Already posted most of my thoughts on this here. Just about everything I've seen defending the ACA based on actual outcomes is anectdotal. I'm glad Bob is alive. He seems like a good guy. I understand he's convinced this is only true because of the ACA. Maybe he's right. But in the broad picture, outcomes have not improved. We have great statistics on death in the US, by age, cause, and in many cases also wealth. They do not paint a rosy picture of the ACA. Which is why, so many years in, defenders are still talking about "coverage," as if somehow this had superseded actually keeping people alive and well as the primary goal of the healthcare system.

Dahs. I take no issues with your analytical summary. From that perspective the ACA MAY not be the answer to our healthcare problem(s).
But it WAS an attempt to address the problem. Perhaps, flawed, BUT a try at a (partial) solution.

To be specific, what the ACA did for me (to keep me alive and able to be here or anywhere) was allow ACCESS to the insurance world/coverage.
The access allowed me to become insured.
Buy purchasing affordable (for me) insurance.
There was NO KNOWN pre-existing conditions yet I had been (effectively/practically) denied coverage. At least at an affordable expense for adequate coverage. That category existed for many self employed very small (o employees) type individuals. There just wasn't ANY "group" that we could access to get rates that everyone else can get thru employers, etc.

Short story. ACA. I buy Insurance for the 1st time in over 10 years.
I have a heart attack 9 months later.

Without ACA my (mild) heart attack would NOT have resulted in my visit to the Dr.
No EKG, no Cardiologist examination of said EKG.
No diagnoses of my blocked arteries.

Uninsured, as I was prior to the ACCESS afforded/required of insurers I would NOT have learned of my condition.
I WOULD be dead. Years ago now.

The FACT that I had ACA ALLOWED me the ability to GO see the Doc.
Without that I be dead.
Plus the insurance paid for NEARLY all of my stent procedures!
I'm very thankful.

And it isn't the ONLY thing that President Obama did very effectively as our President IMO.
He led.
Simply.

I'm not sure where you are getting your sources on morbidity and such. I looked up some CDC data and the death rate has fallen since 2010, and life expectancy has risen. Furthermore, correlation doesn't equal causation. Even if your argument were to be true, I'm not certain that you could link it to the ACA.

https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/NCHS-Death-rates-and-life-expectancy-at-birth/w9j2-ggv5

Health care costs have been rising for decades now; I have read research asserting that the ACA has slowed this rise (From what I understand, the economic consensus is that long term, the ACA is better for our deficit and for health care spending). I would agree with you that the ACA was a bandaid on a bullet wound, but just asserting that it didn't solve everything doesn't make it a bad policy.

The majority of my research on the subject has agreed that the ACA was a net positive for America. If you want, I can link some.

Here's one:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5886019/

Simply pointing out that the ACA hasn't dramatically increased health in America over its lifespan isn't enough. You would need further research to prove that your argument was actually linked to the ACA. For instance, without it, it's possible that health outcomes would be substantially worse.

Even granting you all of that, your argument would still boil down to "American healthcare doesn't help sick people." You might be right on that, but this argument isn't a criticism of the ACA. If you are right on this, the ACA would still be a necessary first step - if we were to improve health care outcomes, we would want people to actually have healthcare.

Posted by coreander on 6/13/2020 2:07:00 PM (view original):
Chaz is representative of a new hope for our country! Two of my best friends are staying there right now and have told me the media coverage of Chaz is not even close to accurate. Just a bunch of peaceful antiracists looking for an alternative to our capitalist police state :)

If they literally start taking up arms to fight the government, I would have a problem with that. I haven't seen anything from CHAZ that gives me caution. It's just reactionaries trying to make the moderates scared. It'll work on people like guitarguy (no offense).

I'm confused, though. Isn't this the world that 2A people wanted? Didn't white ppl already try a similar stunt?

Posted by tangplay on 6/13/2020 3:51:00 PM (view original):

Posted by coreander on 6/13/2020 2:07:00 PM (view original):
Chaz is representative of a new hope for our country! Two of my best friends are staying there right now and have told me the media coverage of Chaz is not even close to accurate. Just a bunch of peaceful antiracists looking for an alternative to our capitalist police state :)

If they literally start taking up arms to fight the government, I would have a problem with that. I haven't seen anything from CHAZ that gives me caution. It's just reactionaries trying to make the moderates scared. It'll work on people like guitarguy (no offense).

I'm confused, though. Isn't this the world that 2A people wanted? Didn't white ppl already try a similar stunt?

FYI, I did see your response to my BLM post, and I'm not ignoring it. My daughter has been sick (not seriously sick, and she's much better now, but it was her first time with a fever and she just didn't know what was going on and needed extra snuggles) and I've been largely using WIS from my phone. I didn't want to get into unpacking all of that without a real keyboard.

I bring this up because you made a similar argument there, IE it's not the fault of the activists, it's the fault of the reactionary right. I don't buy this. If you're genuinely trying to generate social change you want to win over the moderates. If you want to win over the moderates you need to control the narrative. There will always be things out of your control, but when opposition headlines are easy to foresee then if you actually want to generate change, rather than just making noise, you avoid leaning into them. This applies to the avid rejection of "all lives matter" rhetoric, and it applies here in spades. Even if it isn't really threatening or violent, a quasi-militaristic take over of part of a city, including public buildings, obviously invited mischaracterization. And it's a bad look. Kind of like bringing firearms into a statehouse.

You're correct that it's probably not the best look. I won't defend CHAZ as an organized political strategy or whatever. I'll stand by the argument that there is zero method by which BLM could exist and not provoke a reaction from the right.

Think about the fact that Fox News is literally photoshopping pictures of CHAZ in order to make their viewers angry. There have been documented instances of right wing media making up a story out of thin air, it catching fire, and moderates blaming the left for an event that never happened. I can give you examples of this if you want.

There is a large segment of the media landscape who's job it is to make people like guitarguy angry and mad at the 'SJWs'. I will stand by the idea that the left is HORRIBLE at controlling the narrative and is politically incompetant, but at the same time, I also understand that sometimes there isn't a lot they can do.

tldr, I largely agree with your point about the left. I criticize them for this very thing all the time. However, we must also acknowledge the existence of the reactionary right and its power to control the narrative, no matter what.

Moderates are always going to choose fascism over socialism if they see the two as their only viable options.

Case in point; cons called Obama a socialist. Is Obama anything like coreander? He's hated by the far left.

This election, Democrats nominated the most moderate of moderates. He's already being framed as an antifa sympathizer; a radical leftist. See what I mean?

If Bernie had won the primary, you could say "well, if Democrats didn't want to be called Socialist, they shouldn't have nominated a socialist." You would be correct, but we can see that the reaction was inevitable.

Posted by dahsdebater on 6/13/2020 2:27:00 PM (view original):

Posted by tangplay on 6/10/2020 8:36:00 PM (view original):
And it gave a bunch of people an opportunity to get healthcare. I know people who are alive today because of Obamacare. The stats back it up, Doug.

Which stats back it up? Was it the increase in morbidity for the first time in decades, or the increase in mortality?

Or maybe the fact that these were concentrated in the bottom 25% of Americans by wealth?

Or the extra 200 billion a year we're spending on healthcare as a nation?

That was what we were promised, right? More poor Americans getting sick and dying and rising healthcare costs?

Oh my god, 200 billion? Oh no. Omg, really? That much????? Wow oh wow. And how many more people got health care? In comparison to...what we spend on health care already ugh, I can't even


Stop doing a poor Ben Shapiro impression. Its embarrassing.

Posted by Uofa2 on 6/14/2020 1:57:00 AM (view original):

Posted by dahsdebater on 6/13/2020 2:27:00 PM (view original):

Posted by tangplay on 6/10/2020 8:36:00 PM (view original):
And it gave a bunch of people an opportunity to get healthcare. I know people who are alive today because of Obamacare. The stats back it up, Doug.

Which stats back it up? Was it the increase in morbidity for the first time in decades, or the increase in mortality?

Or maybe the fact that these were concentrated in the bottom 25% of Americans by wealth?

Or the extra 200 billion a year we're spending on healthcare as a nation?

That was what we were promised, right? More poor Americans getting sick and dying and rising healthcare costs?

Oh my god, 200 billion? Oh no. Omg, really? That much????? Wow oh wow. And how many more people got health care? In comparison to...what we spend on health care already ugh, I can't even


Stop doing a poor Ben Shapiro impression. Its embarrassing.

Uhhh.....can you loan me 200 billion?

Posted by Uofa2 on 6/14/2020 1:57:00 AM (view original):

Posted by dahsdebater on 6/13/2020 2:27:00 PM (view original):

Posted by tangplay on 6/10/2020 8:36:00 PM (view original):
And it gave a bunch of people an opportunity to get healthcare. I know people who are alive today because of Obamacare. The stats back it up, Doug.

Which stats back it up? Was it the increase in morbidity for the first time in decades, or the increase in mortality?

Or maybe the fact that these were concentrated in the bottom 25% of Americans by wealth?

Or the extra 200 billion a year we're spending on healthcare as a nation?

That was what we were promised, right? More poor Americans getting sick and dying and rising healthcare costs?

Oh my god, 200 billion? Oh no. Omg, really? That much????? Wow oh wow. And how many more people got health care? In comparison to...what we spend on health care already ugh, I can't even


Stop doing a poor Ben Shapiro impression. Its embarrassing.

In 2018 the US spent 648.8 Billion on defense.

In 2018 China spent 250 Billion on defense.

NO OTHER COUNTRY spent more than 68 Billion on defense in 2018.

I think we can find 200 Billion “somewhere” pretty easily.

Posted by Uofa2 on 6/14/2020 1:57:00 AM (view original):

Posted by dahsdebater on 6/13/2020 2:27:00 PM (view original):

Posted by tangplay on 6/10/2020 8:36:00 PM (view original):
And it gave a bunch of people an opportunity to get healthcare. I know people who are alive today because of Obamacare. The stats back it up, Doug.

Which stats back it up? Was it the increase in morbidity for the first time in decades, or the increase in mortality?

Or maybe the fact that these were concentrated in the bottom 25% of Americans by wealth?

Or the extra 200 billion a year we're spending on healthcare as a nation?

That was what we were promised, right? More poor Americans getting sick and dying and rising healthcare costs?

Oh my god, 200 billion? Oh no. Omg, really? That much????? Wow oh wow. And how many more people got health care? In comparison to...what we spend on health care already ugh, I can't even


Stop doing a poor Ben Shapiro impression. Its embarrassing.

You're falling into the same pit of dumbassery that everyone seems to all into when discussing the ACA.

How many more people "got" health care? What does it mean to get health care?

How many more have insurance? Tens of millions. How many more stayed alive? A negative number.

I prefer my healthcare with a side of life. That's just me.

Posted by tangplay on 6/13/2020 3:34:00 PM (view original):
I'm not sure where you are getting your sources on morbidity and such. I looked up some CDC data and the death rate has fallen since 2010, and life expectancy has risen. Furthermore, correlation doesn't equal causation. Even if your argument were to be true, I'm not certain that you could link it to the ACA.

https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/NCHS-Death-rates-and-life-expectancy-at-birth/w9j2-ggv5

Health care costs have been rising for decades now; I have read research asserting that the ACA has slowed this rise (From what I understand, the economic consensus is that long term, the ACA is better for our deficit and for health care spending). I would agree with you that the ACA was a bandaid on a bullet wound, but just asserting that it didn't solve everything doesn't make it a bad policy.

The majority of my research on the subject has agreed that the ACA was a net positive for America. If you want, I can link some.

Here's one:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5886019/

Apparently you can't read. The life expectancy at birth in 2010 was 78.7 in this chart. In 2017, the last year, it was 78.6. Which isn't a huge drop. But by comparison it's terrible - every decade of the 20th century, and the first decade of the 21st century, life expectancy increased by at least 1.1 years. Something will have to change drastically in the next few years of stats for us to pull that off in this decade. The ACA decade. First time in the history of the dataset we've failed to keep people alive longer than we did 10 years before.

Here are the data in chart form. I actually posted them in the other thread I linked, so I was shocked when you tried to refer to CDC mortality data to defend the ACA. I already know what these data show. To make it more glaringly obvious, zoom in the dates from the 70s or 80s to present.