Health Insurance Premiums Skyrocket by 100% to 300%

You'll probably like to read this CBO study on immigration.  https://www.cbo.gov/publication/60165

Thanks for providing a link to the report. The massive overall benefit to the economy from immigration is very well known to the point where it's kind of a "well, duh" topic. One specific benefit has been a postponement of the projected Social Security insolvency date by a decade.

Likewise, health insurance benefits from an influx of newer, healthy workers.

The problems Japan is experiencing now due to a xenophobic immigration policy are looming in our future as well, as our population ages. That's why this race hatred MAGA nonsense is so destructive.

So Kevin if the Oregon health system is so great , why hasn't it been the model for the rest of the states.  What are the drawbacks after almost 30 years.  

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.

No one except you said that the Oregon health system is "so great." However, it has recently proved to have a hidden virtue: it's Trump-proof.

The reason is, of course, that it's state-funded. You may recall when Hillary was going to become Bill's universal health plan czar. That one went nowhere because it didn't have enough Congressional support. But many individual (yes, Democratic) states wanted that very much.

Oregon wasn't the first state to have universal health care; Massachusetts was and in fact, the OHP was largely modeled on it.

The primary reason that state-funded (as opposed to federal) universal health care hasn't sold in other states is that it requires heavy corporate taxation. We have that here, to the effect that only Nike and Intel among the Fortune 500 have put down roits here. And of course, Obamacare made the discussion moot. We did keep our OHP plans, though, and many Oregonians, myself included, stuck with them. We can still get income tax credits for OHP at both state and federal levels.

So the "drawbacks" have been that a plan such as OHP has not a chance of passing in a state with even a modest Republipig/corporate presence. As soon as any legislator in such a state opened his/her mouth to suggest such a thing, resident corporations paid tens of millions to have that person nailed into a box and tossed into the ocean 

You know how Republicans hate health care. OHP is one of the reasons I love this state, along with laws such as all beaches are public and policies such as keep those ICE thugs out of our cities.

And oh yeah, we devote more of our state budget to parks and recreation areas than any other state, on a per capita basis. Trees. Human rights. Common decency. MAGA stays away. I love it here.

Thanks Kevin, I did remember that Mitt Romney had a plan in his state that many thought should be the model.  I checked on the Obama care websites for my daughter a few years back and found them to be crazy expensive and terrible coverage.  It might be a different story if they were free, or your medical issues were so bad that you couldn't get insurance from somewhere else.  It would be interesting to hear from someone who has Obama care now and how they like it.

It sucks ass but it is better than what came before it. 

The trouble is, you do have fairly costly premiums up front. You can recover up to 100% of those premiums as a tax credit; note, not a deduction, so you can claim it and get a refund even if you have no tax liability. A lot of folks don't get how this works.

It didn't have to be this way. In 2012, the Dems had complete control. They had the 60 votes they needed in the Senate to pass their simple single payer plan. But then Joe Manchin signaled that he might waver. The Dems panicked and made all sorts of concessions to the Republican minority in order to secure the bill's passage. Those included scuttling the single payer system in favor of the bastardized mess we have now.

If not for Manchin, a DINO if there ever was one, we'd have true universal health care now. Manchin was an anti-environmentalist because of his personal financial stake in the coal industry. I wonder why he ever pasted the Democrat label on his forehead.

Anyway, how satisfied you are with Obamacare might depend on how savvy you are when you fill out your 1040...or the local availability of care in your area. I'm glad we have something better here