Posted on 11/08/2014 8:14:37 PM PST by Steelfish
Here to Stay: Why the New Republican Congress Can't Gut Obamacare BY MAGGIE FOX
Republicans may have promised to repeal or at least do a big makeover of Obamacare now that they control both the House and the Senate, but most experts believe it’s lip service only.
The 2010 Affordable Care Act is in full force across the country, with internet-based health insurance exchanges up and running, expanded Medicaid in 28 states and strict new requirements for health insurers. Here are five reasons the GOP-led Congress won’t be able to change much.
The veto.
This is the big one: President Barack Obama still has veto power. Republicans may have a majority in the Senate, but they don’t have the 60 seats needed to override a Democratic-led filibuster or a presidential veto. And Obama’s not going to allow his signature piece of legislation to be gutted.
They like it.
Republicans actually like a lot about Obamacare. It’s great business for health insurance companies, which in turn give plenty of money to Republicans. Republicans have also always agreed that more Americans need to be covered by health insurance. They just haven’t always agreed on how to get there.
“The five major national health insurers have all seen their stock price at least double — one has almost tripled — since the ACA was enacted, and they’ve all been raising their earnings estimates,” says Jay Angoff, who helped construct health reform at the Health and Human Services department before returning to private law firm Mehri & Skalet. "Republicans are not going to try to repeal a law that has been such a boon to insurers: They are still a Republican constituency group."
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
Yup, I think you’ve nailed it. Kill the mandates, which aren’t popular to begin with, and the ACA begins to starve. It also ought to be fairly easy to nibble away at the program by targeting other funding mechanisms, like the medical device tax. The votes to repeal this legislative abomination outright might not be there, but it is very possible to begin to “starve the beast.”
In the words of Obama, “yes we can!”
In espanol “¡ si, si puede!”
CC
Republicans caused Americans to lose their insurance before? when was this?
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The thing is the subsidies. Health redistribution is simply moving the uninsured from the poor to the working middle class who can no longer afford it.
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If you think that is a good thing, you are off your rocker.
The only mandates that really cost anything are Guaranteed Issue and Community Rating. The mandated coverages may well contain or stabilize premiums.
They also need to end the ObamaPhone program and the similar program subsidizing high-speed internet for the “poor”
We’ll keep the expanded Medicaid for the poor and working class.
The rest can choose their insurance plan on the free market.
End the mandate that forces everyone to buy health insurance.
Yup. But that plan counted on it lasting until a Republican was president. The people who invented common core math turned out to practice it in their political calculations.
I was gonna say....this may be nbc but they are right.
Agreed.
What can be done can be undone. No current Congress can forbid some future Congress from changing any law. Obamacare is particularly vulnerable. Its organization chart has over 80 boards, committees and commissions and it cannot function without a good number of them. All Congress has to do is just not fund one of the many vital functions and the whole thing unravels like a cheap sweater.
Congress could also nullify it by putting a simple opt-out provision in an unrelated bill. They could continue to fund the present ACE, but allow people to have their own insurance as they once had the inalienable right to do. The key to socialism is that everyone must be forced to participate because it collapses otherwise. Let the ACA collapse.
As I mentioned in another post people are getting needed operations than dropping Obamacare ( due to cost) and shinning on the owed copays. They figure a new hip is more important than bill collectors.
I mean people who can’t afford health insurance will still be covered.
But every one else is free to select on the market their health care plan.
People who can afford to pay for their health care should. That will drive costs down.
Obamacare does the exact opposite.
Awe yeahhhh hear come the groupthink, awe yeahhhh.
They come to snuff the truth now, awe yeahhhhh.
That photo alone is a vivid indictment of her affiliation.
SCOTUS has FINAL veto. Will they use it? I think that it's likely.
That’s why we got all the soul-less RATS over the last 10 years. They were made rich to pass zerocare, then out to pasture, or KStreet.
Maybe it’s true no more RATS will be elected for another 100 years, after this.
Insurance without borders will fix pricing.
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