they're not last-minute.

One of them was an ACA tax on medical equipment. I'm not sure how medical equipment, properly used and not overused, is part of the healthcare problem in this country. A dozen years ago, I worked for a company that made various scopes that were used to diagnose and treat disease, the fact that the scopes were constantly being made smaller and better led to better outcomes for patients. Gone are the days you had to do something called "exploratory surgery" for a lot of conditions.

Another tax that was postponed was the so-called "Cadillac tax" on really good health plans. A lot of union people negotiate for better coverage for their families rather than extra pay, and this is important to them. If we say that we really support the unions in this country, then maybe taxing the snot out of the deals they get from collective bargaining is not the way to accomplish that.

were quite acceptable to me, with the possible exception of the individual mandate.

In any case, the ACA will have to be massively overhauled if we can make it to January, 2021, with a new Congress (hopefully in place two years earlier) and a new President. It's wobbled out of control.

a federal tax of 8 percent on things they buy including restaurants and haircuts. Not food though. Poor people get money back every 3 months. Send you teen to the mall with a hundred dollars and 7 or 8 percent of that goes to the federal government who then transfers it to the provinces. Keep in mind people redo their decor and buy clothes at rates unseen before.

is a sales tax, and I consider them regressive, generally. But, it sounds like there are ways of making it less so.

However, the problem comes in with enforcement and collection, sales-oriented taxes are the most expensive to collect, versus property and income taxes. But, Canada seems to be doing well, so it might work here.

then I expect a massive savings from getting rid of insurance companies that spend all day denying claims, and from health care billing departments having to fight with them. If we can replace the existing tort system with a more Worker's Comp method of dealing with malpractice claims, then I would expect even more savings.

It's going to come down to premiums and tax revenues to pay for health care in this country. A flat-rate payroll tax, like what we have for Medicare and Social Security is probably part of the equation, too.

In any case, the three ACA taxes that were postponed (not eliminated) have been unpopular since the dawn of the ACA, and were probably going to go away, anyway. Had Ted Kennedy not died, and Scott Brown had not become a Senator, we would have had the ACA hashed out in a conference committee that would likely have thrown all three taxes out. But when we lost that 60th vote, it was either go 100% with the bill that the Senate passed, or not have an ACA.

This is what happens when you don't have bipartisanship to craft major legislation that may well need technical fixes in later years, as unintended consequences start to show up. When both parties have some skin in the game, they both have an incentive to fix something that's just not working right. President Obama did a masterful job with executive orders, but there's a limit to that. And, we see what happens when we change executives, especially for the worst.

sure you are in the right forum? Because the ACA is all we got right now.

I would hope that this place would not become a mere echo chamber.

And yes, the ACA is all we've got right now, and it's being sunk by the Dotard-in-Cheap. He came to destroy it, not to fix it. That will be up to a future Congress and a future President. And that's only if we can limp into January 2021 with both.

I'm very pessimistic about the future of health care in this country, my biggest hope is that I will stay healthy between the time my health insurance expires at the end of August this year (I'm covered as a domestic partner for my lady, who will join me in retirement) and November 2020, when I'm eligible for Medicare.

As to whether or not I'll be able to get subsidized ACA insurance during 2019-2020, that remains to be seen. I'm sure as hell not going to shell out $300-400 a month for a do-nothing policy. If that makes me sound too Republican for you, so be it. I have to look out for myself in this situation, first and foremost.

not forgo health endurance at your age. It is only a year that you have to pay. Vibes to you in your struggle. Why the richest country in the world has people struggling over health care is a travesty.

I only take one prescription drug, and it is a common blood pressure medication that is so cheap that my local supermarket will give it to me for free. And, I have personal injury protection on my auto insurance. If I get a heart attack, I'm cooked, but the attack might just make health insurance a moot point. Good thing my last EKG was normal, and I'll have one more this year. Guess I got good genes, as an adoptee, I had no idea what I inherited.

I'm glad that I'm one of the ones who only has to struggle for a short time, and I have fairly decent health. My heart goes out to those who have medical problems and no real end in sight to their coverage situation.

Name a bigger red herring

Thx

with the herring comment, but here's how I see it.

Right now, we have a system where people who are wronged medically have to find an attorney, go through years and years of litigation, the outcome of which is at best uncertain, only to have the end result, at best, being a financial settlement that a third of will be grabbed by the attorney, and a non-disclosure agreement will be signed, keeping the doctor/hospital protected from being revealed as to their incompetence.

If that's your idea of "justice", so be it. I keep reading how most all of the world can run their medical care cheaper than we do, and I believe it. These countries don't have billboards along the highways or TV commercials screaming, "Did something bad happen to you? Well, let's sue somebody's ass off for it!" or words to that effect.

We have a lot of things wrong with the way medicine is administered in this country, and I happen to think that the legal system we have is one of them. You may well disagree with me, and want trial lawyers to view each doctor's appointment as a lottery ticket, but when I go to an apppointment, my primary purpose is to SEE a doctor, not SUE a doctor.

Look it up, we are the only country in the world with an incredible amount of lawsuit activity threatening health care providers, and in my opinion, it has radically distorted how medicine is practiced in the US, and we bear the costs accordingly.

Thanks

What next, a screed about the woman and the hot coffee?

that was blown all out of proportion, nice try.

So, you favor a system that makes lawyers rich, makes victims wait years for an uncertain result, and hides the incompetency of healthcare providers who should be exposed. I guess I disagree.

And the people who use their union representatives to negotiate what used to be "mainstream" benefits will be attacked by this tax.

It seems bizarre to me that a Democratic Congress in 2009 would go after the union people in its base that would be most severely affected by this.