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Comment by lotsofpulp | Hacker News Reader

That’s what happens when poorer people who tend to work for employers that don’t offer benefits such as health insurance start getting healthcare.

Someone has to pay for it, and it shows up as increased premiums/deductibles/employer share of premium, but in exchange, we get rid of pre existing condition exclusions, we get in network out of pocket maximums, and older people don’t get hit so hard because younger people have to subsidize their healthcare.

Growth in healthcare costs also slowed in the years after ACA was passed as the various provisions were phased in:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/720767/medical-cost-tren...

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This isn't an argument over the merits of the ACA. Many of are fine with Universal Healthcare but not with deluding ourselves into thinking that it's a free lunch. It's a statement of fact intended to address the false premise that we don't know the causal effect of the ACA on various healthcare costs.

We know exactly what it was as we have direct evidence as to what actions employers took in response to it e.g. increased premiums, increased out of pocket minimums, reductions in coverage, etc. The result is that, pound for pound, the same healthcare is more expensive.

> Growth in healthcare costs also slowed in the years after ACA was passed as the various provisions were phased in:

This is unsupported by the chart. In fact, it shows the opposite: the largest decreases in healthcare spending growth occurred before the passage of the ACA. That aside, the parent comment is seeking the causal effect of the ACA on healthcare costs, not a low correlating trend.

But old people have Medicare. Health insurance for old people hasn't been the problem.

65+ has Medicare. Health problems start in your 40s, and greatly accelerate in 50s. Most Americans have clogged arteries, diabetes, or hypertension and need treatment many years before getting to Medicare age.

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