Is Obamacare a success?

Is Obamacare a success?

My answer:  No

See below for a more nuanced answer recently published in the NY Times.

Why do I believe that Obamacare was and is a failure?

1) health system reform is not (or should not be) about ‘coverage’ (i.e., finding ways to buy insurance for more people).  People do not need insurance, they need high quality, and therefore lower cost, health care.  Obamacare is a federal law which forces people to buy health insurance, whether they can afford it or not.  And allows states to bring more people onto the Medicaid program (government health financing for the less well off).  

2) Obamacare provided lip service only to the reforms that are really needed to reduce the waste and inefficiency of the American way of doing health care business.  The health insurance business model causes $400 billion/year in inefficiency waste.  American health care delivery is decidedly poor quality because of inappropriate care, patient injury, and failing to do best practice care, leading to a cost for quality waste of about $700 billion/year.  

3) Obamacare reinforces the principle mistake of American health care business as usual, which is the idea that market forces can be harnessed to improve health care delivery.  Thus, Obamacare makes the cost problem worse, which is the principle driver of the problem of no health financing for millions of Americans.  

For these and other reasons, Obamacare began as a failure and continues to fail.

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