Unlike ObamaCare, The GOP Health Bill Wasn't Built On Lies And False Promises

Investor's Business Daily ^ | 5/5/2017 | Staff

[IBD editorial writer]

Health Reform: While everyone is busy picking apart the flaws of the Republican ObamaCare replacement bill, one inconvenient truth is being overlooked: ObamaCare itself has been a colossal disaster.

Remember how ObamaCare was sold to the public: If you like your plan, you can keep your plan. It will lower premiums by $2,500, increase choice and competition, make health care affordable, create jobs, cut the deficit.

None of those promises came true. In 2013, millions discovered that the "keep your plan" promise was a lie — PolitiFact gave it the "Lie of the Year" award — when they started getting cancellation notices from their insurers. The Obama administration scrambled to minimize the political fallout by letting some keep those plans.

While Obama repeatedly promised a premium cut thanks to improved efficiency in the health care system, the opposite occurred. Workplace premiums for family plans jumped 9.4% the year after ObamaCare became law, and rose $4,767 from 2009 to 2006. ObamaCare premiums are going up at double-digit rates.

[Diogenesis]

TrumpCARE, like RomneyCARE, is a government
intrusion between the sancrosanct doctor patient
relationship.

It destroys innovation and competition and has
billions and billions of rules;

And of course, the government Officials are EXEMPT.

[Sasparilla]

Liberalism and the entire Democrat party are built on lies and false promises. That is noting new.

[Diogenesis]

The GOP always tells the Truth?

They are serial sociopathic liars to the American People,
and are fostering hatred for their party
to the boiling level.

#EXEMPTLivesMatterMost!

[Sasparilla]

...And of course, the government Officials are EXEMPT.

Originally true, but an amendment was attached to the Bill that subjects government officials to it. There were not any no votes to the Amendment. Even Democrats voted for it.

[Alberta's Child]

TrumpCARE, like RomneyCARE, is a government intrusion between the sancrosanct doctor patient relationship.

That's true ... but if this relationship is so "sacrosanct" then we never should let an insurance carrier carry out the intrusion, either.

[Soul of the South]

If they couldn’t pass straight repeal, why didn’t Trump/Ryancare have two critical market driven provisions? Specifically:

1) Pricing transparency and visibility
2) National market for health insurance

Once again, the leviathan state ignores the potential for market forces to lower costs.

[Sasparilla]

Republican Rep. Martha McSally of Arizona proposed a stand-alone bill to strike the exemption of Congress from state waiver provisions should the AHCA be enacted into law.
McSally’s bill passed on May 4 by a 429-0 vote

[DoodleDawg]

Remember how ObamaCare was sold to the public: If you like your plan, you can keep your plan. It will lower premiums by $2,500, increase choice and competition, make health care affordable, create jobs, cut the deficit.

And the Republicans are making the very same mistakes. They are selling this one with lower premiums, lower deductibles, increased choice and competition, full coverage for those with pre-existing conditions, and nobody but nobody will be worse off. Where is that different from the Democrats and Obamacare? And what happens when many of those promises don't come true?

[bert]

Also overlooked are the facts that almost all Americans are covered by Medicare or employer purchased plans. Most are not concerned about not having insurance. They have had their health care disrupted and perhaps torn apart by Obamacare with no benefit at all. Most of America is in some way worse off as a result

Further, those that were forced to buy insurance got the proverbial pig in a poke, an extremely expensive polk. They got coverage, but very expensive and worthless coverage.

Nothing the Republican effort can do will make it worse.

Those here whining are pretty much against a government that acts in any fashion towards the health care industry. They are a minority whose voices will never be heard or acted on.

When I consider the uninsured, I think of the TV program The Wire. It is concerned with various groups in Baltimore, the street people, the cops, the politicians, the dockworkers. Primary are the black row house street dwellers. I can state unequivocally that none of those street people have Obamacare. They not only have no money, they lack the initiative and ability too make the purchase. Those without insurance just don’t give a damn and never will. To pander to their theoretical needs is stupidity.

[Kazan]

If the Freedom Caucus signed off on this, it is the most conservative a bill that could be reached. What about that don't you understand?

There aren't 217 conservatives in House and 50 in the Senate. That is the reality that has to be dealt with.

Keeping throwing a hissy fit and sitting out elections and we'll end up with single payer.

[Alberta's Child]

"Market forces" will never lower costs when you have three parties in a transaction. In fact, there's no such thing as a "market force" when a buyer and a seller do not deal directly with each other.

An auto insurance claim is a perfect example of this. If you are involved in a crash and your car isn't totaled, you really don't care if the cost of the repair is $2,000 or $5,000 -- because you're not paying for it. And the insurance company doesn't care about pushing the body shop to do a $5,000 repair for $2,000 -- because they're not the ones who have to drive the car after it's fixed.

[Theo]

Heretic. President Trump must be trusted without question, and worshiped and affirmed without reservation.

Truth: Trump is better than Hillary, and I’m glad he was elected and not her. I support most of the policies he’s promoted over the past couple of years. I appreciate some of the great things he’s pushed over the past 100+ days.

But he is not perfect. Nobody is. And sheeple FReepers (not you, others) who affirm every single thing he does, with cult-like fawning, have gotten on my nerves.

Good to see people like you promoting free market principles instead of simply blindly defending a politician’s every action.

[LostPassword]

> But at least Republicans are offering something concrete.

I guess I missed that part. What I see possible is
1) nobody should lose insurance
2) money flow is even more complicated
3) when things go bad there’s even more ability to spread the blame (see 2)
4) nothing to lower health care costs
5) little reason to think health insurance costs will go down
6) insurance companies may be more “payment agents” than “insurance providers”
7) Republicans are co-owners so they’ll work with Ds to “fix” it (more tax $$$)

It’s better than Obamacare. It’s possible that it works out well. It’s also possible that the only “fix” in a few years is to either admit they were wrong and should have repealed the entire thing and start over, or go to single payer.

Here’s a concrete plan
1) repeal Obamacare
2) government-paid/single-payer high-catastrophic coverage. limit yearly & lifetime risks for insurers on any patient - a high limit, not what you or I would buy but still a cap to insurer’s risk per-patient
3) insurers can provide everything from full-care to below-high-catastrophic coverage. they don’t make a profit by moving money but by selling market-driven policies.

I’m not for single-payer in general, but limiting insurers’ yearly and lifetime risk makes pre-existing conditions coverage possible as well as making all calculations easier for the insurer. It’s not unreasonable for everyone to share risk (at the $million+ lifetime level) through taxes since we all have that possibility.

And the cost to taxpayers (in taxes and premiums) is not more than the mess we are getting into with the complex system being set up. And we get accountability, transparency and ability to modify government costs (adjust yearly/lifetime limits). The mess we are getting doesn’t allow us to easily see what money is doing when it goes through different paths and we have no idea what to adjust to make it more useful or less expensive.

[Theo]

“Keeping throwing a hissy fit and sitting out elections and we’ll end up with single payer.”

And you think the path we’re taking now won’t lead to single payer? Really?

The only way to avoid going the single payer route is TO AVOID GOING THE SINGLE PAYER ROUTE. The solution is a free market, not government health care insurance.

[BlackbirdSST]

Republican Rep. Martha McSally of Arizona proposed a stand-alone bill to strike the exemption of Congress from state waiver provisions should the AHCA be enacted into law. McSally’s bill passed on May 4 by a 429-0 vote

Yes, and the $in-ate has already said they intend to toss the entire House Bill in the trash. Any odds on that provision even being taken up in their version? My view is, the House already knew the $in-ate was planning on tossing it which is why this even made it to a floor vote. It's a crock.

[SERKIT]

Keep in mind the so-called Affordable Care Act was unlawfully made a law. It started with deeming and scheming, parliamentary parlor tricks, the Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, and other payoffs and promises of cushy jobs after terms ended, then it when over to the Judge Roberts' transformative tool-shed where it was morphed, like Pinocchio's puppet to a real boy - from a mandated to a tax.

Then the Republican Boy Scouts are trying to re-write an unlawful law into a real plan using "regular order", a concept foreign to Chuckie and SanFranNan. No wonder it's screwed up.

[CincyRichieRich]

Does it matter since no one reads the IBD and all citizens have forgotten this and no one is reminding them of this?

Like a tree that fell in the woods.

[Sasparilla]

Who knows what will ever happen in Congress? Every Bill goes through a House version and a Senate version that can finally morph into something else for better or worse the Conference Committee. That’s the way it works....or doesn’t.

[ROCKLOBSTER]

pre-existing conditions coverage

There isn't such a thing.

That's not insurance, it's a payment plan. To qualify as "insurance" you first must have something to insure...(your good health)

There is, however, such a thing as a pre-existing condition exclusion clause, which allows the insurer to write a policy which will cover everything except the named condition for a certain period of time.

If there is no recurrence within say 18 months, the condition will then be covered. Maine has (had) such a provision.

The answer is complete repeal, interstate competition, carrier-funded high risk pools and cumulative tax-free health savings accounts.

Providers also need serious reforms to stop the non-transparency of third-party billing and gouging of insurers and cash patients to pay for all the bad-debt and "free healthcare"