Since the basics of the ACA are identical to plans Republicans put forth multiple times over the past few decades, the downside is Republicans will be caught in the trap of being violently against something that was both A) their idea originally and B) has been shown to be quite popular among voters once they learn what it actually does.

Thus the Republican party has committed to stopping implementation at all costs.

One downside: it shafts young men uninsured through their employers (read: a considerable part of the HN demographic) pretty hard: http://money.cnn.com/2013/05/14/news/economy/obamacare-premi...

Obviously it would be better to keep things as-is, with non-employer-provided insurance ranging from difficult to impossible to obtain at any price :)

Well, maybe it's not a downside. One could argue that young men have life on easy mode and should be the ones to bear burdens that their advantages let them handle more easily than others.

3 points: 1. those others groups with smaller percentage increases currently pay higher premiums. 2. Young men become old men. 3. Young men actually are more likely to have risky behavior that leads to them becoming old men that take money out of the system.

All of these are basically part of the nature of insurance - pooling risk.

Lots of cheap "catastrophic" insurance plans for individuals can no longer be offered because they don't meet all provisions of the law. The one I was using last year while I was in between jobs suffered that fate.

I've heard something about limiting the choice of specialists to a very narrow list or forcing using regional doctors (similar to UK). Is that correct? That's actually pretty bad if true, since people will be barred from choosing a preferred doctor.