ACA. Universal health care. Most important topic. Coursework

1. The underlying driver for most universal healthcare programs is the belief that health care is a moral right. Do you agree with this? If no, explain. If so, who do you believe should pay for it?
2. Which topic of this course did you find the most interesting and/or the most valuable to you personally?
3. John Gruber, health economist and key player in the ACA development, has had an unearthed conference quote circulating the web recently. The popular press and republicans are quick to criticize his quotes as highlighting the flaws of the bill and, especially, the "underhandedness" of getting the bill passed. Evaluate your thoughts on the quote below.  Specifically mention whether or not you believe this suggests that the bill should not have been passed.

"This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO [Congressional Budget Office] scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies. Okay, so it’s written to do that.  In terms of risk rated subsidies, if you had a law which said that healthy people are going to pay in – you made explicit healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed… Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really really critical for the thing to pass....Look, I wish Mark was right that we could make it all transparent, but I’d rather have this law than not."

1. Select one of the concerns of the ACA discussed in the lecture and evaluate its validity. If deemed a valid concern, suggest an alternative or approach to deal with it. If not valid, state why others believe it is an issue.