The Assisted Living Center Congress

This parade of the addled, the lame and the simply ineffective and dim could go on and on, but here’s the point: Congress is in the process of deciding what the nation’s health insurance system – and therefore, the nation’s health delivery system – will look like for coming generations. This is unfortunately a federal intervention into 1/6th of the U.S. economy that the leaders of both political parties agree needs to happen. The Democrats accomplished the initial takeover in 2010 without a single Republican vote, and the Republicans appear to be limping towards making some sort of “reform” to the government-mandated system without receiving a single Democrat vote.

There are many huge problems with this process, but it seems to me that the single biggest part of it is that every person in leadership of both parties who making these decisions for future generations is old enough to be retired – and most should have long ago been forcibly retired by the voters – and all are exempt for life from suffering the inevitable bad consequences of these decisions.

That Democrat consultant’s comment about an “assisted living center” was funny because it was perceived as being largely true. But the truth, of course, is that none of these senior citizens in congressional leadership will ever have to spend a day in such a facility. They will all retire wealthy (many of them mysteriously so) and live their final days in gated communities or estates surrounded by high walls and security guards to protect them from the rabble who must endure the effects of their decisions.

(Excerpt) Read more at

No.

You can post your blog junk right here in full.

We are not your hit farm.

The problem IS that health care is 1/6 of the economy, due to price fixing and collusion in the healthcare and health insurance industries. Any other business sector operating in such a manner would be prosecuted.

When did the price fixing start? I ask as I look back at the late 70-mid 80 period and I could never get close on group health insurance quotes in one southern state. Now, on life insurance (annual renewable term) no one could touch AIG then as a 37 year old male non smoker could get a 1 million life policy for under $900 a year. However, EF Hutton, who pretty much started universal life, could not touch John Alden out of Miami in 81 or 82. That was back when TEFRA and DEFRA were news. John Alden was paying 12% current interest and their guaranteed rate then was 5.5%. I’d take that 5.5 today. I even had a Medicare supplement to push that covered cancer after 90 days.

IMHO, Republican should NOT try to “replace” one grandiose unworkable “plan” with a different grandiose unworkable “plan”.

IMHO, we need to make it possible for hundreds of new market-based health-insurance plans to be offered by old — and NEW — providers, competing in the free market.

Then, as citizens choose better plans and “opt out” of ObamaCare, that administrative disaster will shrink into a manageable “pool” of seriously sick people, whose care must (as a political matter) be subsidized by us taxpayers.

So, let’s abolish the “mandates”, permit companies to sell health insurance across state lines, stop requiring “one-size-fits-all” insurance policies, stop encouraging hospital mergers, get serious about drug company price-gouging and stop profiteering by ambulance-chasing lawyers.

IMHO, no single bill can restore the free market for health care that Obama so deliberately attacked.

IMHO, Republican should NOT try to “replace” one grandiose unworkable “plan” with a different grandiose unworkable “plan”.

IMHO, we need to make it possible for hundreds of new market-based health-insurance plans to be offered by old — and NEW — providers, competing in the free market.

IMHO, no single bill can restore the free market for health care that Obama so deliberately attacked.

And NO ONE in either party is talking about eliminating the obscene profits of deep-pocket donors in insurance, pharmaceutical, medical, and caregiver companies. That tells me one thing. Across the political spectrum, nobody in DC wants to drain the swamp.

It's particularly disturbing when they whine about needing even more money to subsidize nursing home care. Huh? Grandma could spend the rest of her life on a cruise ship for less than the cost of nursing home care.

Then there's the horrific opioid crisis. Everybody wants it to end, of course. But the US Senate plan of throwing billions of dollars at it? That's insane. There's no documentation of what actually works to end addiction, except the addict wanting their life to change.

(end of rant)

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.