I find this very intriguing and go a step further: What do our group members foresee if Democrats lose the US General Election?

Jon Gardner ACA was just the next step toward complete federal regulation of the healthcare industry. Even if the ACA went away tomorrow, the over-the-top regulatory burden remains. Costs will continue to rise, and both quality and quantity of care will continue to decrease, unless and until the regulatory environment changes.

Markie E. We'll go back to inefficient, ineffective, dataless, and volume based care which proved to not work either. At least with ACA as painful and as regulated as it is, it promotes innovation and has brought us to focus on quality. Yes, it is costly and yes it will take time to get us where we need to be but the alternative is not an option.

As is demonstrably true in nearly all cases, free market choices result in the best all-around solution for humans. Government has never been good at providing solutions.

Alan DeRossett People would die while a dysfunctional congress tries to privatize all Brian Bookmeier ► Healthcare Business Development Leader

government intervention in the health care industry, for costs, quality, and availability of Healthcare really don't help the situation. leave the consumer to drive the costs of health care and you will see quality providers continue, but will drive poor quality out of the system.

Abhinav Shashank The intent behind posting this blog was to initiate a conversation on ACA, wherein various aspects of the Affordable Care Act could be discussed. Thanks all for contributing your views.

Theodore Kucklick The ACA or Obamacare is not just one thing. It was a 2000 page behemoth of a bill that even those who voted for it neither read nor understood. Parts of Obamcare are collapsing under their own weight (the "Exchanges") other parts ("Minimum Essential Benefits") were a grab bag of goodies to politically favored groups that have sent premiums to the moon for "benefits" most policyholders don't want, don't, need, and can't opt out of. The data collection part actually goes back to the Bush Stimulus package, and was further reaffirmed with the MACRA Act passed on a bipartisan vote last year. So, his is not a simple as "Obamacare" or "not Obamacare" However the junk insurance that has come out of it with ridiculous deductible, steep rates, and narrow networks for the average person must change. Medicare expansion is also dead in the water as a giant budget buster.

Julie Omohundro TK, the junk insurance was as predictable an outcome of ACA as the mortgage defaults were an outcome of sub-prime mortgages. Both were grounded firmly in people wanting to get that which they cannot afford and/or people wanting to sell it to them.

Julie Omohundro Markie, how does ACA promote innovation?

How has it brought "us" (who, exactly?) to focus on quality?

Julie Omohundro Scott, and who exactly is this consumer who is going to drive the costs of health care? The patient? The physician? The hospitals and clinics? Distributors? The health insurance companies? CMS? The VA? The DoD? USAID?

Markie E. Julie O. ACA promotes innovation by asking healthcare providers use data and share data to better coordinate care and provide quality care. It has motivated VCs and startups to focus on healthcare by developing big data tools that will enable managing quality, risk and patient engagement.

Julie Omohundro Markie E., thanks for the explanation. It will be interesting to see how the data sharing works out. As for the other, if that's the case, I'm sure those who want VCs to focus on healthcare are thrilled. Me, not so much.

Theodore Kucklick Markie, that is one small piece of it. The idea is that hospitals will merge into larger networks and collect and share data is what is driving a lot of investment in digital health. The idea is that this will drive operational efficiencies and prevent complications and waste. This is a net positive. However the elimination of "fee for service" and making doctors employees of hospital mega-systems is going to affect healthcare in other ways, not all of them positive. Politically, there are some that want "single payer" (i.e. paid via taxes and administered by government) where all docs are government employees. (similar to France) I don't see this happening. That is the part of Obamacare that will be thrown overboard. The decline in quality and access this would entail will be unacceptable to Americans.

Markie E. We are far from single payer model. I do agree that data is a small piece of it. I was an examples of the innovation piece. VCs are investing in digital healthcare because patients are the new customers and social media Healthcare is complex and so are the consumers, I believe that overall ACA is a good thing with modifications to allow transparency and competition.

Ed D. I recall the principle "subsidize an industry if you want to grow it, tax an industry if you want to kill it" What ACA has brought us is expensive healthcare for those who were in the middle (with a disguised increase in income tax), and heavily subsidized (and essentially free) healthcare for those who could not or did not wish to buy it earlier. Shutting it down now will not reverse the cost increases that the middle class consumer experienced in the past few years, because we will pay for it either in cash, or through income taxes or through inflation.

Ed D. TKucklick: You speak of decline of quality under the single payer system. It may be more appropriate to speak of cost of quality.... from what I am hearing in the community, with ACA we have a perceived dramatic increase in the cost of quality. In other words to get the same quality of service pre-ACA, the cost is much higher today. Yes, more people have access to free routine "health-care" which in the past they simply avoided having, without much downside. As for efficiencies, if there are any, the patient/payer is not likely ever to see them.

Margarethe Boisserie This is a very interesting discussion for a European person as I am. Always wondered why U.S.A. could not adopt a social security model we have here (Germany or France i.e.)??. In sum all are paying for all. Even every refugee gets complete free health care. It is mandatory for all people to be health insured, no matter if one is unemployed, no matter if one has or has not a "healthy" lifestyle or such. Of course I'm not this informed about ACA..

Chuck Vivian If Obamacare shut down tomorrow, we would have "RepubliCare" by next Tuesday. It's here to stay in one form or the other.

ACA shutting down would only be a good thing if it were replaced with single payer.

Tanya Sokolsky Agree with Ed D'Silva that shutting ACA down will not reverse the cost increases. What will be advantage in doing this? Before ACA, people with preexisting conditions were refused by health insurance companies. Is this a good system? ACA or private health insurance companies have a long way to improve. The lack of competition and transparency is obvious. It is practically impossible to obtain cost for a medical procedure/service upfront even in the current situation of very high deductibles and co-pays.