The fiasco was the instant and complete evisceration of the single payer options originally present in the law. If private insurance companies can't do a better job than a big bloated government run institution, then they shouldn't be protected--they should be allowed to die. The public option would set a minimum bar that the companies would have to stay above to stay in business.
Instead, the thing the detractors feared has basically come to pass. Insurance companies in areas where there is not a lot of competition and suddenly a legal mandate for people to join are screwing over those people enormously. It's like if Comcast run your healthcare insurance.
Plus it did little to address the expensive and inefficient army of middlemen required to run the current system. Your doctor still needs people on staff dedicated to calling the insurance companies to talk to their middlemen to haggle over the need for every single procedure and then to haggle price and then to make a mountain of paperwork to document it all. It is an enormous waste of time and manpower but it pays a ton of salaries.
Instead, the thing the detractors feared has basically come to pass. Insurance companies in areas where there is not a lot of competition and suddenly a legal mandate for people to join are screwing over those people enormously. It's like if Comcast run your healthcare insurance.
Plus it did little to address the expensive and inefficient army of middlemen required to run the current system. Your doctor still needs people on staff dedicated to calling the insurance companies to talk to their middlemen to haggle over the need for every single procedure and then to haggle price and then to make a mountain of paperwork to document it all. It is an enormous waste of time and manpower but it pays a ton of salaries.