[MilesVeritatis]

No insurance bailout.
No government monopoly healthcare either.

[vette6387]

“If the insurance companies can find a way to be profitable without undue and unfair help from Uncle Sam, God bless them. If they can’t, it shouldn’t be the taxpayers job to keep them afloat.”

Yes, and do you remember when it all started turning to $hit? That was when the insurance companies said: “Let us deal directly with your doctors and everyone who has a share in your healthcare. You don’t need to be bothered with submitting claims. We’ll do all that “for you!” And once you didn’t ever see what’s being billed, they all colluded to drive up the total cost of your care. There was nothing wrong with paying directly out of your pocket for a doctor’s visit when it was ten bucks, but now it’s at least $200 for twenty minutes and the bastard spends about half that time typing on the computer in the exam room, “building your dossier” on the state of your health so some bureaucrat can decide when you’ve become too expensive and need to “move on!” “Medical record keeping” has become the paramount reason for seeing your doctor, and that record is like a roach motel in that conditions are logged in, but the seldom “go away.” Every time your fart, it’s cast in stone.

[zeestephen]

When ObamaCare passed in 2010, there were 40 million uninsured Americans, many of whom were young and completely healthy.

In 2010, the per capita cost for all persons on Medicaid was $5,000.

We could have put every uninsured American on Medicaid for $200 billion, and probably less, since so many were healthy.

Wait times for Medicaid appointments and treatments would have gone up, but so what, since they would have been no longer than the wait times that already exist under national health care in Canada and the UK.

Barack Obama increased the national debt by $8 trillion, from $12 trillion to $20 trillion.

Who would have even noticed another trillion dollars?

Instead, we got ObamaCare, which most GOP Senators and Congressmen still want to keep and improve!

[thoughtomator]

The whole point of insurance in the first place is to mitigate financial risk.

But with the insurance-government cartel that has been imposed on us, the insurance industry has now BECOME one of Americans’ greatest financial risks - a risk that, ironically, there is no way to insure against.

[Daffynition]

Concierge Medicine

[PGalt]

Pull the plug on socialism. It does not work.

[Lopeover]

Massive profits? Is that why they are pulling out of Obamacare?

[BBB333]

Yet for $165 per month you can get health coverage through a Christian provider with a $500 deductible...

[bert]

Senate dithers
Obamacare withers

Exchanges less subsidies die on the vine

[Vlad The Inhaler]

The government and insurance companies working together have purposely conflated healthcare with healthcare insurance.

The government politicians do it to exert control and to have another “Freebie” to buy votes with.

The insurance companies cooperate with the government because the government has sent them a bonanza of new business by forcing many millions of people to now buy health insurance policies and coverage they don’t really want.

Working together they have successfully convinced an entire generation that healthcare insurance is an absolute necessity and a right.

The cost of actual healthcare and healthcare insurance would both plummet if the government stops forcing people to buy healthcare insurance they don’t want and stops dictating what policies the insurance companies can sell.

But the insurance companies will lose the bonanza of business they acquired with Obamacare and the insurance companies own the politicians.

[RckyRaCoCo]

TRUE free market capitalism works.

Crony/corrupt/greed capitalism doesn't.

Here's some REAL fundamental transformation...get rid of the shysters and their servants(politicians, judges, media, globalists, freeloaders, etc.)...and you'll have competitive, affordable healthcare for all(who actually pay for it), as well as a safety net for the TRULY needy.

...Drain The Swamp.

[Vlad The Inhaler]

Democrats are laughing at the republican party today while the republicans turn another victory into a looming defeat.

Republicans never fail to squander a golden opportunity.

Donald Trump handed the republicans an unearned victory and a chance to redeem themselves and become a party of the people.

But the lure of the millions of dollars the healthcare lobbyists offer them has proven to be stronger than their campaign promises and their honor and ethics.

The republicans who prevent President Trump from repealing Obamacare will be handing the senate to the democrats in the 2018 election.

But their bank accounts will be fat.

Senators make $174,000 a year, plus benefits.

But how many, if any, have not become millionaires serving in the senate?

[Wuli]

This must be understood in the full context of the problem.

1. In terms of looking at the problem, the insurance part is the hole, and it is the cost of healthcare itself that is the doughnut. But no one is looking at the doughnut, nor trying to produce solutions that will improve the doughnut. As the doughnut gets more and more bloated, they just keep trying to expand the hole - the insurance. Trying to throw more insurance and subsidize more insurance just feeds an unrepentant bloated costing health care industrial complex.

2. The solution should not be, most of the time, “insurance” in the traditional sense. It should be consumers paying for health care directly most of the time and on most general occasions. The insurance part should be reserved for “major medical” and catastrophic situations. Yes, companies that provide insurance can provide help with consumers paying directly by providing policies that have a generous portion directed to a health savings account.

3. A third leg that is actually very cost effective for certain medical needs is “accident insurance” which is insurance that is wider - as far as accidents - than mere “auto” insurance. Accidents have a statistically accurate history in terms of measuring risk, and an accident insurance policy is financially very affordable for both the consumer and the insurer. Young folks with very good health could be enticed into starter policies that are primarily the accident insurance portion.

In sum yes “insurance” as it is now being used is the problem. It is presently being used to “insure” the bloated health care industrial complex gets every dime it wants, without it being put on a consumer driven diet.

[silverleaf]

Probably a good time to look at insurance as a limited product to cover catastrophic and chronic issues, not average issues

More people are coming to terms with paying healthcare costs out of pocket due to exorbitant deductibles

[mewzilla]

Insurance manages risk.

Businesses, individuals, even governments, need insurance. For a variety of reasons. To manage health care cost risks is just one.

What CNBC is really shilling for is single payer.

[cymbeline]

“Obamacare subsidies sent to health insurance companies alive so the insurance exchanges”

This is mini-single-payer.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

That's my idea:

1) Make providing health insurance to US citizens a crime punishable by time in prison
2) Make purchasing health insurance by US citizens a crime punishable by time in prison
3) Everyone has to pay for all medical expenses in cash
4) If a person doesn't have the money now he can use a credit card, take out a loan, etc.
5) If all that fails then the US government must act as the loaner of last resort
6) The US government charges a reasonable amount of interest which the patient is expected to pay, but limited to some percentage of his income such as 10%

Everyone gets access to medical care. Prices are kept down through cost competition. No one goes broke or bankrupt because there is a limit to how much they have to pay.

The only way the government loses money is if the person dies before paying off the loan. But I'm sure that loss will be far less than all the money going down the rathole of insurance payments, inflated medical expenses, government bureaucracy, waste/fraud/abuse, etc.

[minnesota_bound]

If you have capitalism instead of socialism you can get a MRI/CAT scan for $350 instead of $2,000 at a hospital.

[DennisR]

The only health insurance there should be is for catastrophic illnesses that would literally bankrupt the normal person. Break a leg? Pay for it yourself. Need glasses? Pay for them yourself. Appendicitis? Pay for it yourself. Cancer or hip replacement? Catastrophic, insurance pays.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

I think the best thing to do would be to create a federal “opt out” law, maybe to eventually be supplanted by an “opt out” constitutional amendment.

Basically put, when the federal government has created or creates a new law, statute, regulation, or other interaction *not expressly authorized* in the constitution, citizens can “opt out” of either receiving any imagined benefit from it, nor paying any tax or providing other contributions (including data) in support of it.

As examples:

The constitution requires an “actual enumeration” in the census. But no other personal data. Just a headcount.

The constitution permits no form of government retirement, health care or welfare, in fact no other direct payments of money, except to its current and former employees and contractors.

In fact, the only direct intercourse between the federal government and the people are, and should be, the US Post Office, and federal law enforcement officers investigating federal offenses. Other than that, if the federal government thinks it is important, they should go through the individual states.