Posted on 07/25/2017 7:38:21 AM PDT by Kaslin
It's no great revelation that Republicans have bungled the Obamacare repeal bill beyond belief.
What's killing Republican reform efforts are the headlines projecting that some 20 million people will lose their health insurance under virtually any GOP plan. These numbers are complete fabrications, but all voters hear is that people will suffer under the Republican plan.
That's why the GOP must change the narrative and focus on the three C's of health care reform: choice, competition and cost reduction. Lowering premiums through choice and competition will make health insurance more affordable for tens of millions of Americans. Obamacare promised these things and delivered the opposite: less choice and much higher costs to families.
To reverse this trend, the centerpiece of the GOP plan should be to give every American resident an "off-ramp" from Obamacare so they can freely shop for their own affordable plans. This means ending the insurance requirements, including Obamacare's unpopular individual mandate (which mostly penalizes families with incomes below $50,000 a year).
This approach to health care reform (similar to the Ted Cruz amendment) means families all over the country would be liberated from Obamacare overnight and could select high-deductible health savings accounts or simple catastrophic coverage to protect against major medical expenses.
Republicans should also allow families to buy insurance across state lines, eliminate the employer mandate that has destroyed jobs and expand transparency in pricing, with requirements that hospitals and doctors post prices for such services as MRIs or colonoscopies so patients can shop around for low prices.
Democrats would have to try to defend their anti-free-choice position, which denies millions of families the right to choose their own insurance plans and pay less. They can't.
Liberals and their insurance-industry allies will argue that the insurance market can't work if healthy or younger people can choose cheaper plans, and they warn of an insurance death spiral. But the death spiral they warn of -- with healthy people dropping out of Obamacare and sick people signing up -- is already happening, day after day, under the current law, and everyone knows that.
Under a choice-based system, perhaps as many as 80 percent of Americans will see premiums fall by as much as $3,000 to $5,000 a year. As costs come down, more people will sign up for coverage. And if the Congressional Budget Office doesn't get this simple rule of economics, they should be fired.
Liberals understand that giving Americans the right to freely choose their own insurance plans will quickly render Obamacare and its expensive mandates and regulations irrelevant. It will be the death of Obamacare.
Isn't that what Republicans say they want?
Shouldn’t congress start with themselves? Do they have any idea what they are voting on? #Corruptocracy
If this is another #insuranceCompany Bailout... they should think twice. Their last bill had 70 Billion taxpayer dollars for insurers, not Americans. #NeverBailout
Suddenly the personal mandate is polling positive after ~ 7 years of polling negative.
While we are looking for those to blame
Try that wo a personal mandate.
The Republicans font need to be fixed again, they’ve already lost their balls.
Rather they need a “find’em” operation.
If they do not include the language “The Affordable Care Act known as Obamacare is hereby repealed” in any bill then it still exists and democraps will just put things back in that they might take out
Absolutely! open the market...
What is hampering the GOP repeal effort is that they are not trying to repeal Obamacare.
They are trying to retain 80% of Obamacare.
Bungled? More like exposed for the liars they are.
Good article by Moore. Hard to disagree with anything he said.
However, not everything he proposed can pass with a simple majority. And there’s no way Democrats will support anything on the bill. Which gets us back to the nuclear option, which McConnell won’t do. IMO, the 60 vote requirement to pass a law breeds corruption.
I’ve often wondered what it would take to get to be able to buy and sell insurance across state lines. What’s preventing it now? Federal or state laws? I’m a states’ rights guy, but it seems like a federal bill allowing it would be within the constitutional purview of Congress because they have the authority to regulate interstate commerce. The only logical reason for preventing it is that insurance companies are lining the pockets of our duly elected representatives.
They need to focus on how for most Americans that ObamaCare insurance premium rates started off in 2014 nearly double the normal market premium rates and then even those sky high rates have even more than doubled into 2017 and they are set to further keep rising in 2018 and 2019 at inflation rates far beyond wage growth and other costs growth.
Here is something I wrote on Oct 25, 2016:
The neverending saga of how the “Affordable Care Act” (aka ObamaCare) is making its mark in the USA continues. The politicians had promised that it would result in lower costs. So where do we stand now? Just 22 months ago I was on the “Bronze HMO 006” plan from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas with a monthly premium of 193.07. In 2015 the premium changed to 226.57 and in 2016 it changed to 286.29. Today I see on http://www.healthcare.gov that for 2017 its going to be 438.10 per month. That is a hike of 126.9%. Its also a year-over-year jump of 53.0%. Due to a job change (i.e. salaried with benefits; instead of being a contractor) I cancelled my plan and got a health care plan that’s compliant with the new law. But if I were back to doing just contracting I’d be thinking long/hard about doing a much better job of tax planning as it would probably be better to get some “catastrophic plan” and pay the 2.5% ObamaCare tax penalty. See https://www.bcbstx.com/static/tx/pdf/policy-forms/2017/33602TX0460006-01.pdf for details on the plan. Originally the deductible was $6000 but its now $6500.
Another note now:
In early 2014 I was evaluating high-deductible plans that were not ObamaCare-compliant and the price for the one comparable to the 193.07/month policy I ended up getting was approx $110 per month. I opted to get the ObamaCare policy for $83 per month (or 1k per annum) more because the penalty of 1% MAGI would’ve been more than 1K. Thus I made the economic decision to sign up for ObamaCare. If I could get that $110/month policy at double-rate today + pay 2.5% of MAGI then I’d still fare better than I would with the ObamaCare policy. However the market for real health insurance policies has pretty much disappeared thanks to ObamaCare. Thus I either need to keep working for Big Business or “Go Galt” (i.e. stop working so I become a collector of entitlements instead of a taxpayer) if I plan to keep living in the USA. There used to be a third economically feasible option in the USA called “become an entrepreneur” but thanks to ObamaCare it now requires a huge sacrifice for almost all entrepreneurs to set up shop in the USA so as a result the future of successful entrepreneurship on Earth (unless MAGA works & we really fix our health care insurance system woes) is outside the USA :(
The first thing Congress has to do is PULL THE NUMBERS.
What are we spending on 'health care' and who gets the bulk of the money for what services.
Much of the money spent on 'the poor' is a scam that feeds the wealthy and does nothing for the poor. It's why people are scared.
One doctor walks into a nursing home - spends 9 minutes in the facility - looks at 4 charts and does NOT see one patient and is PAID FOR EVERY MEDICAID PATIENT IN THE FACILITY.
Poor person goes to an ER BECAUSE NO DOCTORS TAKE MEDICAID PATIENTS and the ER charges $4,000 to 'cure' a case of the sniffles. Then, knowing they won't be paid squat, they write the puffed up 'bill' off their taxes.
Money down the drain everywhere and almost NO MEDICAL CARE FOR AMERICAN'S POOR - BUT WE THE TAXPAYERS ARE PAYING BILLIONS FOR NOTHING... Well, yacht's for millionaire doctors and hospital administrators... that's where our hard earned money is going.
So yeah, the poor are scared... we're not doing right by them or ourselves. Paying champagne prices for polluted water.
McConnell should have gotten rid of 60 vote requirement as soon as he became Majority Leader. I do realize it wouldn't have done any good as long as dingy Harry Reid was still in the senate, but he could have done so in January. Shame on him for not doing so.
Not liars, just weak.
Now who's fabricating numbers? Making promises they can't keep is what cost the Democrats on Obamacare. The GOP is making the same mistake on Trumpcare.
I think state law does have quite a bit to do with it because of licensing fees, requirements Etc. But a constitutional amendment could override these restrictions.
Twenty-one states have considered legislation to allow the sale of insurance across state lines. Five states actually allow that now - Wyoming, Georgia, Kentucky, Maine, and Rhode Island. Two of those states passed the law pre-Obamacare and the rest passed the law post-Obamacare. Do you know how many insurance companies have taken advantage of these laws and sold policies in states that they had not done business in before? None. Do you know how many policies have been sold to people in those states from companies not currently doing business there? None. There is absolutely no financial incentive for companies to sell the policies or for the people to buy them. That isn't changing any time soon the way insurance works in this country.
Just repeal the 10th Amendment? If you don't have 50 votes to pass Obamacare you don't have 67 votes to do that.
They’ve been promising to repeal ACA for almost a decade. Now at the moment of truth they refuse. Yeah, they’re liars.
They would indeed fall at least that much. One of my adult daughters and my son in law with 2 kids are paying $1,200 a month total through their work at the same place. 12x12= $14,400 a year.
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