YWN666
Freelance Beer Tester
- Nov 11, 2008
- 3,209
- 453
- 98
https://www.newsday.com/opinion/ope...gs-but-it-s-certainly-not-socialism-1.6211076
You know who should be angry about Obamacare? Real socialists. The tea party opponents of the Affordable Care Act promised them a government incursion that the new law does not deliver.
Think back to the rallies of 2009 and 2010. All those signs mocking President Obama with the word socialist emblazoned upon them were as common as Gadsden ("Don't Tread on Me") flags. But the health-care exchanges that launched Tuesday bear no resemblance to what Merriam-Webster defines as "a way of organizing a society in which major industries are owned and controlled by the government rather than by individual people and companies." And actual socialists have noticed.
"Obamacare cannot be considered socialist in any way," according to Greg Pason, the national secretary for Socialist Party USA.
"The ACA program relies on private health insurance companies to manage health services," Pason said. "A socialized system would not include 'health insurance,' but would be an actual national health-care system which would be publicly funded through progressive taxation and controlled by democratically elected assemblies of health-care workers and patients."
He's right. Under the ACA, health insurance in America is still being delivered by private practitioners and paid for by private insurers. In fact, the vast majority of Americans who receive their health insurance from employer-paid plans will see no discernible change in their coverage or delivery, and need not access the exchanges. The only people who have to access the exchanges are the uninsured or those in the individual market (the 12 million to 15 million who purchase insurance for themselves). Soon, small businesses with 50 or fewer workers will go on the "SHOP exchange." Seniors are another group that should experience no change.
"Those who are reliant on Medicare need not be concerned, either," Mary Agnes Carey of Kaiser Health News told me. "Medicare has its own separate enrollment period. It starts in just a couple of weeks. The Medicare enrollment period is if you want to switch within Medicare to a different plan. ... But regarding the Affordable Care Act and the health insurance exchanges, you don't have to do anything."..............................................
You know who should be angry about Obamacare? Real socialists. The tea party opponents of the Affordable Care Act promised them a government incursion that the new law does not deliver.
Think back to the rallies of 2009 and 2010. All those signs mocking President Obama with the word socialist emblazoned upon them were as common as Gadsden ("Don't Tread on Me") flags. But the health-care exchanges that launched Tuesday bear no resemblance to what Merriam-Webster defines as "a way of organizing a society in which major industries are owned and controlled by the government rather than by individual people and companies." And actual socialists have noticed.
"Obamacare cannot be considered socialist in any way," according to Greg Pason, the national secretary for Socialist Party USA.
"The ACA program relies on private health insurance companies to manage health services," Pason said. "A socialized system would not include 'health insurance,' but would be an actual national health-care system which would be publicly funded through progressive taxation and controlled by democratically elected assemblies of health-care workers and patients."
He's right. Under the ACA, health insurance in America is still being delivered by private practitioners and paid for by private insurers. In fact, the vast majority of Americans who receive their health insurance from employer-paid plans will see no discernible change in their coverage or delivery, and need not access the exchanges. The only people who have to access the exchanges are the uninsured or those in the individual market (the 12 million to 15 million who purchase insurance for themselves). Soon, small businesses with 50 or fewer workers will go on the "SHOP exchange." Seniors are another group that should experience no change.
"Those who are reliant on Medicare need not be concerned, either," Mary Agnes Carey of Kaiser Health News told me. "Medicare has its own separate enrollment period. It starts in just a couple of weeks. The Medicare enrollment period is if you want to switch within Medicare to a different plan. ... But regarding the Affordable Care Act and the health insurance exchanges, you don't have to do anything."..............................................
