Here's what happened to people without health insurance since Obamacare

You appear to contradict yourself repeatedly. If 85% of Germans are covered by government provided insurance and "only" 10% by private insurance, then are the remaining 5% uninsured????? The relevant simple fact is that, contrary to your original assertion Germany does not provide free health care to all. Indeed it is free to only a very few because nearly all Germans pay the taxes that finance it. They can only hope their government doesn't waste too much of what it collects along the way.

Your formula for "saving Obamacare involves nothing more than compelling those who don't sign up for a meal they didn't order to join -- i.e. to take away their freedom. Even Johnathan Gruber was all for setting the penalties, associated with not signing up, low enough to avoid outraging most voters. Do you really believe the Democrats are foolish enough, or have the political courage to actually enforce the programs they design for our welfare?? Not a chance" they want to buy power by adding to our debt and creating a catastrophe that will occur after they are gone.

The following is a good piece I left in a post a few days ago on what we can do to save Obamacare. ........ .... [/quote]

I don't think it is very good at all.

The ingredients you listed are'
(1) compulsion for joining the government plans - something the Democrats have already demonstrated they haven't the courage to do.
(2) Rationing expensive treatments to very sick people -- something progressives want but are afraid to acknowledge, admit or do.
(3) Price controls for drug companies (and later hospitals) = something that will quickly end research and the development of new treatments.

That's a very high price for saving a turd.

The remaining are covered under programs listed of which I already posted from copy and paste. (The remainder (e.g., soldiers, policemen) are covered under special programs.) I am aware Germans pay taxes to finance it, so does Israel, I wish we did too. I think politicians would be surprised how few would mind paying more in taxes for better coverage of health care.

Oh really? It seems to me that the Democrat politicians who enacted Obama care and who knowingly set the penalties for failing to sign up at very low levels, were still surprised by the number that chose to pay the penalty and avoid signing up. It appears that the correct statement is that many people don't mind others paying higher taxes for their health care. but are themselves very reluctant to take even a small loss for participating in it.

The profit making U.S. Pharmaceutical companies and makers of medical diagnostic and treatment systems have long beem the world's principal innocvators and sources for better (and sometimes cheaper) treatment methods. The heavy dead hand of government bureaucracy will quickly kill that. Careful you don't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

George, The WSJ proves you are correct; many paid the penalty.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/many-uninsured-choose-penalty-over-enrollment-offer-under-health-law-1426888783

You realize that your taxes would be something like 13 - 15% higher when health insurance is included? Compare that what you pay now. Plus the fact that not everything is covered by the health insurance.

When you consider how much health care is and how much we have to pay now, paying more in taxes in exchange for coverage, seems a fair price to pay. We are presently working our way towards that, we just have to make some changes in order for it to be efficient. Many in other nations seems to think paying taxes for health care a fair exchange. I imagine people thought the same when public schools were first started, perhaps people thought then that education wasn't something everyone should have access to. Now it is accepted, many government services are accepted knowing we have to pay taxes for them, health care can be and should be the same.

Perhaps, however, polls say that if anything more people want federal funded health care knowing it comes from taxes rather than doing away with Obamacare and going back to the way it was before. Perhaps if people will not voluntarily buy into the health care exchanges or other insurance, we should do away with it and go to universal single payer health care where it all comes from the government.

Rev!!! I'm shocked! Your advocating communism. God will strike us all dead!

Great. Then everyone will enjoy the excellent care our vetrans currently get from the VA!

Since my husband retired I have been getting government funded health care and the quality of my health care hasn't changed a bit since I got my insurance through my husband employers, if anything, I get more services. (I have health issues plus a handicap, my husband made too much for me to get SSI...though I had while we were divorced for three years, we got remarried and I lost it. I liked my SSI better.) I know that is all anecdotal, just saying, feel free to not believe.

You are getting health care from private providers under government programs that provide funding, doing so in a marketplace still dominated by private end employer paid health care payers who are indeed sensitive and responsive to the opinions and reactions of their clients and employees who receive them. Take that away and create a government monopoly and you will have something worse than the VA.

How much do you or your employer pay in health insurance premiums? Is that more or less than the increase in taxes?

I would gladly have my current health care costs go towards a universal, single payer system instead of an insurance company I have to fight with.

That is the prevailing conservative view, doubt it is true but we won't know unless we try it.

That's a poor rationalization. I've read that large doses of arsenic can be fatal, but have no wish to experiment.

You might wish to examine the statistics for average survival rates and longevity for serious diseases for Canada, the UK and the US. That's a fairly convincing story.

The debate about the quality of health care with countries who get health care through their government has been going on a long time by people a lot smarter than me. I have no desire to get into it. If the present ACA is not sustainable, a majority of the country want federally funded health care and I am with them on that and I always have been. I think we are on our way there, given enough time, I think more conservatives will start to listen the majority of the American voters and participate in making sure everyone has coverage for health care.

Have you asked yourself why the Obamacare legislation passed by a then overwhelming Democrat Majority in both houses of Congress and with zero collaboration with the opposition party is now "unsustainable"? Are you inferring that the cotire of progressive intellectuals and academics who helped design and craft the processes mandated in this plan, toghether with the self appointed reformers of our lives in the Democrat party, somehow got it all wrong, and failed to anticipate the reactions of the people whose lives they were directing ? Really?
Remarkable!

However even more remarkable is your evident willingness to double down on a bad bet and give these idiots even more power and control over our lives and healthcare. ther old saw about the insanity of repeatedly doing the same thing abut expecting a different result comes to mind.

However to top that you indicate that you have no interest in examining the results in other countries of the same thing you are proposing to mandate for ours. You are convinced by someone's survey indicating that most people would like someone else to pay for their healthcare. Of course they would. I suspect most people would also like someone else to pay for their food. Shall we then open government operated cafeterias in every city and town, Do you believe the cuisine would be very good?

George, Have you asked yourself why the republicans are know as the party of gridlock? McConnell said he's going to make Obama a one term president. Since he failed that one, he's the father of congressional gridlock.
http://www.fredericksburg.com/opinion/letters_to_editor/letter-end-republican-created-congressional-gridlock/article_cc4cac5b-3141-5d91-ae6c-0dbb21db6bb8.html

I think you should read more about Harry Reid's behavior while Majority leader of the Senate. It takes two to tango and both have been dancing these last seven years.

They never seem to remember that Reid kept over 200 bills from the GOP controlled House tied up in committees and refused a vote on them. This never enters into their "gridlock" comments. They see an end to "gridlock" as the Dems getting their way and everything Obama wants being rubber stamped with total approval by Congress. CI wants to end "gridlock" but only if the left gets their way.

Not really. I just want congress to negotiate and compromise as it should work; not total gridlock.