Future Headaches

In 2010, the U.S. moved towards universal healthcare paid for by the taxpayers, dubbed "Obamacare." This controversial legislation came into effect through the power of a democrat controlled House and Senate.

Polls from various news sources still show a majority public dislike towards the Affordable Care Act (ACA). It's understandable, as some families have experienced higher premiums and very high deductibles, but some families are better off.

Because of the vocal protests by many families, the Republican Party poised itself in opposition to the act, vowing to completely dismantle the ACA at any cost.

The obvious question to ask is "what next?" If Hillary wins, it's very unlikely the constituents would see any repeal of the ACA. If Trump wins, then I suppose there is a different story to tell.

Not only is Trump winning a calamitous omen for the ACA, also included is the Republican majority in the House and Senate.

In the event of this election turnout, there would be some changes coming to the ACA, none of which the Republican Party has covered (but I hope CNN brings it up in their debates, as well as other media sources questioning them on it). It's obvious the single-payer system isn't as perfect in practice as it is on paper from the complaints.

Ultimately, these past 6 years have taken a toll on the private healthcare sector. As less people demonstrate need for extra care (as the government will pickup a lot of the bill, now), the industry has shrunk a bit. There are fewer and fewer providers offering comprehensive private care.

If the ACA is set to repeal, we can't just dump an entire nation of people into a market that has significantly atrophied.

It's entirely possible that regardless of the shrinkage that there is no fallback plan, and we could just overload the industry and deal with slow sign ups and large delays. However, the biggest issue here would be the changes in tax codes and complete waste of time the government endured.

While, yes, the argument can be made that the government is an efficient machine plagued by its own changes in policy (which is something similar I said last week), a step away from universal healthcare is a step in the wrong direction.