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Comment by lifeisstillgood | Hacker News Reader

This is what things like the US Digital Service and UK GRS are trying to prevent. And I hope (with respect to State residents) that Oregon loses it's shirt over this and several key administrators.

At some point we have to accept that software is an intimate part of what we do and will be - that there is no "external supplier" for our own core identity.

Either a system and process is totally outsourced and barely even a government function (power generation) or it's intimately connected to what we want from government (and yes Americans, that means healthcare)

So buck up - delivering software at scale is what life is going to be about for the next fifty years - learn that lesson now - don't blame the wolf for eating your chickens.

That's probably an Oregonian saying.

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I just made a pull request for the US Digital Service playbook suggesting that contracts require continuous public disclosure of all disbursements of funds. If that were the case, you couldn't find out after the fact about $200 million going down the hole.

what we want from government (and yes Americans, that means healthcare)

Who appointed you to speak for Americans? I don't want the government involved in or paying for or deciding who provides my healthcare. One of the reasons is I don't want it managed by the incompetence illustrated in this story.

Well, whether you like it or not, US elected officials in charge of the entire country chose to pass the Affordable Care Act.

The new Digital Services group is a huge step in the right direction for IT projects all over the spectrum, not just healthcare.

So I guess we can count on you just accepting it if it gets repealed, right?

Go back to the fox news forums

The majority of Americans have spoken, and want affordable healthcare. You are not in the majority.

>The majority of Americans have spoken, and want affordable healthcare.

Well obviously. I want affordable everything.

Do most Americans want government-run healthcare?

"Medicare Beats Private Plans for Patient Satisfaction: Survey

People with individual or employer health plans paid more out of pocket, had worse access to care"

"Meanwhile, those with employer-sponsored health plans and those who bought their own insurance were nearly twice as likely to report problems with their medical bills than people with Medicare, the study found."

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2012/07/1...

Apparently so.

Medicare is not Obamacare.

Medicare is funded directly by payroll deductions from the working population. Obamacare requires all citizens to purchase health insurance, regardless if they deem it as necessary.

Obamacare requires health insurance companies disburse at least 80 percent of the premiums they bring in to medical service providers for their members. This effectively turns health insurance companies into quasi-non-profit entities, very similar to Medicare (which has no profit motive).

I don't mind living in a world where you can get better healthcare if you can afford it. I do have a problem living in a world that doesn't have a minimum level of care for everyone.

Difference?

You mean other than the fact that Obamacare funnels money directly in to the pockets of insurance companies that, despite your characterization of them as " quasi-non-profit entities" were, and remain, very-much-for-profit entities? That's one. There are many others.

What's your theory for why the insurance companies "volunteered" for this? Altruism?

And you're still trying to change the subject.

looking at this whole thread starting with lifeisstillgood's comment ("[...] what we want from government (and yes Americans, that means healthcare)") at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8214708 it would appear that you are the one trying to change the subject from affordable health care to "obamacare".

toomuchtodo said "The majority of Americans have spoken, and want affordable healthcare.", at which point you started talking about "Obamacare".

btw your attempt to incite a quarrel is funny since your statements agree with lifeisstillgood's and toomuchtodo's statements.

Dude, the entire subject of this post is Obamacare. The majority of Americans do not favor Obamacare, nor have they ever.

He's the one that's trying to equate it with some magical, mythical "affordable healthcare" system that does not exist in real life.

Nice try, though.

> He's the one that's trying to equate it with some magical, mythical "affordable healthcare" system that does not exist in real life.

Let's not lie now, shall we?

"The U.S. stands almost entirely alone among developed nations that lack universal health care."

"That brings us to another way that America is a big outlier on health care. The grey countries on this map tend to spend significantly less per capita on health care than do the green countries -- except for the U.S., where the government spends way more on health care per person than do most countries with free, universal health care. This is also true of health care costs as a share of national GDP -- in other words, how much of a country's money goes into health care."

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/06/her...

Not only do we spend the most per capita on healthcare, we consistently deliver lower quality care than other first world countries with universal healthcare spending less than us.

I really don't care to argue with you. Obamacare/ACA is well on its way to pushing the US to universal healthcare, as it should.

You are arguing in a fundamentally dishonest way.

Everyone is in favor of "affordable healthcare" for the same reason that everyone is in favor of good weather and world peace.

You are attempting to make "affordable healthcare" synonymous with Obamacare, which it isn't, and suggest that anyone who thinks that Obamacare is a horrible implementation must be opposed to "affordable healthcare".

It is the exact same dishonest argument that's used to shout down someone who (e.g.) thinks that the Patriot Act was a bad idea by implying that the person is in favor of terrorism.

I posted a link that showed that majority of Americans are opposed to Obamacare and always have been (multiple polls).

It got modded down. Which, of course, is even more dishonest.

But, you know, modding people down isn't actually going to make the problem go away.

>Not only do we spend the most per capita on healthcare, we consistently deliver lower quality care than other first world countries with universal healthcare spending less than us.

That has nothing whatsoever to do with whether Obamacare is the best solution for the problem. It isn't. It combines the worst aspects of private health insurance with the worst aspects of socialized medicine, combined with massive payouts to insurance companies at taxpayer expense.

>Obamacare/ACA is well on its way to pushing the US to universal healthcare, as it should.

Obamacare is going to kill real healthcare reform in the U.S. for at least a generation. Maybe longer.

Wanting "affordable health care" and wanting Obamacare are two different things. Entirely.

Obamacare has been in negative approval territory since day one, almost.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/obama_and_demo...

Medicare is essentially government-run healthcare. I don't see seniors running to hand it back and cover their own healthcare bills.

You're trying to change the subject.

Do you have any evidence that the "majority of Americans" ever favored Obamacare?

Judging from the mod-down attack, it's clear that the answer to that question is "no".

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