"Laughter is the best medicine for when you cannot afford health insurance."

-Probably an American-

Have you seen this video?
Some key statistics regarding pre-Obamacare healthcare:

• Only about 28% of Americans get their insurance through government-funded programs.
• The US spends about 18% of its GDP on healthcare costs. Australia pays 9%.
• A month of the drug Lipitor in the US costs $124. In New Zealand it costs $7.
• America has higher rates of obesity, but less alcohol and tobacco use than most developed countries. 
• Tort reform (i.e., state laws passed to guard against frivolous malpractice lawsuits), have led to a .1% drop in health costs. Defensive medicine only accounts for 2% of our total health spending.

Healthcare is a unique part of the economy, and research suggests that it is a fairly inelastic market. Healthcare companies won't change enough because of competition; there's just not enough incentive to do so. Therefore, Obamacare will probably not lower healthcare costs to nearly the level of countries that provide socialized medical services.

Source: Invendo-Medical, Colonoscope

Up Yours
In an article focused on the price of American colonoscopies, Elisabeth Rosenthal of The New York Times examined the difference between American health companies and comparable but cheaper varieties of care in other countries. Competition actually played a role in raising the cost of a procedure in her case study. Rosenthal found:

"The high price paid for colonoscopies mostly results...from business plans seeking to maximize revenue; haggling between hospitals and insurers that have no relation to the actual costs of performing the procedure; and lobbying, marketing and turf battles among specialists that increase patient fees."

Rosenthal's example shows that healthcare is a capitalistic industry, and generally has no real drive to provide better or cheaper care. Business executives only need to ensure that every part of the system is profitable by constructing ways to maintain high profit levels for the companies, doctors, and administrative personnel who provide services. The threat to UPMC's tax exempt status demonstrates that even supposed charitable institutions are not immune from corporate influences.

In the future, everyone will die from typhoid and blood poisoning. Like Oregon Trail. 

Source: The Oregon Trail

True story: in 1911, the whiskey maker Jack Daniel died from blood poisoning he contracted after kicking a safe. Research shows that unless a new generation of antibiotics is developed in the next few decades, it's possible we'll all be felled by similarly preventable bacterial infections and diseases. The problem is that there is no market incentive for pharmaceutical industries to produce new antibiotics. Indeed, The Washington Post reported in 2012 that pharmaceutical companies are shutting down antibiotic labs. The reasons? Technical troubles, excessive regulation, and lack of profitability.

Life in not a race. It's a marathon.
Antibiotics, which cure diseases quickly and permanently, are less profitable than maintenance drugs like insulin, so companies aren't investing in new ones. Meanwhile, deadly superbugs are popping up in hospitals worldwide. As The Post reported, "it's a case of evolution outrunning capitalism."

In an article for Jacobin, Leigh Phillips argues that cases like this are proof that it is actually essential to socialize some parts of the medical industry; without political support for research, there will simply not be an incentive to develop new antibiotics...and many of us will eventually die from quaint diseases like cholera and dysentery.

Social Welfare and Health Policies
Social service workers have long been confined by immediate client needs to advocating on behalf of individual patients. By creating an opportunity for everyone to buy affordable health insurance, Obamacare allows us to broaden our efforts to include other policy reforms.

Although Obamacare has many faults, it represents a step in the direction of creating transparency within the health care industry, lowering prices for some patients, and preventing medical bankruptcies caused by paying for uninsured procedures. However, policy makers have to take a comprehensive approach to disentangling the messy dynamics of a profit-driven healthcare system. As the "superbug" articles demonstrate, complacency is dangerous.