How much has Obamacare saved the American people?

[Truth Detector]

I find that right-wingers tend to react with unthinking incredulity, when the tropes they've been brainwashed into accepting crash up against verifiable real-world facts.

I find your post ironic in that you are trying to defend the great lie by bloviating how much worse things MIGHT have been. The architect of Obamacare has you pegged snowflake:

Jonathan Gruber Videos: Oneuli "Too Stupid to Understand" Obamacare

[Legion]

No causative effect that I can see.

[artichoke]

Here's a way to think about the success of Obamacare in slowing healthcare inflation. It's been about eight years and eight months since Obamacare was signed into law. We can compute healthcare inflation for 660 eras of that length leading up to the passage of Obamacare. Among the 660 eras, the lowest healthcare inflation was 30%, the highest was 137%, the average was 64%, and the median was 53%.

So, how has the last eight years and eight months looked in that context? Well, it turns out, healthcare inflation has been 26% -- significantly below the prior record-low for a period of that length. The savings from that low rate of healthcare cost growth is substantial. For example, we spend about $10,224 per capita on healthcare today. If, since Obamacare passed, healthcare costs had risen in accordance with an average rate of inflation rather than the record low rate we've had, it would be $12,898. So, for a family of four, you could think of the difference as a $10,696 of additional healthcare costs, just for a single year. And that figure gets bigger every year that our healthcare spending growth remains below average.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIMEDSL

Costing over a trillion dollars to shred the Constitution and double my insurance premiums while forcing me to lose the doctor I wanted to keep (contrary to everything we were promised) and making everything worse "saved" us money in the same way that illegal immigrants "help" our economy.

[Oneuli]

Why is it incumbent on me to provide them?

Did someone say it was incumbent on you to provide them?

[Lightbringer]

Did someone say it was incumbent on you to provide them?

You cut off the rest...the rest said "since you made the claim".

Stop being a stupid bitch.

[Oneuli]

You're talking about tropes?

Yes. Among right-wingers, it's an article of faith that Obamacare drove up healthcare costs. Yet there are plenty of statistical sources we can use to check that idea, including the healthcare inflation statistic I cited. That real-world evidence all tells the same story: although healthcare costs continued to rise after Obamacare, they rose at a drastically lower rate than was typical before Obamacare. It appears to cause right-wingers a great deal of mental distress when the tropes they cherish run up against such facts.

[Lightbringer]

Yes. Among right-wingers, it's an article of faith that Obamacare drove up healthcare costs. Yet there are plenty of statistical sources we can use to check that idea, including the healthcare inflation statistic I cited. That real-world evidence all tells the same story: although healthcare costs continued to rise after Obamacare, they rose at a drastically lower rate than was typical before Obamacare. It appears to cause right-wingers a great deal of mental distress when the tropes they cherish run up against such facts.

Econ101 baby. Increase demand...don't increase supply...what happens?

[Oneuli]

ANOTHER one of Obamas lies on Obamacare was that it would actually SAVE money.

Obama can be rightly criticized for having overstated the case for Obamacare: claiming it would actually lower costs, rather than merely lowering the rate of cost growth. If people want to call him a liar for that, that's fine with me. He knew better, but overstated the case anyway. It wasn't dishonesty of a Trumpian scale, but it was dishonest, and I won't defend him on that front. But the topic here is Obamacare, not Obama. Obamacare did, in fact, greatly reduce the rate of healthcare inflation -- to the point that prices have risen much less since Obamacare passed than in ANY comparably lengthy period before Obamacare. You can confirm that yourself with the data link I provided.

[Superfreak]

I find that right-wingers tend to react with unthinking incredulity, when the tropes they've been brainwashed into accepting crash up against verifiable real-world facts.

Comparing healthcare rates on healthcare without adjusting for overall inflation rates is misleading. Of course healthcare inflation rates are going to go up higher under Carter like inflation than they are under sub 2% inflation that we have seen in the past decade. So to do an apples to apples comparison, you must adjust for over all inflation.

[Truth Detector]

Yes. Among right-wingers, it's an article of faith that Obamacare drove up healthcare costs. Yet there are plenty of statistical sources we can use to check that idea, including the healthcare inflation statistic I cited. That real-world evidence all tells the same story: although healthcare costs continued to rise after Obamacare, they rose at a drastically lower rate than was typical before Obamacare. It appears to cause right-wingers a great deal of mental distress when the tropes they cherish run up against such facts.

President Obama Proposes Cuts To Health Care Spending To Lower Deficit

[Oneuli]

In your link, it shows the costs rising dramatically since 1975 with no lowering trend in sight.

Do the math yourself, if you don't believe me. How much have healthcare costs risen since Obamacare, in percentage terms? Now, find ANY OTHER PERIOD IN HISTORY, before Obamacare, when healthcare costs rose that little over a period that long. You won't be able to. At least going back to the start of the data at that source, in 1947, costs rose a greater percentage in every other period of that length.

[Oneuli]

BUT, they didn't increase as much as they could have.

No, that's not the argument. I'm not comparing the rate of increase since Obamacare to the highest rates of increase from prior periods of that length and arguing "it could be worse." Instead, I'm comparing the rate of increase since Obamacare to the lowest rates of increase from prior periods of that length and pointing out IT HAS NEVER BEEN BETTER. So, it's not that it could have increased faster. It's that it WOULD HAVE increased faster. Much faster, in fact, according to all prior experience.

[Oneuli]

I read the article and saw the graph

So, you confirmed I was right. Or are you just absolute shit at reading graphs? If so, that's fine. You can use the link to download the data and do the calculations, so that even if you suck at reading graphs, you'll be able to confirm the truth of what I say. If you find you need help, don't be too embarrassed to reach out for it. I'll be happy to walk you through.

[Truth Detector]

Obama can be rightly criticized for having overstated the case for Obamacare: claiming it would actually lower costs, rather than merely lowering the rate of cost growth. If people want to call him a liar for that, that's fine with me. He knew better, but overstated the case anyway. It wasn't dishonesty of a Trumpian scale, but it was dishonest, and I won't defend him on that front. But the topic here is Obamacare, not Obama. Obamacare did, in fact, greatly reduce the rate of healthcare inflation -- to the point that prices have risen much less since Obamacare passed than in ANY comparably lengthy period before Obamacare. You can confirm that yourself with the data link I provided.

Jonathan Gruber Videos: Oneuli "Too Stupid to Understand" Obamacare

[Oneuli]

.... how much worse things MIGHT have been. ....

We're not talking about mere speculation that things might have been worse. We're talking about the FACT that healthcare inflation since Obamacare has been significantly lower than the RECORD LOWEST healthcare inflation for a period of that length before Obamacare.