The caring for the sick part Christ emphaszed. Depends on the poll. At the time I even saw polls of majorities wanting a public option to be included. Many were in favor of such aspects as the sick with pre existing conditions not being denied coverage and children being able to remain on their parents’ coverage longer.
Well, prior to Obamacare, most Americans had health insurance and were happy with what they had. True, insurers could except “preexisting conditions”, but in ERISA qualified plans, which virtually all are, they could except it for one year only, then they had to cover it. Some people had no coverage by an insurer, for various reasons; some by choice, some because they were illegal, some because they were between employments. Nobody really knew how many were without coverage, but the truly poor had medicaid and the elderly had medicare. And nobody knew either how many people who “didnt have insurance” could apply retroactively for Medicaid coverage. We only knew that it was not uncommon. There were various estimates as to the number of uninsured, but the number floated around 20-30 million.
Obama has admitted that Obamacare will not cover some 20 million. Again, a “guesstimate” because nobody really knows.
But mandates started and will come with a vengeance in 2014. The president will pretty much be able to dictate to insurers what they will or won’t do. Among other things, “child only” policies, which were inexpensive previously, are very expensive because of the mandated coverage. So, people can’t get those as readily or cheaply as before, but 25-year-olds who are either in graduate school or lolling about living off their parents get coverage. But the little kids can still go to the ER at $700 a pop, or do without, and that’s fine. And, of course, Obama dictated that Medicaid reimbursements would go up for “well care” and down for the truly ill. So now, a physician gets $20 for an office visit, which won’t pay his secretary’s salary and benefits, let alone his malpractice insurance. And, of course, no benefits of any other kind have been given to the truly poor. So I guess they can just eat cake. But we did subsidize middle class people who can afford to buy new cars with “cash for clunkers”. We did do that. Of course, the poor are the ones who buy "clunkers’, so they couldn’t buy the ones that were destroyed. But let them ride dream ponies, right? Why would they need to travel? They might actually be able to have jobs if they could get to them, but never mind.
And, of course, Medicaid coverage will be expanded under Obamacare so the physicians who will only take so many Medicaid patients will now have a lot more who will be seeking care, which they will refuse to take. How many of those new Medicaid people had health insurance before? Nobody knows. Nobody who voted for Obamacare knew either, or, apparently, cared to know.
Well, we did need to provide for “no deductibles or co-pays” for “well woman care”, which includes contraception, sterilization and chemical abortion plus whatever Obama decides to include later by decree. That will make costs of insurance increase and there is no corresponding “freebie” for men, but that’s understandable because Planned Parenthood’s major clients are women and providing additional “free” benefits to men would not benefit Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood does not, after all, do prostate exams.
What Obamacare really is, is a subsidy by one segment of the middle class (Families of four or fewer making over $88,000.00/year to another segment of the middle class (Families of four or more making up to $88,000/year.)
And after 2013, Obama will be able to decree any other alteration in coverage he wants, any mandates he wants, any cost increases he wants. And, since Obamacare does not prevent him from decreeing that even surgical abortions, even late term abortions must be paid for by insurers, he has finessed his own “executive order” (which he can withdraw at any time anyway) saying Obamacare can’t pay for abortions. But, as the USCCB and Catholic institutions have found to their sorrow, it’s meaningless anyway because he can just order insurance companies to pay for it and order the employers and insureds to pay the insurers.
But then, Obama didn’t want it himself. He wanted full socialized medicine, which he called the “public option”. Obamacare was designed to fail, and it will fail, because shortly most people will be unable to afford insurance and nobody will treat the rush of Medicaid people. But for now, everybody has to pretend Obama really intended it to succeed when he and everybody else knows it won’t.
In the meantime, fewer people will be able to get medical care than before.
And some think this is what Christ would have wanted?
But in essense would be just as contrictive if not more in the end.