>>It seems that the ONLY ones who are benefiting from the ACA (Obamacare) are the welfare recipients....who qualify for huge government subsidies.>>
On the contrary: the people who have benefited the most from ACA are the people with pre-existing conditions, who were often turned down for insurance. Diabetes, high blood pressure, thyroid conditions, etc. - many conditions which can be treated with generic prescriptives, where early detection and prevention improve both the quality of life and mortality ratio.
The ONLY reason Medicare exists is that longevity was pushing retirees into bankruptcy, because they didn't have retiree medical benefits and there was NO alternative except out-of-pocket. When the middle-class seniors began going bankrupt from healthcare costs - remember the "eating dog food" stories"? I do - then the political pressure began to help seniors.
Even then, the Repubs dragged their feet, as did the Southern Dems (who eventually fled to the Repub side and became the Tea Party faction). The ORIGINAL healthcare legislation was Richard Nixon's blueprint for national health insurance, a cause which he firmly believed in since the early 1960's.
Due to the outcry over "socialism", the legislation was modified to be only for seniors, not all citizens. The insurance industry was allowed to continue to "pick and choose" applicants. And this is why, 50 yrs later, the U.S. spends more $$$$ and gets less return for its healthcare funds, than any other industrialized country in the world.
I retired in 2006. I noticed that very few people paid any attention to the REAL cost of their healthcare, which was clearly listed in Open Enrollment literature. At that time when our employees were paying $100/mo, the HMO cost was $850/mo and the PPO cost was $990/mo.
I realized then that only the self-employed had any idea what healthcare insurance actually cost. For company employees, they just never bothered to read, or think about what their benefits actually meant.
