This is not an appropriate venue for chanting political slogans.
That would actually be what this is an appropriate venue for, not your contentless dismissal.
There will be, of course, (truly) great stories about people who were suffering because of the evil practice of dropping customers from coverage when they get sick, and their finally getting the treatment their agreement with the insurance company should have entitled them to, but the total costs, and the costs for nearly everyone, will increase considerably, and some nice examples aside, it's unlikely to improve the quality of care, either.
It's a bad bill. We didn't have a good bill on the table, either–the whole system is fundamentally flawed–but it's a bad bill, functionally speaking. Whether it's really Romneycare, Obamacare, Heritagecare, etc., is irrelevant–it's a horrible system, and people who spend a good amount of their day trying to optimize things really surprise me when they don't acknowledge its numerous and deep flaws.
Thankfully the cost controls are existant, at least, which is by inspection better than the status quo. This existence also renders your conclusion on costs a complete non sequitur.
Trivia: as much as conservatives hate Obamacare (spoilers: a lot), they can't resist using the cost savings it generates in their stunt budgets because the numbers don't work without the Obamacare savings.
Pair ineffective cost controls with a massive, complex, bloated, ineffective framework, and it doesn't seem to follow that the result is by inspection necessarily better than the status quo. Nor was my conclusion on costs, therefore, a complete non-squitur.
And since when is marginally bettering a fairly lousy status quo somehow laudable? That's a remarkably disappointing outlook.
Many Republicans hate it because their team lost, which is a poor reason to hate a bill, but just as poor–and perhaps more insidious–is that many Democrats cheer its passage, while knowing very little about it. Because their team won.
We've seen that story played out time and time again, in both parties, on myriad issues.
We really, really can do better than that, on all sides.
http://americanactionforum.org/research/premium-increases-fo...
That's highly political, quite partisan, and well-beneath the standard to which we should hold each other, regardless of whether or not we agree or disagree with his stated politics.
The two are not mutually exclusive.
But, since you bring it up, why should or shouldn't healthcare be coupled to employment? One could argue it's the cause for much of the trouble we're in, with a lack of portability, increasing costs (same reason sports seats have become prohibitively expensive for many individuals), so what's inherently evil about employers admitting that increased labor costs will almost necessarily impact their hiring?
For that matter, why is or isn't a medical device tax the best way of funding those subsidies?
Those are the kinds of things that we could be discussing–tho probably not as comments to this particular article article–not doing what you are.
To be specific, you're preemptively ascribing the worst possible motives to anyone who disagrees with you on a pretty charged political issue, in a fairly off-topic quip in response to nobody, which is a pretty bad way of raising the level of debate. Debate the issues if you want, but your original comment is going to be difficult for you to justify as anything but partisan politics.
People who disagree with you may not be inherently evil. Hard to believe, sometimes, but no matter what side of an argument you're on, it's not a very productive or proper default assumption. Assuming bad faith won't help anyone, whatever the side of almost whatever the issue.
The first-order cynical answer is that medical devices are primarily used by rich Republicans who can easily afford a few percent extra on their artificial knees. It requires no imagination to see why a left wing moonbat would vote for such blatant pandering.
The second-order cynical answer is that poor minorities have worse health, and a huge unfulfilled need for medical devices. Thus the device tax is a ghastly unintended consequence of well-meaning liberals.
The third-order cynical answer is that it is an intended consequence. They want Lashonda's artificial pancreas to pay for little Cindy's counseling. Much like lotteries exist to get poor people to send rich kids to college.
The fourth-order cynical answer is that the whole thing is secretly a ploy to generate plot material for someone's Dune/Washington, D.C. crossover fan fiction.
Par for the HN course these days, but no need to pat yourself on the back over it.
It will come down to the usual polarizing arguments that you see here every day.