Posted on 03/11/2017 12:12:01 PM PST by Kaslin
First of all, the preferred free-market plan for health care policy should be no plan whatsoever. The idea that we need a federal top-down strategy to manage a huge chunk of the economy is at the very heart of the problem. We don't need a federal plan for health care. Yet Republicans have allowed liberals to frame the entire health insurance debate in these anti-market terms.
So the American Health Care Act, or AHCA, is obviously weak tea, falling far short of a promised free-market solution, much less a full "repeal" of Obamacare. It's a half-measure that endeavors to fix Obamacare with small doses of deregulation while failing to repeal its core. It's almost as if Republicans were trying to mollify their constituents and save Obamacare at the same time.
President Donald Trump tweeted something about a three-phase rollout, but the specifics of the other two parts have yet to be confirmed. Perhaps the full proposal will reflect better on Republicans. But considering the noise moderate senators have been making and Trump's own views on entitlement programs, it's unlikely to meet conservative expectations. So what can be done?
In a piece highly critical of the plan, the Washington Examiner's Philip Klein, who has done some of the most insightful writing on Obamacare, states, "the GOP will either be passing legislation that rests on the same philosophical premise as Obamacare, or will pass nothing at all, and thus keep Obamacare itself in place." What if this is the choice?
We know the Democratic Party's plan for health care: Constrain markets to create monopolies that can be controlled by a federal regulatory regime (this is why liberals oppose markets expanding across state lines); and rather than worrying about access, choice or cost, continue to incentivize the growth of the welfare state. When this situation becomes untenable, pass single-payer. What Democrats understand but Republicans often don't is that you can reach your goals incrementally.
Obamacare was ignored as soon as it was passed. A law that was sold as a tool to reign in rising costs quickly became a moral edifice that alleviated an imaginary humanitarian crisis (the defense of it is now almost exclusively focused on people losing Medicaid). Meanwhile, Obamacare was used as a tool for social engineering and coercion, allowing technocrats to dictate how a third of the economy functions. If you control the bureaucracy, laws become incredibly malleable. One day, Democrats will be back and, without even partial repeal, all the same mechanisms will be available to them.
So the question remains: Is something better than nothing?
Halting federal funding of the nation's largest abortion mill is a victory. Offering states more flexibility to run their own Medicaid programs is a victory. Expanded health savings accounts and the creation of real-life illustrations of successes is promising. Getting rid of the individual mandate is a victory, as is allowing consumers to purchase insurance across state lines. Repealing nearly all of Obamacare's taxes -- other than a postponement of the Cadillac tax -- is a win.
It's possible, of course, that AHCA negotiations will begin with moderate proposals and transform into something free market-oriented. With widespread opposition from conservative groups -- Heritage Action for America, FreedomWorks, etc. -- the American Health Care Act looks like a non-starter. Then again, who are we kidding? The truth is that conservatives probably find themselves in the same situation frustrated liberals did in 2009. Despite prevailing mythology, Democrats never compromised in good faith with the opposing party; they compromised with their own moderates. It only takes a few senators to hold an entire party hostage.
It's also worth pointing out that no federal entitlement program has ever been repealed or replaced, or really even weakened. This was the fight that spurred Republicans to win hundreds of seats and take the House, Senate and presidency. The fact is that many politicians who benefitted most from Obamacare's failures were lying to their constituents. Either these Republicans don't have the mettle to back a full repeal or they don't have the ideas to create a new plan. So perhaps Obamacare Lite is preferable to Obamacare because it's the best this crop of legislators is going to do. Also, as history has shown, making substantive policy changes doesn't get any easier as a term wears on. This might be the last chance to do anything.
Another infuriating aspect of this fiasco is that Democrats will treat any Obamacare "repeal" bill as if it were an assault on all that is holy and patriotic. This rhetoric shouldn't have inhibited Republicans; it should have freed them to pass bills that incorporate the ideas they supposedly believe in. Why would they let the same people who told America that Obamacare would be a political and functional success now lecture them on how unpopular a repeal bill will be?
It's just one of the many mysteries of the GOP.
We are so screwed.
We are so screwed.
Let it collapse, its on the Ryan and the rats.
Not this geezer freeper. I turned old enough for Medicare this year. Did not, Will not sign up for it, even though I have some major chronic problems and no way to pay to fix the serious ones.
I don't believe in people paying for my needs, nor incompetent and corrupt bureaucrats administering those payments.
A ridiculous false dichotomy that the Ryan and Trump teams are trying to justify their monstrosity by.
Campaigning for four election cycles on repealing Obamacare should not then be supposedly a promise fulfilled by rolling out ObamaCare 2.0 in its place.
It’s a crap sandwich
Let it collapse, its on the Ryan and the rats.
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Someone needs to sit Trump down and refresh his memory on the “the snake poem.”
He’s trusting Ryan too much. Paul Ryan was a sneaky snake during the entire lead up to Trump’s presidency. I doubt he’s changed his opinion on Trump.
In one of the photos of Trump being sworn in you can see in the background Ryan and his wife. Ryan’s wife has not trained her face as well as her phony husband.
It’s just one of the many mysteries of the GOP.
...
It’s no mystery at all. The GOPe is in lockstep with the Democrats. The only mystery is why people still consider them to be separate parties.
Paul Ryan types cost the GOP Congress in 2006, 2008, and 2010 ...with 10% approval ratings. Ryan cost Romney the 2012 election.
GOP is talking about reforming the tax code, reducing brackets & deductions, but their Obamacare fix & other ideas all are about tax credits for this & tax deductions for that....all to make the tax code more complicated.
Here’s an idea. eliminate all deductions & exempt the first $150,000 of income, then have a flat 30% income tax on income over $150,000. That will give the bottom 90% incentive to work, save, and invest...with no tax on work or savings or investment for income under $150,000. That’s how you get people to work, ie, by making work PAY. Under this plan, people who earn $300,000 would have their first $150,000 tax exempt, so they wouldn’t need deductions & would pay 15% tax rate.......on income from any source.......while the richest would pay 30%-—which Arthur Laffer says is “the top of the Laffer Curve” were you begin to get a point of diminishing returns from inhibited growth. You tax capital gains and dividends as regular income.
so where do you get the revenue?
You have a 19.9% VAT to replace both payroll taxes and the corporate income tax. THAT is how you get fairness, while eliminating ALL deductions and reducing income taxes to just ONE tax bracket,by exempting the middle class.
You want to see a popular tax reform that really sets the stock market on fire? Try doing this! This also solves the problem of border adjusted taxes & tariffs and makes USA produced goods more competitive, while slapping a 19.9% VAT on imported goods before they hit the shelves....and there are plenty of other ways to raise revenues without making middle class workers pay income and payroll and corporate income taxes....
and then perhaps you fix Obamacare by something other than tax credits and deductions. like lowering the Medicare age, expanding Medicaid...contracting with or subsidizing hospital emergency rooms and urgent care....HSAs where govenment pays the deductible....
Paul Ryan types cost the GOP Congress in 2006, 2008, and 2010 ...with 10% approval ratings. Ryan cost Romney the 2012 election.
GOP is talking about reforming the tax code, reducing brackets & deductions, but their Obamacare fix & other ideas all are about tax credits for this & tax deductions for that....all to make the tax code more complicated.
Here’s an idea. eliminate all deductions & exempt the first $150,000 of income, then have a flat 30% income tax on income over $150,000. That will give the bottom 90% incentive to work, save, and invest...with no tax on work or savings or investment for income under $150,000. That’s how you get people to work, ie, by making work PAY. Under this plan, people who earn $300,000 would have their first $150,000 tax exempt, so they wouldn’t need deductions & would pay 15% tax rate.......on income from any source.......while the richest would pay 30%-—which Arthur Laffer says is “the top of the Laffer Curve” were you begin to get a point of diminishing returns from inhibited growth. You tax capital gains and dividends as regular income.
so where do you get the revenue?
You have a 19.9% VAT to replace both payroll taxes and the corporate income tax. THAT is how you get fairness, while eliminating ALL deductions and reducing income taxes to just ONE tax bracket,by exempting the middle class.
You want to see a popular tax reform that really sets the stock market on fire? Try doing this! This also solves the problem of border adjusted taxes & tariffs and makes USA produced goods more competitive, while slapping a 19.9% VAT on imported goods before they hit the shelves....and there are plenty of other ways to raise revenues without making middle class workers pay income and payroll and corporate income taxes....
and then perhaps you fix Obamacare by something other than tax credits and deductions. like lowering the Medicare age, expanding Medicaid...contracting with or subsidizing hospital emergency rooms and urgent care....HSAs where govenment pays the deductible....
Pre-ACA health insurance is the CAUSE of Obamacare, returning to it won't solve the problem.
I still don't see the need (in a free country) to have a "system". We surely need a way to do the best for those unable to do for themselves, which seems to always come back to medicaid expansion. But, other than that I just can't understand how government intervening between supply, demand, customers and common sense serves anyone.
Nobody can fix a problem like this that is built on human delusion.
“But Is it Better Than Nothing?”
No. I voted for Trump (in part) to get rid of socialized medicine.
Obungholecare is socialized medicine. RINOcare is socialized medicine. How is socialized medicine better than the absence of socialized medicine?
The despicable scoundrel Ryan is leading a grand impaling of the American people upon the stake of leftism. He should receive a stake of his own, and be burned thereat.
But, other than that I just can’t understand how government intervening between supply, demand, customers and common sense serves anyone.
= = = = =
You should listen to some of President Donald J. Trump’s campaign speeches. He explains how this happened quite plainly. The people who this system “serves” are the politicians, lobbyists, healthcare providers and insurers.
I am complaining about those who campaigned to end this parasite, but stay with the idea of needing a "program".
Very true. But without the “system” then the elites can’t syphon off billions of dollars, can they, for their pet projects (brainwashing) and their families multi-million dollar residences on remote islands, plus their off-shore bank accounts?
The System is how they control us, cattle, and steal our private property without us even knowing it (well, some of us). It is how the elites got super wealthy—stealing from and destroying others. They created the Leviathan and if we don’t end their SYSTEMS, we will be destroyed.
The most important one is their brainwashing system into stupidity and slavery (Common Core). Local control only of all “schools”. Parents choose the worldview their children will have...not the psychopathic sodomites like Billy Ayers, who are so irrational they “think” males can be females and sodomizing others is a Natural Right from God, and not learned by child abuse and neglect.
Where are all the feminists who want the government out of the womb???? Is it only for the killing of babies that they want government OUT-—oh, yes—they force government even to subsidize killing babies, too, along with the old useless eaters.
We need free market...there can be a safety net for the truly indigent but no “welfare” which destroys virtue formation in people. Socialism destroys cultures/children and anyone who is given anything for “free” which can’t happen. Socialism is just enslavement of the virtuous.
We need to support Christianity (virtue formation) like the Founders, since Virtue is essential for free societies. We need the Chrstian hospitals and charities to flourish again. Charity is destroyed with socialism (no such thing as “forced” charities). Although there can be some emergency programs to a small degree. All temporary and conditional though and never to support sloth and evil.
“Pre-ACA health insurance is the CAUSE of Obamacare, returning to it won’t solve the problem.”
That’s not true at all. The cause of Obullshitcare was the desire of the left to move the country away from freedom. They lied us into socialized medicine, when we had the best medical care in the history of the world.
The only problem with our medical care was government meddling.
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