Posted on 05/06/2017 5:29:37 AM PDT by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
So how do the carriers fund these pools if not through everyone's insurance premiums?
What does this approach really buy us?
By assessing a pennies-per-insured fee, on every covered life. This applies to group, individual, self-insurers, all types of coverage....all carriers doing business in the state must participate. This was the Mississippi model.
The New Hampshire HRP started at a dime, went down to three cents, then to a penny...and still had too much money in the pool reserve.
What does this approach really buy us?
It leaves you with a robust market of healthy people who might get sick, and some people with claims who have gotten sick. It can can premiums in half.
Premiums are almost completely based on claims, by law...like 75 to 85%.
The HRP patients (about 1% of the insured population) would have generated and consumed about half of the claims.
That’s a leading question and you know it. Are YOU resigned? Because you claimed that this bill would lead to single payer, and this is the bill that’s being passed.
Here’s what would happen if Trump advocated for a clean repeal. It would get lots of news for a few weeks, and then Congress would vote against it and it would be an embarrassing defeat and probably would never come up again.
When a clean bill of repeal came up before the House, it got maybe ten percent of the members’ support. If Trump full-heartedly campaigned for it, I suspect that with how much they’re bought and paid for, he could push it up to maybe 40 percent, on a good day.
In other words, no chance for a clean repeal what-so-ever. Not this year at least.
Then the Democrats would run on single payer in 2018 and 2020 and win, especially with the fact that Obamacare would collapse and it’d be easy to pin it on Republicans and Trump for not doing anything, and convince enough LIVs for it.
If you want to avoid single payer, you have to 1: act NOW, and 2: take every step you can in the opposite direction, even if it’s barely a baby step. Refusing everything except the perfect solution you want is one big reason that we’re in this mess in the first place.
We got to this point via incrementalism. There’s no way that we’ll be getting out except by the same way.
And neither is any legislation that comes out of Congress.
But since the Freedom Caucus signed off on this, it is probably about the most conservative a bill that could be passed. More steps are planned, and since this President has no interest in being blamed for something that doesn't work, I think he will fight tenaciously for a solution which actually addresses the problems.
Nobody is perfect—so it's rather disingenuous to act as if any President will ever be. That doesn't mean that armchair quarterbacks should get unhinged when the President fails to meet their standards—which apparently require perfection.
I don't know a single mythological Freeper who "affirms everything President Trump does", but by the same token, criticism should remain constructive—because when it's just self-indulgent cynicism, it does nothing but aid and abet the Enemy...
There are plenty of lies told to sell the Republican bill.
First up: the bill repeals ACA. The fact is the bill amends ACA.
Secondly: the bill repeals the individual mandate. The fact is the mandate remains, the penalty for non-compliance has been set to zero.
Thirdly: the bill repeals the business mandate. The fact is the mandate remains, the penalty for non-compliance has been set to zero.
etc etc etc
Many have forgotten what the Democrats did with ObamaCare:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/358550/congresss-exemption-obamacare-john-fund
I've seen similar polls. Considering half the population lives paycheck to paycheck and another half of the population have some sort of chronic condition, it is no wonder we see polls like this..
It is also about the only avenue to get a start in the right direction - like it or not, going “full-constitution” will not garner enough votes to do anything.
A fiscal change that only requires 51 Senate votes. To repeal the mandate requires 60 votes or a nuke. The nuke is not a good idea in the big picture.
There is no Constitutional requirement for 60 votes. It is a Senate rule. It is a rule which can be changed. Yes I know, the “Byrd rule” was made into a law. That too can be changed.
Republicans lack will. They would rather have the football game go on forever than put this garbage in the trash.
Moreover, it’s the fact that they lie.
bump
An end to limitless debate in the Senate is part of Progressive Era reforms and dates to 1917. Ending debate required 67 votes until 1975 when it was changed to 60. Rules change.
Increased premiums, in other words. If the carriers have to pay into the pool for each life they're going to charge for each life.
The New Hampshire HRP started at a dime, went down to three cents, then to a penny...and still had too much money in the pool reserve.
New Hampshire has a population of 1.3M. Assuming everyone is covered that's $13,000/month.
If that's all it takes to cover pre-existing conditions what's the debate about?
Which in the big picture would not be good.
Republicans lack will. They would rather have the football game go on forever than put this garbage in the trash.
They don't have much will, and they (except for a handful) don't want to get rid of creeping socialism. But the 60 vote rule should not be an obstacle since in theory the states should give us 60 Republicans That has not happened and now in the 51-59 range we don't need cloture. But if we get pushed back to 41-49 then we will need it again.
Trump took the awful Ryan legislation, worked with the Freedom Caucus and got the best bill he could.
You really need to find a new hobby. You're never going to be happy with anything.
Stop whining and come up with some realistic solutions. Bellyaching is the easy part.
Yes. But why would you worry about a few cents per person, when premiums were going up by hundreds of dollars without it? The HRP will bring them back down.
New Hampshire has a population of 1.3M. Assuming everyone is covered that's $13,000/month.
Well, they did start out with $1 million as did all new HRP states, and they were charging a dime for a while to build it up. They are restricted as to the dollar-size of the pool. The assessment surcharge might need to change as conditions change, but likely not very much.
If that's all it takes to cover pre-existing conditions
That's because the "uninsurables" comprise only about 1% of the insured.
what's the debate about?
It's about the lying RATs. They hate this free-market solution, and have always done their level best to destroy it. They killed off our HRP in 1993 as HillaryCare went down the tubes in DC.
The "friends of Hillary" did her dirty work for her here.
A fiscal change that only requires 51 Senate votes. To repeal the mandate requires 60 votes or a nuke. The nuke is not a good idea in the big picture.
***
I might hold issue with your assertion that the nuke is a bad idea.
Maybe. Or at least I think it could be debated. But it’s probably not possible at this time anyways, so we have to work with what we have.
Rule#1.........Congress needs to be on the same plan that is passed onto everyone else.
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