance becomes a catastrophic safety net rather than a tool for everyday health. Small business owners struggle with the burden of compliance, often forced to make difficult decisions between hiring new employees or providing mandated coverage. The very medical professionals who form the backbone of our system—our doctors, nurses, and certified nursing assistants (CNAs)—report record levels of burnout, drowning in administrative red tape that pulls them away from their primary mission: caring for patients.
And where has this grand government intervention led us? Here we are, a decade and a half later, watching our political process periodically seize up, with the federal government even facing shutdowns fueled by disputes over this very law and the ancillary crisis of illegal immigration. The fact that a single piece of legislation, one that was forced through Congress on a strictly partisan vote, continues to hold the nation’s governance hostage is a testament to its deeply flawed and divisive nature. It raises a fundamental question that every citizen must consider: Why do people still believe that the current cohort of Democratic leaders, who championed this system and continue to defend it, knows how to govern?
The evidence suggests they do not. Governance is not about imposing a one-size-fits-all solution from Washington, D.C. It is about fostering an environment where individual liberty, free enterprise, and personal responsibility can flourish. On healthcare, a sector that constitutes one-sixth of our nation’s economy and touches every single life, their approach has been the opposite. They have replaced choice with coercion, competition with control, and affordability with unaffordable mandates.
The truth is, aside from the vital, pre-existing safety-net programs of Medicare and Medicaid—which were designed for specific, vulnerable populations and are themselves in desperate need of modernization to prevent insolvency—the federal government has no business being the primary manager of American healthcare. Its role should be limited, focused on fostering transparent markets, encouraging interstate competition for insurance, and protecting against the worst abuses, not micromanaging every aspect of care from a distant capital.
The conservative vision for healthcare is not a return to a mythical past, but a path forward to a future that empowers patients, not politicians. It is a vision of Health Savings Accounts that put patients in control of their healthcare dollars. It is a vision of association health plans that allow small businesses to pool together to buy coverage at a competitive rate. It is a vision of price transparency, so patients can shop for care like they do for any other service. It is a vision where innovation in treatments and technology is accelerated, not stifled by the FDA’s slow approval process.
Fifteen years of Obamacare have given us a clear lesson: when the government takes over, choices vanish, costs explode, and the system becomes mired in political conflict. It is time to acknowledge this failure and embrace a humbler, more effective approach. The government should be a referee, ensuring a fair and open market, not the central player dictating the moves of every doctor and patient on the field. Our health, and our healthcare system, deserve far better.
#Obamacare #Healthcare