Posted on 06/23/2017 6:54:09 AM PDT by Rockitz
Excellent post. I am sharing with friends.
“McConnell’s staff isn’t writing the Senate bill by themselves; they’re writing it in concert with insurance insiders and the Washington K-Street health insurance lobby. This is how Mitch McConnell works, likely why he’s worth roughly $20 million, and why he refuses to upset applecarts of the genuine heavy hitters.
If we had free capital markets, insurance companies would be forced to compete; crony capitalism is easier and more lucrative.” Sandy Stringfellow
Senate and house RINO’s who have changed their mind on the subject of Obamacare since unexpectedly winning the presidential election. Are just demonstrating how much they really like the power they have been campaigning successfully against for the last 6 years.
Rand Paul, and Ted Cruz are right thou, if they passed either the senate or House version not only would they be voting for Obamacare light, they would effectively condemning the entire health insurance industry collapses in half the time of Obamacare.
The reason is very simple, if you can wait until your house is on fire to buy insurance you won’t start paying for it until your house is actually on fire, and you will stop paying for it shortly after being reembursed for your new house.
Thus the cost of that insurance for it to exist must be roughly equal or slightly higher(for administrative fees) to the cost of your average house. At least until people on the lower end figure out they are better off paying out of pocket. At which point the system collapses completely as its costs run out of control.
This is what is already happening to Obamacare, as the individual mandate is very cheap compared to the insurance product mandates. Under the Senate plan that difference would be even more dramatic, and the house plan much the same except in those states where all mandates were drooped.
Thus I would support the House plan, but not the Senate plan, as it allows the State’s to choose wether or not their insurance market collapces.
For Republican States that opt out thou even the House version of Obamacare would be politically difficult to defend as not only is it as unconstitutional as the original Obamacare. But people won’t necessary like what insurance can cover economically without a pre-existing condition clause. Unless that too can be opted out of.
If they can’t bring themselves to keep their election pledges and repeal Obamacare, they need to make it so that States can completely opt out of all aspects of the law.
That way State legislators dominated by Republicans who actually keep their word can one by one restore their health insurance markets.
Leftist states like New York, California, and Illinois can be allowed to collapse under the weight of Obamacare.
That would be the politically clever way to end this monstrosity.
The GOP needs to get the democRATs to start talking about how they would fix Obamacare for people to realize how bankrupt and what morons they are.
What I would like to see is catastrophic and pre-existing coverage for all. Beyond that you can decide how much insurance you need or don’t need. My parents used to pay cash for the doctor and dentist. It’s the catastrophic emergencies and pre-existing conditions that bankrupt people.
By stripping out all language after the enacting clause and inserting the following:
This act will: Repeal every word of the "Affordable Care Act" and allow health insurers to engage unfettered in free market practices, and interstate competition. It will require full portability in individual policies.
Require the establishment of high risk pools in every state
Reverse "Medicaid expansion" and limit Medicaid participation to the truly needy.
Ban the provider practice of "cost shifting"
No, they don't insure bad health. The "uninsurables" go to the high risk pool...where they do pay more, but the pool is also subsidized by the industry.
There is nothing surprising about this, that is what FEDGOV does, goof around and shuffle paper in between LOTS of days off and plenty of vacations.
4 trillion they steal every year, they skim off the top for themselves and hand out the rest to imbeciles in exchange for votes.
The only agency that they make sure works good is the IRS so they can make sure they extort as much cash from the working class as possible to pay themselves handsomely for their tomfoolery.
By the way Trump still hasn't fired that degenerate bald c#*ksucker Koskinen over at IRS, what the hell is he waiting for?
“What I would like to see is catastrophic and pre-existing coverage for all.”
That would be extremely expensive as every condition is “pre-existing” if you wait until you have it to start paying for the insurance.
As for catastrophic coverage your really just talking about an extremely high deductible and narrow coverage to those very expensive things.
These plans are of course incompatible with plans that attempt to meaningfully cover non-catastrophic medical costs.
” My parents used to pay cash for the doctor and dentist.”
This would be necessary for any market to exist that control costs. Cost are out of control because nobody making the selection of providers do not really cares about the cost due to the fact that they simply are not paying it if they are aware of it at all. Their provider choice is motivated by everything but cost, which of course means costs will go up as fast as possible.
” It’s the catastrophic emergencies and pre-existing conditions that bankrupt people.”
Unfortunately our medical technology has already advanced past the point of affordability and into the area of luxury.
The trouble is there is no way any economy can afford such luxury items for the entire population, just as it can’t afford any other. So the 3 choices are:
1: Allow free markets so that rich people can finance the tech until its technology improves to the point where it becomes more widely available.
2: Using a monetary trick like insurance and loans try to force the entire population to pay for it until they can’t afford anything else they want.(current route).
3: Shut down the market and have the government bureaucrats dictate what everyone can and can’t have based upon what we can afford and what they think is worth funding.(single payer)
Option 2 is what we have been doing for the last 50 years, whereas Option 3 is what much of the western world has shifted to which is why almost all of the R&D that still exist in the healthcare industry is in the USA.
Option 1 is what we did originally for the last 5 thousand years until the late 60’s.
Absolutely and it would also entice the liberals to leave the states that choose to opt out and move to their liberal meccas.
How foolish of us to expect them to keep their word.
This is what house conservatives should insist upon, compete repeal as it pertains to their states at a minimum.
Do that not, and we are better off letting Obamacare collapse upon its own while encouraging our states to go down the Nullification route.
"A government high-risk pool does not exist. And for individual states to fund their own pool requires money. States like my own and like neighboring Kansas and Illinois can't cut spending fast enough to keep up with deficits. Where are they going to get the money for a high-risk pool?"
I'm sorry I wasn't clear. I didn't mean STATE funding for for a high-risk pool. I meant that if insurance companies were allowed to go Interstate, THEY could possibly provide high-risk premiums. Not every medical precondition means long term cancer type care. Interstate coverage would be a big plus and and you would see many health insurance companies grow. Growth means more doctors, hospitals, urgent care clinics, and lower premiums and deductibles.
I'm not a Doctor, Nurse, or other health care professional, but I have stayed at a Holiday Inn.
Insurance companies strive to keep their risks low in relation to their premiums so why would the insurance companies set up high-risk policies? They will attract customers guaranteed to file claims far in excess of the premiums they would pay. No way they could make money off them, or even come close to breaking even.
Interstate coverage would be a big plus and you would see many health insurance companies grow.
Interstate sales of health care insurance have been colossal failures in the half-dozen or so states where it has been tried and with good reason. Insurance companies control costs by establishing a network of providers and negotiating fixed prices for their services. They have no incentive to sell policies in states where they don't have networks, and no incentive to go to the time and expense of establishing them for a handful of customers.
I understand risk vs company viability. I was an insurance agent at one time.
Think, not every precondition is lifetime hospital care until death. Many are treatable with drugs or other procedures. I'm just suggesting if enough insurance companies came together, they could lower costs. Simple supply and demand, not to mention consolidation like mergers that always produce profits.
It would also help if the pharm companies would reduced their drug prices to those in other countries. You can buy the same brand name drug in Canada, Europe, India, Philippines, etc. for less than a quarter in the US. Yes, I understand the pharm companies spend millions on research and development and need to recoup those expenses.
However, since our aging population is in need of more medical services/medications, I have no problem with the individual States having price controls as long as the pharm companies can keep making billions. They don't like a State control, they have the assets to move.
Fedgov control is not the way. Do they ever do anything efficiently or on budget? The RINO's need to just repeal Obamacare and let the free markets adjust to their consumers. It always works.
Don't want to pay the price for a high-tech Lexus, you get a KIA Optima. I know, I have one. It has more goodies than the same basic Lexus and has a high reliable rating. Then there is the incredibly low-priced high-tech electronics. I just purchased a 55" Ultra High-Definition(4K) OLED TV for less than a quarter it would have cost 5 years ago. Again, competition.
American free enterprise with competition/profits as its motivator has been copied time and again all over the world. I could be wrong, but I believe the same would happen with a free Health Insurance system providing DC gets out of the way.
Are you suggesting price controls at the state level?
I think that would cause more chaos than anything you could imagine. I’m thinking of something like the NYC metro area, where you would have NY, CT, and NJ all essentially “competing” in a way for the lowest prices. I’m not sure those decisions should be made in Albany or Trenton any more than they should be made in Washington.
You would also basically force the pharmaceutical companies to have compliance and lobbying in 50 states. They may just decide that the market in some place like Wyoming is just not worth the damn effort.
Trump’s single payer system is going to be the best single payer system.
We have a Republican president who has praised single payer systems. All polling shows that support for single payer has never been higher. And the only things people hate about Obamacare are the names and the cost.
I ultimately think what is going to happen is a two tiered system. A national Medicare for all for the elderly, children, an expanded Medicaid pool based on income, and those with pre-existing conditions.
The rest will be in the private market. I assume that the big insurance carriers will love not having to deal with kids or the very sick.
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.