Obamacare Website Glitches Reflect Complex Market-Based System

I’m no fan of the Affordable Care Act. Maybe it was the best we could do in 2010 under the weight of Republican double-dealing and quackery, but the ACA is flawed because it tries to exist within the current health care insurance system. And well, the current system isn’t really a system at all. It’s a collection of disparate for-profit health care insurance companies. What the ACA gets right is the patient protections, but what it gets wrong is the method of insurance.

• • •

Harry Reid Says Obamacare Puts U.S. On Path To Single-Payer Health Care System

On a local PBS program “Nevada Week in Review,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said, “What we’ve done with Obamacare is have a step in the right direction, but we’re far from having something that’s going to work forever.” Reid said ultimately they had to drop the idea of a public option during health care legislative negotiations in 2009. “We had a real good run at the public option,” said Reid. He said Senator Joe Lieberman was the main opposition to a public option, at least among those who would otherwise support health care legislation. Because of course no Republicans supported health care reform. But Reid also acknowledged their was support for a true single-payer system saying, “Don’t think we didn’t have a tremendous number of people who wanted a single-payer system.”

• • •