Just curious James, how much farming takes place where you live, just wondering if you observe it much personally? Lots of it around here and I talk to small part time farmers often and spend a lot of time driving in soy bean and corn country. The guys I’ve spoken to are quite happy Trump took on China on trade. And yes they took a short term hit. But they also suffered because of a very wet spring and many did not even plant some field due to the wet. Many who did got them in late and the yields were down. A double wammy.
Very little direct experience with farming. My point wasn't so much that Trump wrecked the farmers last year, it was more a commentary on how people want to assign nebulous goo things to the magnificence of Trump, when in fact there are also some negative happenings that can be more directly attributed if one is the sort to attribute presidential actions to such things. My point about the bailouts stands though.
Now, on ACA. Again do you have any experience with the program? I do. I’ve been self employed for 20 years and my wife works with me. We bought our health insurance from the individual marketplace. Once ACA hit our costs rose, and deductibles went up. Then the company we had used for years stopped providing coverage and we were forced into the ACA marketplace. Only one company was offering coverage that had our dr in the network. Prices were crazy high. And to make matters worse some specialists that were in network would not accept us as patients because of the bad payment practices of our carrier. And the coverage cost us 25k a year with 6k per person out of pocket.
All in all it was a horrible situation. We are now on Medicare and somewhat pricey part b supplements and part d coverages. Better that the lousy ACA plan but let me tell you Medicare is not free.
My point here is that my personal experience with ACA was really bad. And from what I’m seeing, those with lower incomes my have insurance but can’t really afford to use it due to high out of pocket costs. From my cheap seats it is a really bad law. YMMV.
I have a ton of direct experience with the ACA. I owned and was
de facto benefits manager for a 20-person media agency both before and after the ACA, with employees across CA, TX and NY. Both my wife and I have direct experience with the insurance market as self-employeds AND, in my wife's case, the impact of the pre-existing coverages and lifetime cap provisions. I can tell you a few things:
1) Yes, costs continued to increase user the ACA.
1a) But more slowly than the did prior to the ACA
1b) And that's even though Republicans keep trying as hard as possible to eliminate funding for, information about, and participation in the program.
2) The idea that the ACA caused people to lose their plans is a red herring. Prior to the ACA, every year I had to re-asses and rebalance coverage for my employees as coverage plans changed, doctors went in and out of network (a real problem for someone like my wife with chronic illness or ongoing treatment for melanoma), etc.
2a) Insurance companies, doctors etc. are happy to blame "The ACA" whenever they have to make a decision that people don't like. I've seen it happen, and the explanations have been largely bogus.
