Posted on 12/02/2016 11:50:08 AM PST by Sean_Anthony
Complicated transitions
I don’t like the sound of this, but I’m somewhat hopeful the worst possible interpretation of it is not accurate. Plus, it does come from the Worst Web Site in the World (at least until Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei complete the task of outdoing themselves), so maybe it’s all made up:
Congressional Republicans are setting up their own, self-imposed deadline to make good on their vow to replace the Affordable Care Act. With buy-in from Donald Trump’s transition team, GOP leaders on both sides of the Capitol are coalescing around a plan to vote to repeal the law in early 2017 — but delay the effective date for that repeal for as long as three years.
Three years says to me: “Nothing takes effect before the next election”.
That’s what I think is driving a lot of the proposed delay - political calculation and fearful risk aversion.
They may be talking about the time to implement ending “Obamacare” and putting in the new program Dr. Carson and others will develop vs the time to sign the legislation to set that in motion.
How long did it take to phase in the “Affordable Care Act?” Passed and signed into law in 2010, and seems it came into full effect in 2015. We all remember the GOP sweep after the Ds unilaterally passed the Act. (THAT election didn’t seem to phase CJ Roberts). Don’t know that I’m comfortable with allowing another Congressional election before it’s killed totally, but these things DO take time.
Least you're thinking in the right direction. One thing no one considers in this argument? The state insurance commissions, who are charged with approving all plan changes.
So, let's just say that Congress does end zerocare, as you suggest, by the end of January 2017. By then, it is entirely too late to setup any new plans for 2017 (plan changes are usually reviewed/approved by about the middle of the year prior to them taking effect). Any plan changes would not occur until at least 2018, AFTER the insurance carriers have had the chance to run the #'s, put together corresponding plans, etc. and then get approval from the state insurance commissions.
Sounds feasible, right? Well, maybe, but not likely. Considering the fact that the changes mean COMPLETE changes across the board, that also means re-fitting the carriers themselves to meet the demands of the new system/plans and to be sure their internal infrastructures are ready, employees staffed, etc. If Congress ends zerocare by the end of January 2017, the best possible scenario is we see the changes take effect in 2019, but most likely not until 2020.
Good evaluation.
There has to be a grandfathering period, but 3 yrs is a bit long.
I’d guess 2 yrs from time the replacement is voted in. Probably late 2017, because there is a USSC justice to fight for and the wall legislation to fight over and lots of stuff on the plate.
Passing a termination 21 Jan with a 2-3 yr grandfather period keeps the promise and cracks the whip on getting a replacement defined.
And guys, before you stomp your feet and yell people can pay their own insurance, consider the 26 yr old construction worker with a wife and 2 kids who walks outside one day, slips on ice in his own yard and compound fractures his leg. That’s $30,000 down the tubes without insurance. This stuff isn’t solely about “getting sick”. It is also about getting hurt.
See my #23 above. I started working for a local, regional carrier in 2011. Just left there last month because I could see the writing on the wall. After being successful for 40 years, the carrier had 1, maybe 2 years left before bankruptcy, thanks to zerocare. As I made the transition out of there, they were bought out by another larger, National carrier. They wouldn't have survived otherwise.
No, it's not that easy.
Obamacare also imposed a lot of requirements on healthcare insurers, like minimum coverage requirements, elimination of the ceiling on benefits, the premium range (maximum of 3X from lowest to highest), and extending the age for adult children on the family policy. Worst of all, there's the elimination of the pre-existing condition exclusion.
All of those things resulted in higher premiums for most people, and the last one discourages people from buying health insurance before they need it.
Those provisions upended any underwriting standards, and we'll never get premiums back down to a reasonable amount without their elimination.
The Affordable Care Act, aka Obama Care, is very flawed and never should have been passed.
At the same time, the Fereral government is, by far, the largest purchaser of healthcare services through Medicare and Medicaid. Those are built on incredibly complicated laws and regulations that have been evolving since the 1960’s when they were enacted. ObamaCare made many changes and was followed by complex new regulations and enacting laws and policies that have been changing in recent years after Obama’s laws were first enacted.
There is no way that current law can change and go into effect with new regulations quickly without potentially creating more chaos and problems than ObamaCare caused for voters.
Personally, I like the idea of congress quickly passing a law that sets a deadline for what will be a complicated new replacement law to be developed and go into effect. There are parts of the AFA that, believe it or not, do make the Feds better purchasers of healthcare. It would be hard to be more inept than they were in the past, such as how they (still) fail to flex their purchasing power to get better prices on drugs than they get now...
My 2 cents.
This could be a disaster if Democrats take the House or Senate back in 2 years. It needs to be dead in the next year.
If congress and staff were subject to Obamacare, it would be gone in the first week.
Unfortunately, we'll never be able to handle this kind of case as long as a significant portion of the population has a "right" to health care..
The 26-year-old construction worker has to decide that medical and disability insurance to protect himself and his family is more important than a new pickup truck.
Exactly.
>
They can return to what they did before the atrocity.
Not over night, they can’t. That would, as previously stated, be the most efficient way to immediately implement single payer. They didn’t start this garbage overnight. They can’t end it overnight, either.
>
That, and the current iteration, being within their authority to begin??
>It’s common sense.
Just like ‘gun control laws’, right?
Amazing how quickly some went from “That’s illegal!” to “We wouldn’t want the MSM\DEMs to think we’re MEANIES or something....”.
We all know the (R) have been blowing smoke since its inception. I have yet to see ANY repeal of ANY substance w/ a (R) ‘majority rule’.
Does anything stop carriers from dropping the policy holders they don’t want?
I understand it’d be awhile to come up w/new plans, but nothing legally, upon repeal, would prevent them from keeping plans as they are, for who they want - as I understand it.
It seems to me that in that interim, we’d have some folks kicked off and w/o insurance and no where to go. Such folks probably didn’t have insurance before commie care anyway.
Hi.
“Give it a one year sunset.”
No more.
Hey Paul and Mitch, do you hear us now?
5.56mm
End it now! If it dies on Jan 20th, new policies will be issued on Jan 21st. End it with a transition date of February 28th 2017.
Watch America and American business do magic in the marketplace.
“No more.”
Yep. It’s time for that terrible idea to die. Socialized medicine is not the correct answer; freedom is.
Common sense is they can return to what they’ve done for many many years. There’s nothing new.
Yes, ANOTHER government program.
So in order to do a good job of draining the swamp, one of Trump’s priorities should be to work with the states to repeal the ill-conceived 17th Amendment, the repeal amendment having a recall provision so that we can get rid of RINOs and Democrats.
In fact, the repeal amendment should also have a provision to prohibit political party support for federal elected officials.
The state should also amend the following excerpts to the Constitution.
“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
”From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added].” —United States v. Butler, 1936.
If they kill the subsidies and the mandate it will die on the vine. Easy peasy.
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