Key bits. More at the link, though it seems to me that Obamamcare was intended, from the beginning, to be a poorly functioning waystation on the path to Medicaid for all rather than an effective answer to the problem of the high cost of healthcare unaffordable to the working poor.
[ZeroHedge] Obamacare had problems even before it launched in 2014. Marketplace websites were glitchy during the open enrollment period, frustrating many would-be customers.
Sweeping changes ushered in by the Affordable Care Act, the law creating Obamacare, all but guaranteed that premiums would increase—which they did by 23 percent in the program’s first year.
Even so, public opinion swung in favor of Obamacare starting in 2017 and remains positive, according to KFF Health Tracking polls.
More than 24 million people were insured through the program by 2025.
And insurers learned to thrive under the new rules, more than doubling annual revenue to $1.1 trillion and consistently generating a profit between 2014 and 2024.
Problems do persist, however.
Premiums have more than doubled over 12 years. Some consumers have only a few plans to choose from. And flaws in the program’s design continue to waste taxpayer dollars.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have proposed solutions, many with bipartisan support. Yet permanent reform remains elusive.
The reason may have less to do with the ideas themselves and more to do with the most persistent disagreement between Republicans and Democrats: the role of the federal government.
Here are three commonly proposed remedies for problems within Obamacare, and why those problems remain.
1. Increase Plan Options
Of the more than 1,100 health insurers doing business in the United States, about 10, on average, offer plans through Obamacare in each state.
About 5 percent of Obamacare users have only one or two insurers to choose from.
2. Empower Consumers
Obamacare subsidizes health insurance for people earning between 100 percent and 400 percent of the federal poverty level. The subsidy comes in the form of an advanced tax credit. But the money is paid directly to insurance companies, not to the insured individuals.
President Donald Trump and several others have proposed making those funds available to consumers, which they say would increase choice and lower prices.
Trump’s plan, and some others, would provide funded Health Savings Accounts, which enrollees could use only for health expenses. That would include buying insurance, paying out-of-pocket expenses, or buying health care directly from providers.
Scott made a similar proposal, as did Sens. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.), and Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.).
“Giving billions of taxpayer dollars to insurers is not working to reduce health insurance premiums for patients,” Crapo said in a statement announcing his plan in December 2025. “We need to give Americans more control over their own health care decisions.”
The Crapo–Cassidy plan failed to advance in the Senate last year. None of the other plans have even been put to a vote. Democrats have opposed the idea as a halfway measure that would undermine the value of Obamacare.
Health Savings Accounts are available only with insurance plans that have a high deductible, leading some analysts to conclude that they wouldn’t benefit people who have the most trouble affording health care.
3. Fix Structural Problems
One feature of Obamacare was intended to lower premium prices but produced the opposite result.
Insurers must offer cost-sharing reductions to customers making less than 250 percent of the federal poverty level who choose a silver-level plan.
The cost-sharing reductions mean lower copays and deductibles, which helps low-income enrollees.
It also increases costs for insurers, so the federal government reimbursed them for the added expense.
But a federal judge ruled that those reimbursements were improper because Congress had never authorized funds for them through an appropriations bill. Cost-sharing reduction payments to insurers were discontinued in 2017. However, insurers are still required to offer the cost-sharing reductions.
To compensate, insurers raised premiums on the silver-level plans, a practice known as silver loading.
THE IMPASSE
The legislative impasse over improving Obamacare appears to arise from the basic difference in approach by Republicans and Democrats to health care financing.
Republicans generally favor deregulation and other marketplace reforms that they believe will increase competition and lower prices.
“As President Trump has said, he will make our health care system better by increasing transparency, promoting choice and competition, and expanding access to new affordable health care and insurance options,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told The Poynter Institute in 2024.
Republican proposals for Obamacare generally follow that blueprint: add choices, improve competition, and allow the market to lower prices.
Democrats generally favor increased government intervention in the form of regulation and subsidization with the goal of ensuring access to health care services for everyone.
“Access to high-quality health care should be a right available to every single American,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said in December 2025. “One of the ways we can make sure that we strive to achieve that principle is to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits.”
Democrat-led bills to extend those credits failed to advance in both the House and Senate. Republican proposals to increase choice and competition also failed to advance.
Obamacare’s benchmark silver plan premiums for 2026 increased by about 26 percent.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
03/08/2026 4:39 Comments ||
Top||
#2
A friend of mine who was non union was kicked off her employer sponsored health insurance. I won't mention the employer's name, but it is a major aircraft engine company based in CT. Cost her and her husband a lot more money to get 'ObamaCare'
#3
And premiums going up are due to medical providers increasing the cost of treatment, partly to make more money, partly to prevent being sued and partly because 'cost of living' increases.
It doesn't help that a lot of Americans are overweight, out of shape and don't take care of themselves. (I'm guilty of it too)
[Townhall] Anti-regime protests have broken out in Havana, Cuba as the Caribbean state has entered its 60th hour of being without electricity.
The new wave of protests come just days after President Donald Trump suggested that Cuba could be the next country in line for a change in leadership after the successes of the Maduro raid and the first week of Operation Epic Fury.
Trump has tasked Secretary of State Marco Rubio of handling negotiations with the Cuban government.
[YouTube] Barbara Boyd argues that warnings of a 1979-style oil shock after President Trump’s call for Iran’s unconditional surrender are a manufactured panic pushed by the City of London’s financial press and anti-Trump figures to trigger an economic crisis and swing the Midterms. Citing Karoline Leavitt’s definition of surrender as eliminating Iran’s threat, Boyd revisits the 1979 Iranian Revolution, describing the Shah’s industrial and nuclear modernization, opposition from Anglo-American financial interests, and a strategy of “Controlled Disintegration” associated with the Council on Foreign Relations’ Project 1980s. She claims the Shah was overthrown via a human-rights campaign and the Muslim Brotherhood, leading Khomeini to cancel modernization and enabling an oil shock that benefited London banks. Boyd says the same playbook is now aimed at Trump’s pro-worker economic program, but that U.S. energy strength and security measures reduce oil-shock risk; she concludes that ending the Khamenei regime would remove a long-standing economic weapon and ultimately stabilize energy markets.
[Clarice @ AT] By patiently setting the stage, President Trump has realigned the Middle East, formed a strong new alliance against communism and narcoterrorism in this hemisphere, and is forcing federal judges to stay within their constitutional lane.
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/08/2026 08:41 ||
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[Reuters] A divided U.S. appeals court has refused to let the Trump administration revoke legal protections that allow more than 350,000 Haitians to live and work in the U.S., and avoid being returned to their gang-violence-stricken country.
A 2-1 panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit late on Friday rejected the administration's bid to pause a February 2 ruling that blocked the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from ending Haiti's Temporary Protected Status.
TPS is a humanitarian program that shields eligible migrants from deportation and allows them to work.
Under outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, the department has moved to end TPS for a dozen countries as part of President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown, arguing the program was never intended to serve as a "de facto amnesty."
The administration had asked the D.C. Circuit to stay U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes' February order while it appeals. Her decision came in a class-action lawsuit brought by Haitians seeking to prevent DHS from exposing them to deportation.
Reyes found that Noem's November move to end the Haitians' legal protections likely violated TPS termination procedures and the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment guarantee of equal protection under the law.
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The administration on appeal noted that the U.S. Supreme Court had twice allowed it to end TPS for Venezuelans.
But U.S. Circuit Judges Florence Pan and Brad Garcia, both appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden, distinguished the cases and said Haitians sent home would "be vulnerable to violence amid a 'collapsing rule of law' and lack access to life-sustaining medical care."
U.S. Circuit Judge Justin Walker, a Trump appointee, dissented, saying the case and the earlier Supreme Court litigation involving Venezuelans were "the legal equivalent of fraternal, if not identical, twins."
A DHS spokesperson said in a statement that the administration would take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
"Temporary means temporary, and the final word will not be from activist judges legislating from the bench," the spokesperson said.
Haitians were first granted TPS in 2010 after a devastating earthquake. The U.S. has repeatedly renewed the designation, most recently under the Biden administration in July 2024.
At that time, DHS cited Haiti's "simultaneous economic, security, political, and health crises", driven by gangs and the absence of a functioning government.
[Reuters] China could see brain-computer interface (BCI) technology move into practical public use within three to five years as products mature, a leading BCI expert said, as Beijing races to catch up with U.S. startups including Elon Musk's Neuralink.
Beijing elevated BCIs to a core future strategic industry in its new five-year plan released this week, placing it alongside sectors such as quantum, embodied AI, 6G and nuclear fusion.
"New policies will not change things overnight. I think after another three to five years, we will gradually see some (BCI) products moving towards actual practical service for the public," said Yao Dezhong, Director of the Sichuan Institute of Brain Science, in an interview on Saturday on the sidelines of China's annual parliament meetings in Beijing.
TRIALS
A national BCI development strategy released last year aims for major technical breakthroughs by 2027 and for China to cultivate two or three world-class firms by 2030.
China is the second country to launch invasive BCI human trials. More than 10 trials are active, matching the U.S., while scientists plan to enrol more than 50 patients nationwide this year.
Recent high-profile trials have enabled paralysed patients and amputees to regain partial mobility and operate robotic hands or intelligent wheelchairs.
The government has already integrated some BCI treatments into national medical insurance in a few pilot provinces, and the domestic market is projected to reach 5.58 billion yuan ($809 million) by 2027, according to CCID Consulting.
"China has many advantages in BCIs, such as its huge population, enormous patient demand, cost-effective industrial chain and abundant pool of STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) talent," said Yao, who also leads a key neuroinformatics research centre under China's science and technology ministry.
Policies such as insurance integration and national standards aim to close the "huge" gap between scientific research, industry and clinical applications, he said.
"The path from experimental to clinical trials is quite long, and this remains a problem," he told Reuters, adding that many Chinese hospitals have established BCI research labs to speed up the process.
While U.S. startups like Neuralink focus on invasive chips that penetrate brain tissue, Chinese researchers are developing invasive, semi-invasive and non-invasive BCIs with wider potential clinical use.
Semi-invasive BCIs, placed on the brain's surface, may lose some signal quality but reduce risks such as tissue damage and other post-surgery complications. Neuralink's surgical robot can insert hundreds of electrodes into the brain in minutes.
"This is a technical advantage, which I think is remarkable," said Yao, of Neuralink.
"(But) China is actually making very fast progress in this area now. In fact, Musk's direction is basically achievable domestically."
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
