Can We Please Give CruzCare a Try? Forget your partisanship and have a look at the plan

For those keeping score at home, here’s a recap of where the Washington healthcare debacle currently stands:

Obama and the Democrats inflict a massively overcomplicated system of healthcare regulations that raised insurance premiums on Americans, decreased insurance options, dictated doctors and coverage, and largely just sucked.
Republicans saddled up the Obamacare nightmare and rode it to the electoral bank in 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016, promising that once they had full control, they would repeal the beast.
When given full control, the Republicans authored an absurd Obamacare-lite compromise bill that didn’t repeal the beast, but attempted to manicure it. It failed spectacularly.
Republican Congressional leadership is now in disarray.
President Trump is reverting to his Democrat roots threatening to cut a deal with liberals on healthcare.
The most plausible scenario at this point is for the issue to be abandoned and left in its current, unsustainable state.

Democrats will claim victory, Republicans will blame each other, Trump will triangulate to make it seem as though he got from this exactly what he wanted all along or that this is all part of his infinitely genius grand master scheme that no one can fully understand yet.

And Americans get screwed. In other words, typical Washington.

There is a better way, however. And it is being pushed by the very guy who stated repeatedly throughout the primaries that he actually had a plan for ending the Obamacare nightmare: Ted Cruz.

I gladly admit that I am not a policy wonk. But all that is needed is a modicum of common sense to recognize that many of the problems Obama highlighted in pushing Obamacare are indeed real problems.

It is not right that your co-worker with employee-based insurance, who develops cancer, loses his job because of a recession thus losing his insurance, and then is not able to buy health insurance on the open market because of his “pre-existing condition.” That’s absurd and wrong.

The Obama solution was to force insurance companies to accept anyone with a pre-existing condition. Obviously this is not going to work because people won’t buy insurance until they get sick and need someone else to pay their expensive bills. So to solve that dilemma, Obama ordered that all people buy health insurance whether they want it or not. Forcing people to buy it ostensibly allows insurance companies to make the money they need to cover all these pre-existing condition patients.

It’s heavy-handed government planning and despite its good intentions, it’s not working. So here’s the Cruz idea in a nutshell:

What does matter is the American people deserve a better healthcare system, Washington seems content with letting them suffer with the one we’ve been given, and Cruz is offering a great idea that deserves support.

Forget your partisanship, forget your frustrations, forget your allegiances and political alliances, and think about your family. This is too important a moment to let pass by.

You're asking for yet another WELFARE program and apparently don't realize it; which then makes insurance a GOVERNMENTAL program.
You you also want the government to give out subsidies for home and car insurance?
Please think about your position.

First, let's agree that a tax deduction for an expense that is not for the purpose of earning income is a disguised subsidy which has greater or less value depending upon the marginal tax bracket of the taxpayer. So the employer deduction for its picking up one-half of its employee's health care 'expense' is effectively a subsidy of high value, assuming that the employer and its shareholders have taxable income.

What I described is a way to get back to the pre-ObamaCare world on a revenue-neutral basis by converting the employer deduction to an individual subsidy, thereby (a) facilitating portability by severing the relationship with a particular employer, and (b)levelling the playing field by turning the deduction, which has different values in the hands of different taxpayers, to a subsidy, which has the same value to everyone. We could call it a "tax credit" if the word "subsidy" concerns you.

In an ideal world, we should go back even further in time and just remove the employer deduction without replacing it with anything. I would be onboard with that, but don't think it would fly politically.

In other words, this could be handled any number of ways. I was demonstrating a method to remove the troublesome employer deduction, which has hamstrung health policy wonks for decades.

No...you wanted the tax write-off/SUBSIDY for the unemployed, too; which IS a WELFARE payment!

Large companies get discounts, because they buy insurance for very large numbers of people. A self employed, small business NEVER gets that kind of price and neither can they write off for buying their employees health insurance.

As I said, you really DO need to rethink your position ( there ARE other answers/solutions out there, which either you don't know about, or have ignored ) since your stance is badly flawed and ridiculous.

RE: No. He’s proven himself to be untrustworthy and vengeful.

1) Oh you mean the guy who accused his father of being party to the assassination of JFK is not vengeful?

2) You’re going to just trash his proposal without even giving it a look because you don’t like him?

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I didn't say I didn't like him. I said that he is untrustworthy and vengeful.

I also didn't "trash" his proposal.

Perhaps you meant to respond to a different post?

RE: I said that he is untrustworthy and vengeful.

This thread is ABOUT HIS PROPOSAL regardless of whether or not you find him untrustworthy or vengeful. Let’s stick to his proposal.

A response like yours would be like me telling my classmate to ignore our high school health teacher who teaches the class about the dangers of smoking, because he personally smokes like a chimney.

His personal actions should be separated from the merits of what he teaches.

"I" don't have to do anything at all. There is Medicaid , charities, and FREE ER services for the impecunious, now and prior to ObamaCare.

Would you keep the tax deduction for employers who pay for half of an employee's medical premium?

If so, then you favor a subsidy.

If not, then you want to go way back, not just pre-ObamaCare, but to World War II.

Which is it?

This isn't about me and what I want; it is about YOUR stupid post; you know the one, the one where YOU want FREE STUFF or MONEY....OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY ;^)

Would I like to go back to when doctors still made house calls ( which still existed, to some extent, in Chicago, through the 1980s )and the government was less intrusive? WHO WOULDN'T ?

I'd REALLY like to go back to a time when the unemployed didn't get 99 weeks or more, of unemployment benefits, people accepted the fact that when they reached the age of 21, they were ADULTS, there was no MUSLIM THREAT ( and IF there were any here, they didn't walk around in idiotic clothing nor make outrageous demands ), this nation was more or less united, and being on THE DOLE/WELFARE was an embarrassment.

Since large companies have gotten health insurance perks and government subsidies, in the form of tax breaks, for almost 80 years, that's not going away. Adding on to that, is preposterous!

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