The ACE is dead

[Rideback]

Yes, with the distinction that someone like Lutnick who was being interviewed as the head of the Dept of Commerce (my post above) rather than an individual with opinions, is using that cred to promote bad math to Fox viewers who will believe him.

[mister_coffee]

And those who do know are counting on that ignorance with numbers among voters to get their point to resonate.

Although a lot of those doing the fooling are also themselves fools. Tr*mp and M*sk are both good examples. In fact, a lot of really smart people
also get stuff wrong. Sometimes spectacularly wrong.

There was some old Seinfeld thing about how it isn't really lying if you believe it yourself.

[Rideback]

And those who do know are counting on that ignorance with numbers among voters to get their point to resonate.

[mister_coffee]

I once had a boss who would say something like, "100 percent effort isn't good enough. I expect 500 percent."

What really got us into this mess as a society is not the rotting orange blob in the White House. What really got us into this mess in generations of innumeracy. Most people in these times don't even understand what numbers mean. Percentages were formerly taught as fifth and sixth grade arithmetic. It is obvious today that most people don't understand them.

[Rideback]

FOX: If you cut something by 100%, the cost goes down to 0. If you cut it by 600%, the drug companies are actually paying you.
Lutnick: What he's saying is if a drug was $100 and you bring it down to $13, it's down 7 times.
FOX: Not a 600% cut.
Lutnick: But it's 700% higher price before. It's down 700% now.
Anyway, just in case you were wondering how these "businessmen" could bankrupt a casino.
And a nation.

[just-jim]

.

Maybe this is needed to force the change that is required? As Maggie Thatcher said 'socialism works until you run out of everyone else's money'

More hypocrisy from the guy who gets all his income - and his health care for he and his family - 100% from a ‘socialist system’….e.g. a municipality funded by ‘everyone else’s money’!
.

[PAL]

It will be a change allright. The ACA had not gone into effect and we were paying $1800/month for two. Just in time my husband went on Medicare or the business was going to be in trouble. Once ACA was in affect, my rates did go down to around $400/month, so it did help.
The people with reduced rates, that I had, will now find that their premiums will go back up.
At times, is insurance a trap? But when it is needed, and you have it, it won't wipe out your savings. And paying a monthly rate could be considered a savings type of account. But what the gov't wants to give people is what, $2000, for the year so people can "shop" for their insurance. $2000 is peanuts and the GOP and especially Trump, Elon, etc. are out of touch with everyday people. And you know what? They really don't care.

[dorankj]

Maybe this is needed to force the change that is required? As Maggie Thatcher said 'socialism works until you run out of everyone else's money'

[Rideback]

Ken, I found the clip of the interview. No where does Thune explain how his members intend to fix the problems he calls out. They don't have any fixes in mind much less a plan to replace the ACA. Meanwhile, come January a whole lot of people will be leaving the ACA, probably the most healthy among us and with their exit there will be less $ going into the pot that is used to cover the costs of the people who do have health care needs. Basic insurance structure.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/16/aca-subsidy-fraud.html

[Rideback]

post a link
and explain what you mean by the 'very narrow few'...like 22 million who are affected?

[dorankj]

Maybe watch Brett Bair's interview with John Thune from today, we're talking about a VERY narrow few people who earn 400% of poverty line ++. Not exactly everybody and and the most desperate folks.

[Rideback]

Just for Ken
https://shanealmgren.substack.com/p/hea ... irect=true

[Rideback]

I do remember the tape of John McCain casting his vote for the original ACA quite vividly.

The latest 'Rep' plan of putting subscribers into the role of negotiators with insurance companies did indeed fail.

[dorankj]

Boy, THAT is a master class of gaslighting! Of course 'little' details do matter, not one single republican voted for the ACA, but sure, 'it was a republican plan that would have worked fine if not for those pesky Republicans!' You a a joke villain from a Scooby Doo episode.

[Rideback]

Understanding the double whammy of this year's ACA premiums.
https://healthcareuncovered.substack.co ... irect=true

[Rideback]

Four House Reps broke with Leader Johnson this morning to vote with Dems to force a discharge petition for the Dems' extension proposal
https://newrepublic.com/post/204537/rep ... -obamacare

[Rideback]

Sen Warnock responds
https://crooksandliars.com/2025/12/sen- ... -host-whos

[Rideback]

The ACA Is Dead
How Republicans Finished the Job and Why We Do Not Rebuild the Shell
White Rose
December 15, 2025
The Affordable Care Act is dead.
Not failing. Not under strain. Not in need of repair. Dead.
What remains is a hollow regulatory shell that still collects premiums while delivering shrinking access, exploding costs, and bureaucratic cruelty. This outcome was not accidental and it was not unforeseeable. Republicans did not repeal the ACA in one vote because they could not. So they dismantled it structurally, piece by piece, until the math stopped working.
And the uncomfortable truth is this. The ACA was vulnerable from the start.
The law was built on a Republican blueprint, the Heritage Foundation model, and it carried its fatal flaw into implementation. It relied on a fragile individual mandate to force risk pooling inside a private insurance market that does not function without coercion. Once Republicans zeroed out the mandate penalty in 2017, one leg of the system was already gone. The ACA survived afterward only because massive subsidies kept insurers rich and healthier people enrolled.
That second leg is now gone too.
Enhanced premium subsidies are expiring. Premiums are spiking. When prices double, healthy people leave first. The risk pool degrades. Insurers respond exactly as their business model requires. Higher premiums. Narrower networks. Higher deductibles. Plans that technically cover illness and practically deny care. This is not ideology. It is insurance math asserting itself.
Preexisting condition protections do not survive this environment. Without a mandate, they cannot. Insurers do not need to deny coverage outright. They simply price sick people out of the market. A cancer survivor facing unaffordable premiums and five figure deductibles is uninsured in every way that matters. Republicans know this. That is why they do not have to repeal protections on paper. They let pricing do the work.
At the same time, Medicaid is being collapsed deliberately.
The post-pandemic unwinding stripped coverage from tens of millions of people, many of them still eligible. Administrative churn was not a mistake. It was the mechanism. Work requirements are next. Paperwork traps, reporting thresholds, and eligibility cliffs are being reintroduced to drive people out quietly. Rural hospitals close. State systems strain. The safety net frays exactly as designed.
Put it together and stop pretending otherwise.
The ACA is not dying. It is finished.
This collapse belongs to Republicans. They killed the mandate. They removed the subsidies. They imposed Medicaid barriers. They knew exactly what would happen and accepted the human cost.
But the next move matters more than assigning blame.
We do not rebuild the ACA.
The ACA was never a health care system. It was a stabilization program for private insurance companies that expanded access only as long as public money forced the numbers to work. It socialized risk at the margins and privatized profit at the core. It required constant political defense and could always be sabotaged by a hostile administration. That is not durability. That is dependence.
There is no fix for preexisting conditions inside a private insurance framework without coercion. There is no fix for affordability without endless subsidies. There is no protection against sabotage in a system that collapses when spreadsheets change.
This is not a technical problem. It is a structural one.
The answer is Medicare for All. Universal. Automatic. Public. No underwriting. No pricing games. No employer leash. No mandate required because everyone is in by definition. A system that cannot be quietly dismantled by administrative vandalism or premium shock.
Pair it with a living wage and basic economic security and you remove the leverage that keeps Americans afraid, compliant, and trapped. Health care, wages, and time to live are not bargaining chips. They are the minimum conditions of a functioning society.
This is not a negotiation with insurers. It is not a compromise with donors. It is a demand from the people.
Democrat or Republican, if you defend insurance profits over patient care and poverty wages over human dignity, you stand with the oligarchy. Party labels do not change that.
Let Republicans own the corpse of the ACA. Do not offer to resurrect it. Do not patch a shell and call it reform.
Medicare for All.
Living wage.
Economic security as the floor.
That is not an opening position.
That is what we will accept.
Annotated Sources
Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF)
Tracking data on ACA premium subsidies, post-pandemic Medicaid unwinding, insurer participation, and premium increases. KFF analysis shows premium payments more than doubling for many enrollees when enhanced subsidies expire and documents tens of millions of Medicaid disenrollments driven largely by administrative churn.
Congressional Budget Office (CBO)
Scoring of Medicaid work requirements and ACA policy changes. CBO estimates show millions losing Medicaid coverage under work requirements and millions more becoming uninsured, confirming that coverage loss is a designed outcome, not a side effect.
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP)
Policy analysis synthesizing CBO and CMS data demonstrating that combined ACA subsidy expiration and Medicaid restrictions result in large scale coverage loss, disproportionately affecting low income and rural populations.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)
Official enrollment and disenrollment data from the Medicaid unwinding period showing historic coverage losses following the end of continuous coverage protections.
Heritage Foundation Health Policy Proposals (1990s)
Original market-based framework that inspired the ACA structure, including reliance on private insurers, individual mandates, and regulated marketplaces, demonstrating the law’s ideological origins and structural fragility.
Hashtags
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#ACAIsDead
#MedicareForAll
#HealthcareIsARight
#EndInsuranceMiddlemen
#LivingWage
#EconomicSecurity
#MedicaidMatters
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