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Comment by scott_c | Hacker News Reader

"but unless you were matured to adulthood in a lab, it's hard to argue that men as a class do not benefit from improved and cheaper access to reproductive healthcare for women."

There are plenty of single men that should not be forced to pay for women's reproductive healthcare.

"What state do you live in? "

http://time.com/money/4535394/obamacare-plan-premium-price-i...

8 states rose by at least 30%.

"States could voluntarily permit policies to be sold from other states. For example, states in different regions could elect to normalize their regulatory schemes and open up their markets to each other. There's plenty of precedent for this. It doesn't require Congressional approval; just coordination among state legislatures like is so often done for other regulatory frameworks."

Great, but Obamacare in its current form needs to go.

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> There are plenty of single men that should not be forced to pay for women's reproductive healthcare.

I have to say this attitude makes me viscerally angry. Men have a much higher incidence of heart disease, so maybe women should not be forced to pay for that? Men engage in lots of unhealthy, risky behaviors, but I've never heard a woman make a statement analogous to yours. It's like saying "Well I'm not handicapped, so why the hell should I have to pay for special accommodations for those people?".

If you accept that socialized healthcare is a good idea, then it seems to follow fairly obviously that we're all unique and will have individualized healthcare needs.

Let's be honest here: it's about children. The only difference between men and women that would substantially effect insurance coverage rates are prenatal care and birth.

But few men are willing to come out and plainly state that they aren't interested in subsidizing prenatal care. When you say it aloud it just sounds so obviously wrong, whether or not you're asexual, homosexual, or infertile. And it's especially hypocritical for the anti-abortion set.

It's like the argument that childless property taxpayers shouldn't have to subsidize public schools. People just rely on vague handwaving about fairness and risk allocation. And, FWIW, it's also like arguing that taxes paid by pacifists shouldn't support the military. Even most liberals understand that it's a ridiculous assertion as a practical matter.

7 of those 8 states (exception, Illinois) have strongly Republican state legislatures. I'm not sure what the particular causes for the inflation in each state are, and I'd bet they vary. But I also suspect the correlation is telling to some degree.

Everybody agree aspects of it needs to be changed. It was passed hastily while the Democrats had the votes--they even required two Republican defectors. The necessity for change was admitted from day 1.

But there's a difference between change and discarding the whole thing. The _core_ part of Obamacare, particularly wrt fiscal viability of adequate universal coverage, are 1) no pre-existing exclusions, 2) individual mandate, 3) and minimum coverage requirements.

Even Obama agrees that the system of exchanges needs changing. Those and other details, like subsidies and integration with Medicaid and Medicare aren't part of the core calculus. They were part of the political horse trading (among politicians, with the insurance industry, etc) necessary to see any national program passed. If sentiments change than those details can obviously be changed, too.

But if neither of those three things change, you'll still basically have Obamacare, and middle-class independent contractors or people with employer-sponsored policies are unlikely to see substantial changes from the status quo. If any of those three things change, you're likely going to see either a contraction of coverage in both quantity and quality, or ballooning government deficits.

If all people really want to see is the name change, have at it.

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