Posted on 03/13/2017 12:54:44 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
The only way I'd be happy with a non repeal of Obamacare is if the president and the secretary can snip the unconstitutional monopolistic strings that prohibit free enterprise from providing competing solutions. Someone suggested leaving Obamacare basically intact for those who choose to provide or subscribe to it, but allow new free market solutions to rise up and compete. That's not a bad idea to break the stalemate.
My understanding is the Obamacare law leaves many decisions for the president and the HHS secretary to make. During the rollout and throughout the remaining years of Obama's term, the president and the secretary made many, many changes and adjustments to the plan without requiring congressional approval. This is the precedent. So the current president and the current secretary should exercise that precedent and their constitutional and legal authority to make further adjustments to make healthcare more affordable and available to more people at less cost to the government and less cost to the people. The left shouldn't be allowed to win a constitutional argument against covering more people with more choices and less cost and less government intrusion, ie, more freedom with free markets. That's the American way.
For example, they should gently snip any unconstitutional prohibitions on existing or new insurance companies from starting NEW free market plans to compete with existing government mandated plans.
Nothing illegal or unconstitutional there.
Next, very carefully snip any mandate that says individuals must be covered by a government approved plan rather than a new free market plan of their choice. Likewise, carefully snip any mandate that prohibits employers from providing free markets plans of their choice to their employees. Snip the mandates on what must be covered by NEW free market plans. Let the buyers and sellers negotiate coverage plans. Snip any unconstitutional mandate the prohibits nationwide competition (commerce). Snip any government prohibition on associations forming groups to negotiate insurance plans. Snip any prohibition on health savings plans. Let the congress set up provisions for individual health savings plans. Let the congress make health care premiums tax deductible, if they wish, for individuals, entrepreneurs and small business.
Nothing illegal or unconstitutional there.
Let the decisions on what is covered and the price of coverage be freely negotiated between willing buyers and sellers.
Novel approach, eh? LOL. Think it'd pass constitutional muster? You betcha.
Sure, they'd fight like hell in court. But the president should fight back like hell. He'll have the people and the constitution on his side and he will win.
“No Republicans voted for Obamacare.”
Correct. Nor should they vote for Obamacare 2.0. But I believe Pres. Trump wants a vote on this ObamaCare 2.0.
Here’s why:
It won’t pass. Even if all the Repubs voted for it - it won’t be enough.
But at least Trump can honestly say “we tried”. He can honestly point to the Rats as the reason why we have FUBOCare in the first place and why we were unable to replace it.
~nudge nudge wink wink ~ not that anyone WANTED to replace it, but hey. We tried.
In the meanwhile - ObamaCare is defunded and all legal requirements are removed. It implodes into a meaningless pile of dog (Obama).
The tail always wags the dog, however. For years now hospitals and clinics set themselves up to please the least cooperative insurance plans, Medicare and Medicaid, because most of their patients have those plans.
Any new plans would have to be able to get all the medical infrastructure (doctors, clinics, hospitals, etc) to buy in. Even if they buy in they are stuck still dealing with ALL the same crap that we are sick of! We want RID of it, we do not want to have to support all that and a secondary system too.
I say repeal completely.
Here are things to start with however:
(1) A Free Market requires feedback from PRICES. And yet no one knows how much ANYTHING costs in medicine until after the bills are done going around. And they price they charge is rarely the price that gets paid.
It is not even legal to post online a list of medical prices corresponding to CPT® codes (the list of 5 digit code numbers that the AMA “owns” that show what medical service was purchased. The AMA will sue you for a LOT unless you PAY them A LOT based on your web server’s traffic, etc. Why is there no advertising of prices in medicine except for “cosmetic” procedures?
We need a NATIONAL OPENSOURCE COPYRIGHT-FREE medical procedure code system, 5 digits also, so existing software does not have to be changed, that everyone can use to list and advertise prices without getting sued by the AMA. Maybe the AMA in the name of national interest will donate the CPT system and make it copyright free? (Nah — they make more money selling those codes than they do from their members dues.)
(2) It should be illegal to charge different people different prices for the same service. There is typically a “charge master” type price that is ridiculously high, and then there is a different price for virtually every insurance plan that will be accepted, and they vary a LOT. No one knows what things cost. No the patient, not the staff, not the doctor except maybe private doctors only on the things they charge for. You cannot even find out in advance, accurately, what something costs. “You have to buy it to find out how much it costs!” That does not work!
So also make it illegal to charge differently. Same price to any person, no matter how it is paid. An exception can be made for welfare-like plans, possibly even Medicare, to give discounts, but otherwise, no matter if you pay cash or an insurance company pays, the charges are the same for all people and all plans. Period.
This allows people to KNOW WHAT THINGS COST. Then the free market can kick in better, people will buy things that are worth it and avoid the garbage.
Encourage STATES to pass this. Illegal for the feds to do it. Develop model laws for states. States that do not use them will not reap the benefits, their loss.
(3) SPLIT insurance plan fees into a PREVENTIVE/WELL-CARE portion (”part P”), and an ILLNESS/INJURY portion (”part I”). No one has to buy the preventive portion “part P.” It’s an add-on people can buy extra, or else they just pay their own way, because it is all predictable expense for a certain age and sex. It dose not need to be insured. No rules for it, no arguments about free birth control, screening for depression, etc. You want that stuff, you pay for it.
The “part I” is the “taking care of the sick” part. That’s insurance.
That’s all the time I have to type right now. (1) and (2) are very important. Prices have to be KNOWN TO PATIENTS and really to their doctors also for a free market to work best, and we need all the benefit that we can get from that free market because it is much smarter that the Gruberized Bureaucracy.
By the way preventive care prices will drop like a rock if not subsidized. Welfare type plans could still receive those services with their subsidies but it would still be “most favored nation status” where the welfare plans get to pay the low prices that result from a free market for preventive care.
The most important aspect of a full repeal is eliminating all the federal agencies and the power they derive from controlling health care and most importantly everyone’s health records.
It is that infrastructure of Fedzilla that Ryancare preserves that must be eliminated.
The attendants of Fedzilla in Congress do not want to ever reduce any power for Fedzilla.
You certainly have been dynoman trying to shine up this turd Ryancare so we will buy it.
You're missing the point that the Dems aren't going to lift a finger to help Republicans.
Obamacare is already the law, they're happy and content with it. So if Republicans pass Ryancare, then they own the healthcare grenade and immediately you'll hear the sob stories about people who lost their Obamacare coverage.
I sadly believe that Trump wants Ryancare because it's part of his tax reform and he can check it off his list.
Agreed - I want it repealed. It’s like a malignant tumor - needs to be excised with clear margins ... no part should be left or it WILL be operative to some extent and/or come back in some form or fashion.
Did you check the links in posts 2&3?
I think priority number 1 has to be providing relief to those people that got totally hosed by Obamacare in the private insurance markets. Those are the people that pay full fare and have had their premiums and deductible triple in some cases. Subsidize everybody until they can sort it out.
Did they vote on phase 1 already?? NO??
Then how can you say there are no votes for it??
That’s an extremist, absolutist, position, which means it is not a viable negotiating position.
No, YOU are missing the point.
We don’t want the dems help to pass TrumpCare. We want them to help us defeat it. And they will.
Nobody wants TrumpCare. Not the dems - not the Repubs.
Only Trump.
And the sooner we understand the end game here, the better off we will be and the less panty knotting we will engage with.
The Obamacare monstrosity can be cleared away in one stoke and then Trump won't need three phases.
Did you watch the listening session in post 2?
Watched it earlier.
Hell, he posted a vanity earlier all hard up for it.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3534244/posts
I think he and Paul Ryan are the only two people in America that like this turd.
Trump should have a member of his press team come and answer questions here.
You don’t think the current bill fits the framework of the plan published on the WH web site linked in post 3?
Excellent analogy.
Seen them, not sold.
Crap sandwiches aren’t made better with ketchup.
The part of this that annoys me is that this concept apparently depends on the states being willing to permit such things.
As I understand it, the way things function now is that each different states structures their insurance regulations differently, which therefore prevents there being any competition across state lines. A person living in Florida simply can't purchase health insurance from a company in Georgia, because it's illegal for a company in Georgia to cover a Floridian with a Georgia health insurance policy.
It seems like there's a problematic federalism issue here. If the states can't be "convinced" to permit this liberalization of the insurance industry, then the federal government's hands are essentially tied, right?
So I'm not sure how "free market" principles can be imposed on states which aren't interested in practicing them.
In any event, it's certainly not the President's, the Congress', or the federal government's fault that the states, acting individually, create a situation which utterly prevents free markets in health insurance to exist.
Am I missing something, or is this a problem intrinsic to the way our Constitutional system is structured?
It doesn't seem like there are any easy fixes...
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