Posted on 03/17/2017 9:37:10 AM PDT by EveningStar
The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, but for governments it’s not that easy. Once something is given — say, health insurance coverage to 20 million Americans — you take it away at your peril. This is true for any government benefit, but especially for health care. There’s a reason not one Western democracy with some system of national health care has ever abolished it.
The genius of the left is to keep enlarging the entitlement state by creating new giveaways that are politically impossible to repeal. For 20 years, Republicans railed against the New Deal. Yet, when they came back into office in 1953, Eisenhower didn’t just keep Social Security, he expanded it.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Blind spot.
I have no intention of fighting Trump regarding his weak spot that lyin’ Ryan is exploiting. However, I’m praying that there is a sufficient number of constitutional-minded conservatives in the house and senate to block this ill-advised foray into “New Deal” style entitlements by the GOPe. If it passes into law, it will “legitimize” control over health care by the federal government, something freedom-loving conservative Republicans have usually resisted because it’s clearly unconstitutional and it’s big government socialism. Health care is clearly reserved to the states and the people by the constitution.
Once federal control of healthcare is the norm by both parties, it won’t be long until sometime in the near future that the democrats retake the majorities and the presidency and they’ll move directly to single payer nationalized healthcare. And it will be the GOP that made it possible.
Kill it now and salt the earth so it can never rise again.
I’d like to see phase one deal solely with the costs of medical care. I’d put off for later who pays the bill. That approach would get practically universal voter support.
If Trump wants to “help all the people” he should work with the congress to repeal Obamacare and also remove any other federal regulations or roadblocks to competitive free market solutions at the state level. And encourage the states to setup programs for the disabled and destitute where needed. If the feds want to make healthcare premiums deductible (not a credit) for individuals and small businesses on their federal tax returns (like corporations get), that would probably be constitutional under the 16th amendment (for now) as would be individual health savings accounts.
But otherwise, healthcare is reserved to the states.
Please expand on that.
The IRS should not be a collections bully for drug billionaires in Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco or elsewhere.
Premiums have become unaffordable for millions.
Premiums for a person my age in Florida went from ~$150/month -> ~$500/month.
The PPACA and its bank account draining premiums are simply intolerable.
I agree wholeheartedly with all you say but: If you are praying that it is blocked then it sure sounds like you are fighting Trump. I cannot accept that Trump is being exploited by Ryan. My only rationalization of Trump’s position is that he will nibble away at this. But then again his position on prexisiting conditions shows his disagreement with Obamacare is to the form of It and not the principles it violates.
I’m praying for a constitutional outcome and see that that outcome is very possible if the constitutional conservatives hold the line and simply and quietly say no to this unconstitutional bill. I do not want to see future generations saddled with nationalized healthcare and that’s where our politicians of both parties are now headed if federal control over healthcare is legitimized.
Repeal obamacare and salt the earth so it can never rise again. Nothing less will suffice.
Our overall mission on Free Republic is to secure God’s Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.
Obama took away affordable health care for 150 million middle class Americans and got away with it scot-free. I'd rather restore them to a workable system and take my chances with the deadbeats.
We should not be paying for healthcare for any illegal alien. We should bill the country they came from, right after deporting them
I don’t disagree with your definition, but perhaps I should’ve emphasized access to health care should not be denied at the time of treatment if there is no means to pay for it.
I was trying to differentiate between health care, which is accessible to all, and health insurance, which is the responsibility of the patient and not the provider.
Understood. The fact that we all die in varying ways and also have a varying level of income means that this entire topic is impossible to make everyone happy. I just don’t like the purely insurance based model, even if able to purchase across State lines. When you need care, under the purely insurance based model, you and your doctor are spending the insurance companies money, not your own. That plus the legal costs to the medical industry only insure that it will be expensive. If some portion of insurance premiums were set aside (and tax deductible) as a “health savings account” so that you could shop around for the lowest cost, best care, option - maybe where you get to receive the remaining balance tax free at the end of the year - we might have something where everyone is aligned in making pragmatic choices?
That’s where the responsibility part comes into play, as it would require a level of planning and effort on the part of the patient. And as you know, such expectations of much of the uninsured population is unrealistic.
Tort reform is a key ingredient to cost control. Obamacare had none of it, and defensive medicine continues to cause premiums to sky-rocket. Trump seems inclined to move on the lawyer lobby, and its long overdue.
You’re right that the best time to kill an entitlement is sooner rather than later. And maybe Krauthammer is a NeverTrumper but that doesn’t make this any less true:
“Moreover, the idea that you can eradicate Obamacare root and branch is fanciful. For all its catastrophic flaws, Obamacare changed expectations. Does any Republican propose returning to a time when you can be denied health insurance because of a preexisting condition?
“It’s not just Donald Trump who ran on retaining this new, yes, entitlement. Everyone did. But it’s very problematic. If people know that they can sign up for insurance after they get sick, the very idea of insurance is undermined. People won’t sign up when healthy, and the insurance companies will go broke.
“So what do you do? Obamacare imposed a monetary fine if you didn’t sign up, for which the Ryan bill substitutes another mechanism, less heavy-handed but still government-mandated.
“The purists who insist upon entirely escaping the heavy hand of government are dreaming...”
He’s right. You, and everyone else reading this are indeed dreaming if you believe the REAL heart of Obamacare, the real reason it is such a cancer on our economy and health care industry, will ever be repealed.
Indeed, there are some on this very site who defend this notion, say it’s necessary that insurance companies be forced to insure everyone despite preexistjng conditions. To so many “conservatives” not only here but also in the real world, the main “problem” with Obamacare was/is the individual mandate.
The individual mandate was/is a natural OUTCOME of the forced insurance of millions of people with preexisting conditions! And THAT is what even the great Donald J. Trump himself is still promising to keep. Forcing insurance companies to insure anyone no matter what.
FRiends, THAT is what is going to destroy the health care in this country, THAT is what is going to make every insurance company here back out of the industry all together, or become part of some giant government sponsored “marketplace”. It won’t be “single payer” in name, but in effect it will.
You can’t get something from nothing and that’s what forcing insurance companies to insure those with preexisting conditions tries to do. When (not if) it fails the “solution” will be merely a reinvention of Obamacare with some “across state lines” marketplace devised to fool those with no economic sense. The “solution” will be to have those in the marketplace government subsisdized and while not single payer in name it will be in effect.
The entire system was broken as soon as that obvious free market demarcation was crossed. And that NO ONE is talking about the need to get rid of forced insurance of those with preexisting conditions makes me more convinced than ever that no one understands the real problem with Obamacare.
Not even Donald Trump.
Because if anyone did, you’d have someone with the guts to say: I’m sorry for any caught in such a sad situation, where one may have a condition that prevents both employment and insurance, but it’s not financially workable in reality. We have to be obedient to reality.
For the sake of our future generations.
But of course no one has such courage. Because it’s just as Krauthammer said: the idea of forced insurance of those with preexisting conditions has already become ingrained in many minds as a “right” or a “duty” of the govt, the insurance companies or both.
So this whole lot of nonsense is completely nauseating to me and anyone else who understands the real problem with Obamacare. Because the real problem isn’t being solved!! But no matter.
I knew this full well when I voted for Trump. I voted for him to stop the Witch (done) and to slow the decline of this once great country. Because under the Witch the US (and the world) was guaranteed to fail, economically, in my lifetime. Now, there’s a possibility the charade may continue for another 30-50 years.
Good luck to anyone younger than 30 though! Any of you reading this fall into that age group? You’ll be living in economic hell on earth in your lifetime. And you can thank, in large part, this insolent, obtuse, selfish refusal to let go of this economic fantasy known as forced health insurance for those with preexisting conditions for that future hell.
STFU Charles. You don’t know jack about politics or medicine. You are just a silly person. Nobody likes you. Go away.
And here comes President Ivanka with a massive new childcare entitlement...
Medical care can wait for six months, a year, five years.
Get Kroger, ALDI, Publix, Trader Joe, Piggly Wiggly, Albertson's, Marsh, etc, to sign on to universal FOOD INSURANCE!. Much more basic and immediate right than medical care. Plus, it's for the CHILDREN.
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