By George Bohmfalk, M.D.
Aspen Daily News, Letters, June 25, 2025
At Sunday evening’s Aspen Ideas Health session I was interested to hear Nancy Pelosi and other esteemed panelists discuss how the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, barely passed some 15 years ago. But I was very disappointed by her opinion that the benefits of the ACA are superior to those that would be guaranteed by an improved Medicare for All.
I appreciate that a wholesale revamping of our health care system may have been politically impossible. But there’s no way that a clearcut system like improved Medicare for All — with universal, cradle-to-grave comprehensive coverage, no pre-existing conditions exclusions, elimination of the impenetrable complexities of Medicaid and several other programs, disconnection from employment and streamlined funding and provider payment system — is not an improvement over the cat’s cradle in which we now struggle to obtain, deliver and pay for care.
The ACA accomplished many great things, but it did not cover all Americans nor protect us from medical bankruptcy and has allowed private insurance companies to profit obscenely while restricting care. The dam is going to break before long.
Aspen Ideas clip: