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Comment by daughart | Hacker News Reader

The Affordable Healthcare Act was gigantic and created by morons, but by most metrics is improving the American healthcare system. The argument that the government can not act in a way that improves things, even if it is not the perfect solution, is contrary to fact.

EDIT: I treat down-votes in the absence of a counter-argument as up-votes.

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The Affordable Healthcare Act was ... created by morons

Really? I thought it was drafted by very clever, largely self-interested people.

I treat down-votes in the absence of a counter-argument as up-votes.

Good luck with that. Sounds like a great way to eventually find yourself banned.

The morons part was just me being facetious. Since I edited my comment I went from -3 to 0, so apparently people agree. I don't know why asking for a counter-argument would get me banned, or how you know anything about being banned from HN when you've been a member for 86 days and I've been a member for over 600 days. I've never actually heard of banning here.

I don't know why asking for a counter-argument would get me banned

You didn't do that. You wrote snark about downvotes.

or how you know anything about being banned from HN when you've been a member for 86 days

What, you think they charge for accounts around here, or something? Why in the world would you think I haven't used other accounts before? If you made it to 600 days and haven't heard of the slow-down (whatever it's called) or hell-banning, then you haven't been paying much attention.

Not being in the USA, could you summarise the Affordable Healthcare Act and the problems with it?

Unfortunately, not really. You might know it better as Obamacare, though. It created health insurance exchanges that are subsidized for low income people and reformed other aspects of medical reimbursement and regulations governing health insurance. The aspects you think are problematic will depend on whether you're criticizing it from the right (it increased government involvement, and the complexity of the healthcare system, etc.) or the left (that it gave private insurance companies too much power, wasn't universal, and didn't fundamentally address some of the problems driving cost increases, etc.). Either way, the data shows that healthcare costs are growing more slowly after implementation and that more people are insured than were in the past.

Thanks. Where does the subsidisation come from?

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