[CaptainMattJ.]

Really, BH? Are you actually insinuating that the healthcare system before ACA, even healthcare today, is not a grotesque middle finger to anyone actually looking for affordable decent care? Have you SEEN the average hospital bill? I remember years ago i had to go to the emergency room for a peanut reaction to a food i had asked about and had been told was peanut free. 1200 dollar emergency room fee. I got one pill. I actually sat there having my reaction for 3 hours before they gave me 1 pill, and another to keep for later just in case. I was paying 1200 dollars to sit on an emergency room bed for 3 hours, STILL REACTING TO THE PEANUTS MIND YOU, before the doctor looked at my chart, looked at my throat, and gave me prednisone. Because the reaction never quite got to the point where i was turning purple trying to gasp for air, they decided i wasn't urgent enough to get a pill until 3 hours later.

Our 550 dollar a month healthcare plan didn't shed a penny towards it, either. AFAIK there's no other industry in the country that embezzles, scams, monopolizes, and price gouges on a more obscene scale than healthcare, except the banks. And the health insurance companies price gouge so blatantly in front of our government. And up until ACA the government stood there and did absolutely nothing. You wanna know why every other first world country has DRASTICALLY lower healthcare and medication costs? Because other countries dont allow that kind of jaw-dropping monopolizing and price gouging happen, especially not in something as critical and important as their healthcare systems.

But we should totally let them do their own thing, cause it somehow worked before (not really). Let them monopolize healthcare, jack up their prices to obscene rates, and then deny coverage to people who really need it. The insurance and pharmaceutical companies have privatized in its entirety our healthcare system and turned it into absolutely nothing more than a business. Healthcare is not and should never be a business. The actual physical well being and health of every american citizen and in fact every person on this planet should never, ever be JUST a business. Look at what it has done. There are very few insurance companies because they have monopolized their business. They then buy out hospitals, pharmacies, and all the equipment our healthcare system needs, and jacks up the prices to preposterous and grotesque amounts.Then they jack up prices on their insurance policies and deductibles, and since they're the only guys in town its either them or nothing. Our medication, which costs so very little to produce, has profit margins of 1000-2000%. Imagine if gasoline or electricity cost 2000% more than what it took to actually make it. Nobody would be able to afford anything. But since apparently living is just a privilege to some people, we haven't done anything to fight them. Because the insurance companies jack up their rates to ~800 dollars a month for the average family (with deductibles that end up doing nothing for that family unless its a full-blown hospitalization), and of course not many people can afford that. So they go uninsured. Well,, life happens, and people get sick or injured. Those who are uninsured go to the hospital, and because theyre already low income, they cant afford the bill. So the taxpayer pays it. So the money that you pay that goes towards funding for the ACA actually gets put back into the coffers in the form of people either paying the fine for CHOOSING to be uninsured, or people not sticking the taxpayers with the bill they cant pay because they cant afford healthcare.

Healthcare is NOT a commodity. It deals with the real lives of 320 million americans. The ACA is not a permanent solution to our heathcare problems, at all. Not only are there flaws in the ACA but it never really addressed the actual ridiculous cost of healthcare in the first place. But by god its a step in the right direction.

Republicans, instead of proposing something even worth mentioning that ACTUALLY PROVIDES A SOLUTION, have cried and thrown a tantrum, and try to circumvent the law that was legally passed by not funding it (its still going to be implemented though). Pathetic. If you're going to criticize a step in the right direction, then please, at least give an ACTUAL alternative, rather than nothing. Doing nothing and simply repealing obamacare helps absolutely no one, in fact that was the problem in the FIRST PLACE. Wed be back to square one. And with no actual hope in sight. If you think its such a god awful detriment to the union then COME UP WITH A BETTER SOLUTION. Something that will ACTUALLY tackle the problem, and not anything less.

Unfortunately the american people should not realistically expect more from the republicans or the democrats than political tribalism and party politics. Its just absolutely pathetic.