Obamacare is Better - But than what?

Obamacare is Better - But than what?
Obamacare is Better - But than what?
In the theory of market economics, government involvement should be limited to providing services the private sector can’t profitably or reliably provide. Obamacare may be inexorably proving the need for a national health plan, despite ardent denials from both presidential candidates.
Truth-out.org (among others) reports that “2,000 Doctors Agree With Bernie Sanders on Universal Health Care”.
“Last week, the American Journal of Public Health carried a proposal by a working group of more than 2,000 physicians nationwide titled: "Moving Forward from the Affordable Care Act to a Single-Payer system”
“In 2014…more than half of all overdue debts on credit reports were medical.” Far from the goal of encouraging providers to “improve coordination and efficiency”, Obamacare has actually led to “…the consolidation of hospitals and physicians’ practices into giant systems with the market leverage to demand higher prices…”
A National Health Plan “would shrink administrative costs…freeing up nearly $500 billion annually for expanded and improved coverage.” “Significant sums would also be saved by allowing the NHP to negotiate with drug companies over prices, as do universal health programs in other advanced nations.” Only the “greater efficiency and simplicity” of a national health plan can “curb inflation in health costs, so that cost savings would grow with time.”
And this doesn't even address the long-term savings from a system that includes incentives for preventative care - something starkly absent from a system built around rollicking enrollment changes and fluctuating plans.
The authors suggest that payments to health care facilities should be handled more like cities fund fire departments, eliminating per-patient billing and diverting operating funds away from profit and advertising toward modernization and expansions targeted to community needs. As for health care choices, the authors say that Obamacare has created more narrow networks in a system that increasingly limits choice and disrupts therapeutic relationships as consumers shop each enrollment cycle for more affordable care. A national health plan would eliminate such disruption and provide consumers better choices for care.
You can read more about it here. The New York Times recently also described these same emerging problems under Obamacare.