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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

> Consider that your opinion on what is "universally hated" is mostly shaped by the sources of information that you consume. Yours happens to be wrong. Overall the country views ObamaCare ~50% favorably, with some specific parts close to 90% approval

I support the ACA, but when you implement the benefits in a law and repeal or ignore most of the new taxes and mandates, that will happen.

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I thought just the individual mandate was struck down by the SCOTUS. What other pieces make up most of the new taxes and mandates that were repealed or ignored?

The individual mandate was upheld by the SCOTUS in 2012: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Federation_of_Indepen...

Rather, the individual mandate was zeroed out in 2017: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Cuts_and_Jobs_Act_of_2017

The Cadillac tax has been delayed, seemingly indefinitely: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillac_insurance_plan

The employer mandate was delayed.

The Independent Payment Advisory Board was canceled: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Payment_Advisory_B...

The nutrition labeling requirements were delayed from 2010 to 2018.

There are many other more technical provisions that have been delayed as well. It is easy to find many relevant sources online, though it's hard to keep them up to date because many delays just continue! https://cgsnet.org/ckfinder/userfiles/files/ACA_Delays_at_a_...

Oh man, I was way off. Thanks for this.

Okay? There's no reason laws have to have good and bad parts, like a fundamental yin-yang. You can simply write laws without the bad parts.

The ACA must have good parts and bad parts because the mandate makes the numbers work. Guaranteed-issue insurance doesn't work if healthy people can opt out (because you can just buy insurance after you get sick which makes the risk-pooling idea of insurance not work).

Well, you can't, because of defined enrolment periods and coverage delay periods, and that it's impossible to tell ahead of time whether given insurance covers a given condition.

In addition, medical insurance makes no sense as a risk-pooling strategy, as everybody consumes some medical care annually, and the average cost of care consumed is greater than the amount most people can pay. There has to be something else going on.

There is, because we live in a finite world. Everything is about trade-offs. In the case of ACA, it’s benefits on one hand, and the taxes (and the mandate) that pay for those benefits on the other hand.

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