Posted on 12/03/2016 7:30:57 PM PST by Olog-hai
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says Congress will act early next year to repeal President Barack Obama’s health care law but delay the changes as Republicans try to come up with an alternative. […]
Speaking in Louisville, McConnell cautioned that the law’s critics “can’t just snap your fingers and go from where we are today to where we’re headed.” He said a replacement to the health care law will be done in a “phased-in way.” …
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
Even a slowly phased in phasing out, if you will, could and should be voted in in Trump’s first 100 days. To do it only by gradual steps gradually is of course inviting a loss of majority so they could again claim that they can’t possibly get anything passed.
And the GOPe have had years to plan this opportunity and how they will go about it.
Right now the debt is spinning out of control. Not like the last time, when Obama said this ten trillion dollar debt is our largest defense issue. Now its double that. And the largest and fastest growing part of that is health care. Whether its medicare, medicaid or Obamacare we have a big problem that has to get fixed soon. You can toss Social Security and the military budget as problems. They don’t compare. We need to lower our health care costs. Either we pay less or we provide less. Frankly I am for, paying less. Maybe we should try paying the price other countries do. Our health care ain’t that great but its far more expensive.
First try this. If hospitals or doctors offer their service at a low price to one group, they have to provide it to everyone at that price. And if our drug companies provide their drugs to the average of the top 30 other industrial nations at an average price, then that is what our government should pay. Then we can right size our healthcare costs without lowering our healthcare services.
Yes, agree with you 100%.
Mitch, it’s going to be Trump care, not republican care.
Agree with you 100%. Loved your Watson reference.
It would create massive chaos and Trump will get the blame and his political goodwill will be gone. It's nice to talk in terms of purity, but that is not reality. You need to come to grips with it.
Obviously, it will be a lot more complicated than that, but that was the basic outline he gave, which is similar to what republicans have talked about since 2008. Since Obamacare was passed in 2009 and is still being implemented, one can't expect to transition to a new plan overnight. It will take time.
Thank you. I was having a rough time expressing it clearly. Glad to hear it works now
I agree with you that the gop-e has had time to hash it out. They have had 7 years to hash out a replacement and it appears they are being hard pressed to come up with a solution now. They have talked in general terms about it, such as vouchers and purchasing across state lines, being the most common, but writing a law that is precise is easier said than done. They knew their votes against Obamacare would get vetoed, so they didn't really need anything to replace it prior to now, but they should be embarrassed that they don't have this written down in stone at this point.
As divisive as the immigration policy will be, health care affects everyone and everyone will have an opinion. They really have to be careful to do no further harm. We know the media will loathe it, so it will just have to prove itself over time. Thank goodness they don't need 60 votes in the Senate, since nothing will get passed if they did.
Delay is the wrong answer. The repeal should absolutely come before any replacement. Trying to negotiate both at the same time gives the liberals too much leverage and will lead to a flawed replacement. The phase in should be that those already on Obamacare get to keep their subsidies for 2017. After that, Obamacare should be dead.
Replacement? Negotiate that after the repeal is signed and we have more leverage. Let kids stay on parental policies to age 26. Let insurance companies sell medical insurance across state lines. Otherwise, it’s time to clean up the mess and reduce the federal government’s role in medical insurance.
Force the issue and put the spot light on McConnell over and over again.
You BETTER get off your DUFFS!!!! SHOW some damn LEADERSHIP!
Need to STOP letting all these people with NO insurance going to Hospitals!! Set up some community CLINCS that cost less to help these people.
Good luck.
Trump said it will fail under its own weight, he will offer free market solutions and people will gravitate toward them and zippycare will collapse
I bet he would speed it up if he had the same healthcare as the peons.
There’s a difference between the law and the implementation of it.
Waivers were granted and the law not entirely enforced to allow time for adjustment.
Can be handled the EXACT same way on repeal.
Commie care included a federal level set of requirements for plans that EXCEEDED the requirements of state plans.
So repeal of commie care would not in any way make existing plans illegal. Carriers can continue to operate them if they really want to.
Look, people have already accepted the following:
1) No one who is sick can be turned away, even if they won't pay.
2) The standard of care for non-payers and payers must be the same, both as to location and scope.
3) A person who is 25 years and 364 days old is a child.
4) "Insurance" must pay for events that befall 100% of people at some point (imagine the cost of fire insurance if all houses burned down).
5) Persons illegally within the US are all entitled to free care, without exception, and it must be paid for by providers' income from "insurance" payments.
None of these five essentials is the least bit controversial (meaning, none can or will be overturned by voting).
And, President-elect Trump has added a sixth, "we will take care of everybody".
Now. You sit down and write a system that will accommodate all five, plus "take care of everybody" and which will be paid for by tolerable insurance premiums and tax rates.
Single payer is inevitable. It has been inevitable since the day in 1986 when Congress passed EMTALA, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act without providing funding to pay for it.
It was better.
It's dead and buried, and cannot be resurrected.
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.