Posted on 03/29/2017 11:45:51 AM PDT by ExpatCanuck
Obamacare is not an insurance policy.
One doesn't enroll in Obamacare. It's not an insurance plan. Obamacare is the whole set of laws and regulations that govern the health insurance and health care industries.
I agree with you that the whole thing is unconstitutional. But if the Obama administration already lost a lawsuit about the subsidies, will the current DOJ drop the appeal, thereby causing the whole thing to collapse, as Trump says? Or will Ryan succumb to the insurance lobbyists and fund it anyway? Ten billion would go a long way towards building that wall they say we can’t afford.
Repeal & Replace was a very clumsy plan to begin with.
Repeal. Just repeal.
Then, with a clean slate, begin again. No hodgepodge of mixed government and private plans, assign two different sets of objectives and goals.
Separate group plans from the status of employment, groups to be arranged around affiliations, and not simply a benefit to be paid by the employer. Establish that the cost of maintaining a health payment plan is the responsibility of the individual or head of family, and provide an array of benefits that may be customized to some degree based on the needs of the family by age and size, recognizing that certain benefits will change over time, or perhaps not be used any longer. This, again, is worked out between the beneficiary and the agency that is brokering the insurance plan. And make it an INSURANCE plan, not a transfer of wealth plan.
For those that by reason of pre-existing conditions, loss of access to another source of payment assurance, or because of rare or unusual arrays of medical problems, cannot be issued a more conventional form of coverage, a welfare benefit, administered at the state level, may be an additional safety net for those who fall through the holes in the contractual model. Essentially this is funded through governmental grants, and treated as such. Not a lifetime entitlement, but subject to establishing need on a continuing basis.
Keep in mind that the latter plan is primarily for LEGAL residents and valid US citizens. No “medical tourism” with otherwise ineligible applicants trying to use this alternate system, those outsiders use their OWN resources or those provided on their behalf be other than US tax-payer funded sources.
Some people may never enroll in any kind of coverage, but choose instead to self-fund payments for medical services, paying out of pocket as they go.
I pray not. Ryan is the snake Trump warned us about. Very strange and unnatural that Trump takes Ryan into his confidence. This will not end well.
Hopefully Trump is following the adage to keep your friends close and your enemies closer. And I pray for his wisdom to know the difference.
You would still have to remove the mandatory benefits for any policy and almost certainly the pre-existing condition provisions.
Actually they are not exempt, they just get a bunch of subsidies so they can get a platinum policy for a fraction of the price the rest of us pay. That's much better than being exempt.
AMEN!
Hallelujah!
Someone gets it!
Capitalism and Freedom, Dr. Friedman describes the American Medical Association (AMA) as the “strongest trade union in the United States” and documents the ways in which the AMA vigorously restricts competition. For example, the “Council on Medical Education and Hospitals” of the AMA approves both medical schools and hospitals. By restricting the number of approved medical schools and the number of applicants to those schools, the AMA effectively limits the supply of physicians, which increases their wages, and raises the overall cost of medical care.
How about just repeal? Any government solution is going to be just as big a train wreck in its own way that Obamacare is.
The actual problem is that people have been abusing insurance, using a tool fit only for managing financial risk as if it were fit to be the preferred method for paying for services.
People basically look at insurance as if it were “assurance”.
Without addressing that issue, that we are generally over insured (some of which is the doing of State governments as they have manipulated/socialized insurance pools to require coverage for unusual conditions or predictable costs), we can only deal with symptoms.
Tort reform is needed, but will only get us so far. Letting insurers sell in other States (increased competition) is needed, but it too will only get us so far.
Until people pay and shop for services needed costs will not be contained because it is them not paying and therefore not shopping that has become one leg of the cycle of cost escalation that only exists because of this abuse of insurance.
As for a “plan” that would actually pass constitutional muster, according to strict Origionalism, there is one.
It can happen because of the nearly unique grant of legislative power given Congress over what became the District of Columbia (”in all circumstances whatsoever” ... look it up).
It would permit providing means tested/subsidized health care PROVIDED within the bounds of DC proper.
By this I mean a “national hospital” organized along the lines of traditional county hospitals ... just a lot bigger. We could bulldoze useless and worthless law and lobby firms for the needed land (”draining the swamp”?) and build a towering eyesore to be a blot of DC’s skyline forever.
It would be lots easier to refer a relative/neighbor/parishioner to such a hospital, buy them a plane or bus ticket, than to raise the money to treat them locally.
In fact, we could bulldoze ALL the law and lobby firms and build/operate a truly titanic hospital for what we not unlawfully spend on various healthcare programs.
Why have the fedzilla involved at any level in the health care industry at all?
Having the fedzilla involved in anything only ensures incompetence, theft, massive misuse of funds, and a constant bloat in prices with a concurrent reduction in services.
Why not, instead, address those issues which are driving up prices and costs to far above what the market can bear?
Repubs have been promising us a free market alternative for years now:
* Buy across state lines
* No limit to different types of plans
* Etc.
Whether they repeal-replace, or simply open up that new alternative, they need to stand by their word.
A bit of an example of how Obamacare screwed up insurance:
You want to take a 10 and a 12 year old to scout camp, council requires physicals. Why should insurance pay for the doctor to fill out the council forms?
Things go very wrong at camp and you leave in the back of the ambulance. This is where insurance should be paying, however, due to the way Obamacare inverted insurance, it is very possible that your insurance would pay more for the physicals than for the ambulance ride and hospital care.
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