It was a relief to see that the American Healthcare Act bill did not get to the floor of the House as the Republican teams did not see a path to passage since they could not muster enough votes in their own party. While Obamacare certainly could be improved I personally know of quite a few people who benefitted from having some form of coverage and the access that it provided.
Still, premiums are too high. The funny thing is that every one complains about it but, at least to me, insurance is not where the greatest costs in healthcare are. The greatest costs lie within the system itself. (The insurers will only pass costs on to those of us paying the premiums. They will not take a bath on the costs that the hospitals and providers are sending along to them.
So, any type of healthcare insurance reform can only do so much. If we really want to lower healthcare costs we need to make the whole system of care well, more caring and cost efficient. We spend about $3.2 trillion per year on healthcare here in the US (with the federal government alone spending ~$1 trillion.) I believe that there is much waste in the system and that, with the right application of Lean principles, Six Sigma, flow, population health approach vs fee for service, tort reform, we could potentially cut out $0.5 to $1+ trillion of waste.
If we could reduce that waste and reinvest $0.5 trillion to help the American people in some other way imagine what we could do together?