Less noted, senior Republican lawmakers have quietly incorporated many of the law's key protections into their own proposals, including guaranteeing coverage and providing government assistance to help consumers purchase insurance.
This balkanization of our credit reporting system, however, would slow economic growth and fail to help consumers needing assistance.
The consumer has not benefited on a "net basis" (keep in mind, government programs designed to provide "assistance" to consumers in need are "transfer payments".
The Kennedy message became a blueprint for a series of important consumer protections that were enacted, many over the next ten or fifteen years, often with the assistance of Consumers Union (founded in 1936) and firepower added by the emergence of the late-sixties Nader's Raiders, the fledgling Consumer Federation of America (1968) and, then, at the local level, the state PIRGs (early 1970s).
The plan would provide financial assistance to consumers, much like Obamacare does, but the formula for calculating that assistance would be different, and low-income consumers would likely end up with less money.
In addition, federal officials are looking for private contractors to provide "in-person assistance" to consumers and to operate call centers.
The law may well provide indirect assistance to consumers, if it can stabilize the nation's financial institutions, reopen the credit spigot and prevent a deeper economic slowdown.
Unlike during those years, when President Barack Obama urged Americans to buy coverage and the federal government heavily subsidized both advertising and in-person assistance for consumers, federal officials have done little to promote this ACA enrollment period.
The options include tighter regulation of premiums, forcing insurers to cut costs or operate at a loss; financial assistance to consumers, in addition to subsidies that will be provided by the federal government; and programs to ensure that the costs of the sickest patients are shared by all insurers.
