NY Times: Trump, Shouting 'Death Spiral,' Has Nudged Affordable Care Act Downward

NY Times ^ | May 20, 2017 | Robert Pear

[Zakeet]

When Aetna, the health insurance giant, announced this month that it was pulling out of the Affordable Care Act's insurance exchange in Virginia in 2018, President Trump responded on Twitter: "Death spiral!"

When Humana announced plans to leave all the health law's marketplaces next year, the president chimed in, "Obamacare continues to fail."

Left unremarked on was a big reason for the instability: The Trump administration and Congress are rattling the markets.

The administration's refusal to guarantee payment of subsidies to health insurance companies, the murky outlook for the Affordable Care Act in Congress and doubts about enforcement of the mandate for most people to have insurance are driving up insurance prices for 2018, insurers say in rate requests filed with state officials.

[LS]

No. That is not readonable—that the languising Obama economy that sat still for 8 years only coincidentally recovered in Nov.

No. Exec action and “jawboning” can make all the difference in the world.

Zerocare was NEVER hoing to be purely repealed as I stated here many times. Yes, times. Yes, further refining an make it a lot better.

Yes, markets & investment accelerating a lot, way past e% soon.

[nathanbedford]

US first-quarter growth weakest in three years, as consumer spending falters

Q1 0.7% GDP

"At best a 2% economy"

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/28/first-estimate-of-2017-q1-gdp.html

Jawboning an economy with a GDP of $18.5 trillion can hardly make "all the difference in the world."

So far Obama care has not been significantly improved, at least nothing that remotely fulfills Trump's over the top campaign promises.

There is nothing in the political environment in the Senate which would lead a reasonable observer to believe that the bill will be "improved." Except that the ever increasing costs will be freighted from the premium payer to the taxpayer-or more likely to the federal treasury as debt.

[eyeamok]

When and ONLY WHEN Government Lives under the Same Laws as us will anything substantial happen

OBAMACARE Can be Saved!!

There are about 22 MILLION Public Employee’s Nationwide that are Ineligible for Subsidies, this infusion of New Paying Customers will SAVE OBAMACARE. the SEIU and every other Public Employee UNION fully Endorse Obamacare and have held numerous rallies in support thereof.

Let’s Give them what they want!

I believe our Public Employees deserve the Best Health Care America has to offer, and that is the Official Government Health Care Plan, Obamacare. So why don’t you quit pussyfooting around and Proudly Proclaim your desire to see that ALL Federal Employees receive the Finest, Most Affordable Health Care the US has to offer, OBAMACARE.

All the Money currently wasted on these inferior high priced cadillac plans can be diverted to the Wall.

There is ONLY ONE WAY to make it happen:

Executive Orders or Legislation, the chance of CONgress doing it are the same as OJ Confessing, so I am choosing Executive Orders.

1. All waivers to the Affordable Care act are hereby repealed.

2. There shall be NO funds drawn from the treasury to pay for Health Insurance for ANY Federal Employee except Members of the Armed Services.

3. ALL Federal Employees except members of the US Armed Services, SHALL purchase their own personal and Family Health Insurance from the Affordable Care Exchange in the state they legally reside.

4. There shall be NO Medicaid Reimbursement funds allocated to any State that does not have 100% of their Public Employees enrolled in the Affordable Care Act.

And to make sure it is Bipartisan, President Trump should VETO it every Time and FORCE them to Override his Veto to Repeal this Monstrosity.

Sign these 4 orders and it will be FULLY REPEALED in Less than 30 days.

NOT UNTIL, Anyone want to make a BET???

When and ONLY WHEN Government Lives under the Same Laws as us will anything substantial happen

[Mr. Jeeves]

Socialism’s inherent flaws are always someone else’s fault.

[jmaroneps37]

One of the original plays in the Democrat media play book: When a Republican tells the truth attack him as destructive; say he is talking down the economy and so on.

[xzins]

Trump is repeating what he said on the campaign for months.

Any idiot can tell the prices are going up and the number being covered is going down.

[Boomer]

NYT = Fake News from a militant leftist organization. So bad even dead fish don’t want to be wrapped in it.

[LS]

I think the most important improvement is to get Zerocare out.

No, economy will be a lot better than 2%. I think last quarter was over 3%. First quarter still Obama’s. Yes, Jawboning is incredibly powerful.

Keynes said “animal spirits” drive everything economic. George Gilder said the same thing in “Wealth & Poverty.” ALL economics is driven by fear/security or hope/greed. We have moved from the former to the latter. You can see this isn the weak consumer #s, which are a great indicator of moving toward hope. One theory is that people buy stuff if they think they won’t have money in the future to get it. “Eat, drink, & be merry.” If there confidence in the future, it triggers saving and investment. We have definitely moved into an investment economy with all the incredible new expansions and business startups, combined with rapidly rising employment.

Even very slight marginal tweaks to health care bill can remove billions of dollars in taxes that will spark businesses to be more profitable. In the House version, just the taxes saved alone make it a decent bill.

I see a fundamental economic reorganization taking place under Trump-—so far, even without any legislation. Because it’s all about signals: what will the IRS/Pres/reg agencies do? And he’s sending all the right signals.

[sargon]

I think the most important improvement is to get Zerocare out.

Precisely, and President Trump and Congress are working on doing this the only practical way it can be done—incrementally.

It's simply ludicrous to characterize the President's actions on health care—not to mention those of the House Freedom Caucus—as some kind of "betrayal", and yet that's exactly what some ideologues insist has happened, as they indulge their compulsion to gratuitously criticize that which is not perfect.

We all would have preferred a straight repeal, but the House did as much as it reasonably could as a first step. Now we'll see what the Senate comes up with.

I guess the House Freedom Caucus was being "heroic" only as long as they didn't support the House bill; as soon as they did vote "Yes", they suddenly had "betrayed" us—just like President Trump, ostensibly.

Such hysterical absolutism is quite counterproductive. It's fine to disagree with the President on an issue, but it's disingenuous to say that he and the Freedom Caucus "betrayed" us by passing the House bill. Such Trump-bashing is based on extremely shallow reasoning...

[DoodleDawg]

Us geniuses at the Times are blaming the Donald for killing Obamacare ... by not killing Obamacare!

Doesn't matter. Whatever happens to Obamacare the GOP owns it. And Trump's idea that by cutting off the subsidies will somehow force the Democrats to participate in the replacement is incredibly naive. The Republicans will implement Trumpcare on their own, and will also own what happens.

[enumerated]

“I see a fundamental economic reorganization taking place under Trump-—so far, even without any legislation. Because it’s all about signals: what will the IRS/Pres/reg agencies do? And he’s sending all the right signals.”

Also, I think any draining of the swamp, or signals thereof, will cause hundreds of millions of $ of influence peddling money to return to the real economy.

When lobbyists face the reality that HRC didn’t win - and is therefore not sitting in the White House signing mountains of bills intended to rigg the economy in their favor - I would think they might have to consider redirecting all that money now spent purchasing politicians back into the real economy and try to make an honest buck for a change.

Can we hope that there might be a sort of “swamp draining dividend”?

[LS]

I think that’s very realistic. As I said somewhere else here, think of this:

Trump got a commitment of $20b from the Saudis for “infrastructure.” What if that didn’t go to the Fed government, where Congress would have a say, but what if Trump and King Salman agreed that SA would make a direct grant to, say, the state of Texas (after pre-arrangement with Gov. Abbot) that ALL this money would be used for the Wall, provided it is built according to fed standards in the accepted bids????

Next, AZ? Then a recalcitrant NM. Sooner or later, CA will want its hand on it, but will have to crack down on “sanctuary” crap.

[enumerated]

Good example.

It’s refreshing the way Trump operates: specific actions that all make good business sense, and added together amount to real change. But he doesn’t spout lofty platitudes or lecture about principles.

Some people think that makes him a populist - I think he’s just looking for broken stuff he can fix, starting with the low hanging fruit.

I think the country got lucky when he decided to be POTUS.

[nathanbedford]

There is nothing in the political environment in the Senate which would lead a reasonable observer to believe that the bill will be “improved.” Except that the ever increasing costs will be freighted from the premium payer to the taxpayer-or more likely to the federal treasury as debt.

#22