Posted on 10/07/2025 9:11:41 AM PDT by Brian Griffin
While the shutdown is needless, the Democrats are rightly concerned about healthcare cost coverage.
MEDICAID EXPANSION FAIRNESS
What I’m thinking of is to slightly and generally increase the state Medicaid expansion share to 5% plus the highest rate of state income tax. Right now, California pays for Medicaid expansion at 10% and rakes in 13% income tax from doctors.
That would make Medicaid expansion cheaper for no income tax red states like Florida and Texas.
To help fund likely Medicaid expansion to states like Texas and Florida, the state Medicaid shares (traditional & expansion) would increase annually starting in 2028 by a percentage equal to the deficit in the fiscal year ending prior to the calendar year divided by $1 trillion. That would be a 1.5% increase on a $1.5 trillion deficit, or a .6% increase on a $600 billion deficit. To soften this increase for the states, I would have the federal government likewise increase its share of Medicaid drug expenditures. This would have states assume more responsibility for medical service costs which they regulate and the federal government assume more responsibility for drug costs which it has the power to regulate.
Be aware that property tax supported public hospitals such as Parkland in Dallas and Jackson Memorial in Miami exist in Texas and Florida and are heavily used by the indigent. George Bush Jr. would have had to pay about $5,000/year in hospital tax after buying his house after his presidency. If an indigent from another Florida county without a public hospital gets care at my county hospital, my county hospital can collect from that county.
FAIR SHARE PPACA PREMIUM MINIMUMS
To also help fund likely Medicaid expansion to red states like Texas and Florida, I would impose these premium minimums, whichever is the higher:
1. 2% of the Medicare premium amount per insured year of age as of the start of coverage
2. a percentage of the premium amount equal to the household income percentage of FPL - 60% divided by 3
For a 5-year-old, 7-year-old, 32-year-old and 34-year-old, the ages would sum to 88 and the monthly absolute minimum premium amount would be a (88/65)*$185 or $250.46.
For a 5-year-old kid and a 27-year-old mom the ages would sum to 32 and the monthly absolute minimum premium amount would be (32/65)*$185 or $91.07.
To make all that palatable to the Democrats, I would lower the original PPACA subsidy threshold from 100% of FPL to 80% of FPL.
PPACA AFFORDABILITY
Silver plans would be limited to a maximum deductible of three times the Medicare Part A amount [2025: $1676].
I would also make bronze plans low cost by having $10,000 50% co-pays with $10,000 paid up front to the insurance company by the insured. Unused amounts of the $10,000s would be refunded after the policy is closed out.
I would also make copper plans low cost by only covering Part A scope items plus what Part B would pay for any general or regional anesthesia surgery.
I would allow Federal PPACA exchanges to offer Interstate Class Drug Plans, exempt from state control that cover under policy year contract at the time of policy issue at least:
1. 80% of all FDA-approved recombinant drugs by key active entity
2. 80% of all key FDA breakthrough chemical active entities under patent as of January 1 of the coverage year used in a drug approved by the FDA by August 1 prior
3. 80% of all key chemical active entities under patent as of January 1 of the coverage year used in a drug approved by the FDA by August 1 prior
4. 90% of all WHO “essential” drugs
This system would allow for genuine negotiation between drug plans and drug companies. Drug plans would have an incentive to try to buy drugs from drug companies and drug companies would have an incentive to make deals to make sales.
Plan drugs would be supplied at on an all-the doctors prescribe basis. The co-pays would be roughly equal to mere manufacturing cost. Out-of-plan drugs need not be covered at all.
HOSPITAL EMTALA COST ASSISTANCE
I would allow hospitals collect up to $1,000 per incident of EMTALA service from employers, with payment not in excess of $50 per week per employee concerned being due to any and all EMTALA providers and not for more than 100 weeks after service. Such payments on behalf of an employee would be considered to be a debt of the employee to the employer. Employers could collect back from employees and ex-employees (and require EMTALA incident employees to participate in an employer plan).
My healthcare proposal is to get the govt out of healthcare. Get rid of PPACA. Get rid of Reagan’s law that forces ER’s to treat people even if they can’t pay (and don’t have insurance). And watch health care prices go down to intrinsic levels.
No, they're not rightly "concerned" about anything. They're just trying to take more of your money and use it to further cement their power over you.
Hey, I have a "Health Care Funding Proposal", too.
It's much simpler and fairer:
Get government entirely OUT of the business of billing or paying for the practice of medicine.
Fedzilla has no Constitutional authority to meddle in the business of paying for medical care.
It’s a pathetic state of affairs when supposed “conservatives” on a supposedly “conservative” wwweb forum feel that the solution to government-created problems come from more or different government meddling.
I’ve got a better idea.
Give me all the money I “contributed” (at gunpoint)to both SS and Medicare back in one lump sum. I will invest that as I see fit and won’t ask for one dime from my fellow citizens to support me.
Simple and fair.
L
The Federal government allows for drug patents.
Therefore, drugs can be expensive, and often are.
The federal government created the patent system and continues to allow broad Kirchoff patents, so people are going to need help paying for drugs and it is necessary and proper for the federal government to provide that help.
Just say “no”.
I'm still amazed at all the noise around the edges of this.
You have a checkbook. And Zelle. And CashApp. And Venmo.
Feel free to make use of them.
You go sticking a gun in my face demanding that I pay, you're just another goddamned socialist.
Get government out of all health care.
“Get government entirely OUT of the business of billing or paying for the practice of medicine.”
Consider the cases of Captains “Hawkeye” Pierce and B.J. Honeycutt and Nurse Houlihan.
The US government has the power to “raise and support armies” and those warriors can wield swords, or scalpels.
I’m sure your doctor would rather have the choice of voluntary participation in a federal government program than two years’ service in a place a President Newsom might choose.
Leftists in California and New York pay billions in federal taxes and they would rather have their federal tax dollars used for scalpel wielders instead of guys roaming around on military bases that aren’t even normally allowed to carry guns.
And those "people" you mentioned are fictional characters in a fictional television comedy show that got more idiotic in its each passing year.
The last two paragraphs of your post are the product of a diseased mind.
Get government entirely OUT of the business of billing or paying for the practice of medicine.
You could go to the United Kingdom ... or Russia ... or France ... or mainland China ... heck, you could even go to Canada ... then you'd have the government controlled "Health Care" (that's Barack Obama's term, BTW) you so long for ...
Funny how that happened right after the so-called "Affordable Care Act" passed ...
Get drunk and deny, deny, deny.
“Get government out of all health care.”
The EMTALA exists for a number of reasons:
1. surgeons would have guns pointed at them if they refused to operate [parents would go to prison to save their kids’ lives]
2. it was necessary to ensure invaders had proof their rugrats were born in the USA
3. it was necessary for hospitals to be able to charge opiate seekers if their ER requests for drugs were refused
“You go sticking a gun in my face demanding that I pay, you’re just another goddamned socialist.”
The US government could take 99% of your income and burn it in the street in front of your house and it would all be constitutional.
“Get government out of all health care.”
ABORTIONS $200
COCAINE $5
HEROIN $4
And when all else fails, the socialist shows his true colors.
Get government out of all health care.
Fat chance of that happening in New York, or California, or Florida.
“And when all else fails, the socialist shows his true colors.”
I want to wean most Americans off the federal teat and I’m proposing practical paths forward.
People like you are merely demanding the politically impossible.
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