Posted on 07/17/2017 10:17:34 AM PDT by Kaslin
“Two-hundred thousand people are going to die” If we pass the Republicans' Senate healthcare bill. Those words came from Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez last week.
Truthfully, it has been decades since Americans died because they lacked access to healthcare. In 2009, the sales-pitch for passing The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) was that families and individuals with pre-existing conditions shouldn't have to go bankrupt after an emergency room visit, bout with cancer or heart attack.
We've made quite a journey from the sales pitch of financial implications to the assertion that a lack of health insurance results in death.
Perez’s argument is akin to saying “you will die because I don't have automobile insurance.” If you get into a serious automobile accident, they rush you to the emergency room. Even if the accident is your fault, you will not be denied care. Lacking automobile and medical insurance doesn't mean you die. Most people facing this scenario will recover with the potential of bankruptcy due to expensive medical bills.
Democrats need to stop playing obstructionist politics and participate in the solutions needed to repair the damage they created with Obamacare.
If not, Republicans need to fully repeal Obamacare and return us to the ‘free market.’
Free Market
Comparing health insurance to automobile insurance is a reasonable way to understand this complicated issue. If I have two automobile wrecks and get two speeding tickets in a single year, there's a good chance my auto insurance carrier will cancel my coverage or at least greatly increase my rates. I’m a high-risk driver in that scenario. CARTOONS | Jerry Holbert View Cartoon
If I am an unhealthy eater, smoke a pack of cigarettes per day and don't regularly visit the doctor for preventative care, I am the medical version of the aforementioned high-risk driver.
That said, we must have empathy for people with financial limitations, pre-existing conditions and severe medical problems who can’t obtain coverage or can’t afford it due to income and costs.
For families (or individuals) making less than national average income, who do not have access to workplace coverage, we should consider expanding Medicaid to cover them as a fail-safe option.
This means millions of Americans who are presently being subsidized by the federal government and their state will have more limited choices compared to those in the ‘self-pay’ free market. However, they will have affordable access to preventive, ongoing and emergency care.
People on the lower end of the economic spectrum need transportation to get to and from work. In many cases, they can only afford an older vehicle with high mileage lacking the bells and whistles of a luxury car. What many politicians are attempting to do with healthcare legislation is give everyone a $100,000 BMW regardless of whether they can afford it or not.
There has to be two markets for health insurance: A secondary market for people who cannot afford coverage (with likely longer lines and less options). Then, there should be a luxury market for those people paying their full health insurance bill while they simultaneously subsidize the secondary market through taxes.
There has to be a basic necessities policy (secondary market) with more limited access that encourages preventative care, doctors visits instead of emergency room visits and reasonable accountability required in healthcare choices. As those people stuck in the secondary market find economic, upward mobility, they will then be able to afford coverage from the free (luxury) market.
Missing from this healthcare debate is the fact that many Americans are simply irresponsible and unaccountable. There are millions of people taking advantage of the goodwill offered in Obamacare.
Handouts should be a bridge to the future - not a way of life. In giving those in need of financial assistance equivalent insurance benefits to those paying the entirety their full bill, we incentivize abuse.
No one is going to die if we repeal Obamacare. If Perez wishes to be taken seriously (or any Democrat for that matter) they should stop treating Americans like the useful idiots they believe we are and instead speak to us in real terms about the truth of what's at stake.
The emergency room is the doctor's office for the uninsured and the costs are passed along to the rest of us. An unexpected hospital visit to the uninsured is an almost certain trip to bankruptcy court. But, health insurance is not healthcare.
We have the best health care in the world and everyone has access to it. For this reason it disgusts me to see Democrats refer to health insurance legislation as a life or death matter. It simply is not.
You don’t get to drive the 'BMW' of health insurance on a ‘Yugo' budget.
I think this is the one issue Trump should leave alone.
Focus on bringing back American manufacturing, and building the wall, Trump.
Don’t get hijacked with these issues. Focus.
Uh, I have a news flash for perez. Despite valiant efforts, the death rate, not just in the USA, but worldwide, remains at 100%.
Maybe not “life or death”, but certainly “unconstitutional”, as if that matters anymore.
The GOP working to amend Obamacare is just another massive disappointment that Republicans have doled out to Americans since winning the majority in congress in 2010. Why do we continue to re-elect liars during the primaries? We need to clean house in the GOP while Americans are still disgusted with the Democrat party.
Where is the incentive for them to participate in anything? The Republicans now own healthcare. Obamacare, Trumpcare, Don'tcare, doesn't matter. It's their hot potato regardless. Democrats would be insane to play a part in it.
Agree.
Rome wasn’t built in a day, and America won’t be the land of the free; the home of the brave in one election cycle either.
Focus on what he does best, namely, bring manufacturing and production back here. Buy American and HIRE American.
Dealing with the illegal problem and the economic problems effectively would be a huge bonanza for the USA.
Exactly. When it our time to die we will die, no matter what. No one will live forever.
I totally disagree with that. The government should not be in the position of selecting what kind of coverage is allowed.
Better to have a food stamp type program, because at least in food stamps the buyer can buy whatever thay want at the grocery store even if it's s dumb purchase. They get a set amount of money, and they go into the free market and buy.
They go into the free market and buy and the result is the lowest food prices in the world.
Rather than Medicaid, it's better to give a Health Snap with an amount of money on it for a health policy only. Have it based on income level, so that the lower end gets 100% of the set price and the upper end of assistees get a lesser percentage.
Then they go onto the open market at buy a health plan of their choice. If they get a cheap catastrophic plan, then the remaining Health Snap money can pay for routine doctor visits.
Every food stamp family in the USA could get 10,000,000 and the program will cost about 300 billion a year, far less than every other plan being discussed.
Able bodied people will be required to work.
“Two-hundred thousand people are going to die” If we pass the Republicans’ Senate healthcare bill. Those words came from Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez last week.
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200,000 people are going to die whether or not we pass an insurance bill.
If I were Trump I would make a show of inviting Schumer and McConnell to the Whitehouse and I would verbally bitchslap them in front of the Media.
Its time for Trump to be independent.
According the polls blasted all over the Media, the American people prefer Obamacare to Trumpcare by a 2 to 1 margin.
They also want more Medicaid and are willing to pay more in taxes for it.
Single-Payer is on the way, folks.
Oh the irony...@SenJohnMcCain has a medical emergency & goes to the Mayo clinic, NOT the VA & now the vote on healtcare Bill is deferred. 🤔
Death is a certainty.
You can be a billionaire baseball team owner and die of a heart attack.
Some people are priced out by Obamacare pricing. They can have a heart attack and die too, and do, probably at least 5,000 a year.
I don’t provide care. If you die from lack of care, it isn’t my fault.
My income is low. I can’t afford to pay for the pre-existing conditions of others. I can’t afford to pay for the defective lifestyles of others.
People who have gotten $20,000 worth of care each year should be more willing to pay high premiums than a normally healthy person who spent $3 for a bottle of aspirin back in 2014.
The GOP is a disgusting bunch of liars who railed against Obamacare for eight years yet have failed to repeal it despite having been given a mandate from voters eight months ago to do just that. Time to boot these deceitful scoundrels out of office.
No more excuses. No more delays. No more promises.
There was no federal individual mandate in 2013, 2012 or 2011.
I’m sure if you asked Obama in 2013 if he thought the PPACA was a success, he would have said yes.
I’m sure if you asked Hillary Clinton in 2012 if she thought the PPACA was a success, she would have said yes.
I’m sure if you asked Nancy Pelosi in 2011 if she thought the PPACA was a success, she would have said yes.
Did PPACA policy premiums come crashing down for 2014 when the individual mandate came into effect? No
What the base most wants is the repeal of the individual mandate, which obviously isn’t either necessary or proper.
What the base would like is the option of cheaper coverage. Yes, it might have limits, like $25,000 (~one hospitalization) in total coverage and no drug coverage, but I personally haven’t seen one cent of PPACA subsidy money yet.
I’ve been uninsured since 1994.
Don’t tell a man who can’t afford to buy a Cadillac that he can’t buy a Chevy.
Just repeal the whole d*** thing. THEN go onto the other issues.
This is the litmus test. After 7 years of electing representatives, and now a President, THIS is what America is demanding.
It is also the litmus test for the left, the power-brokers, the swamp. They realize that once this goes, they are undone.
“Rather than Medicaid, it’s better to give a Health Snap with an amount of money on it for a health policy only. Have it based on income level, so that the lower end gets 100% of the set price and the upper end of assistees get a lesser percentage.”
The percentage should be no higher than 80% ($7.25/hour is 20% of $36.25/hour).
My proposal, version 4.7, provides for block grants to hospitals to cover the exceptional cases, such as homeless people, people that have been crippled by auto accidents, heart attacks, etc.:
http://www.freerepublic.com/~briangriffin/
You are absolutely right. This IS a litmus test. The GOP loudly promised us again and again it would do this. So yes, we are holding them to their own words. Either repeal this act, or we will repeal their terms in office.
We will show them that will will not tolerate liars and deceivers.
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