We Can Still Get Healthcare [insurance] Right [Rep. Dave Brat]

Rep. Dave Brat is my rep. Yesterday, he posted an article to his constituents on his Facebook page. There are a lot of rumors & "who shot John" accusations flying around, but here it is straight from a Freedom Caucus & Conservative mouth as to what happened. There are a lot of terrific comments in this article and it's well worth reading. Personally, Dave Brat speaks for me ...... it was a great day when Eric Cantor was deposed from his self-assumed throne & I am grateful every day for Dave Brat. So far he has acted in the best interests of those who have elected him instead of playing politics & he communicates well as to why he believes what he does and votes the way he does. He is also the only House member with a PhD in Economics so he has a good idea how "things" like market forces and government mandated programs work. The entire article is below.

***Repeal 100% of Obamacare and replace with free enterprise/free market solutions per the U.S. Constitution!***

Right arm! ;^/ And include tort reform! Unhappily, we seem to be in the phase of democracies when people have discovered that they can vote themselves free things at the expense of others the final phase of democracies - before they go broke and collapse.

We have to demonstrate to those capable of thinking that - with $20 tril debt and growing exponentially - the end is near. Of course, if they can find some rich person with $20 tril that can be seized then all will be well. sigh

Ted Kennedy is the person most responsible for our healthcare mess. It was his mission throughout his career to get government-mandated health insurance.

DJT believes in government involved healthcare, though he allows for the market to work in it.

Repeal...Repeal...Repeal! Then we can craft legislation that lightly influences the healthcare marketplace. But any large federal presence in healthcare will always result in higher premiums and compromised care.

I've read so many articles about the political angles and motives of the Ryan bill, my head is still spinning.

Jim Rob has an open letter to all Republican Congressional Representatives he posted yesterday that all Freepers need to read and forward to their Representatives. . . I am pinging the members of the lists I maintain for your attention to this important posting from JR.

Thanks JR for putting what we are all thinking into concise words we can use to hit our Republican reprobates over the head and get them moving in the right direction!

Correct. But that’s not bad.

One deep problem with our health care system is using insurance to provide welfare. That does a double market distortion. Welfare provided healthcare is not going away. It’s a structural issue that can only be reduced with time through better economic, cultural and demographic conditions.

We are better off having the people who are getting welfare provided healthcare all in Medicare/Medicaid where the true costs can be known and addressed than hidden in the opaque insurance system. That is the price to pay to set up a real free market health industry for those who can now afford it. It will be a short term shock

Without the need to subsidize welfare cases, a truly private sector health insurance industry can emerge that will generate the innovations to drive down costs, as in the wireless industry. This can only happen if for profit companies are allowed to cherry pick the healthiest people and deny insurance to others. Several tiers of companies will compete for different tranches of the market. Those healthy people will being paying very low rates, especially young ones. Over time, these high end providers will innovate and be able to offer low cost, high quality health care to a larger pool of customers.

These companies must be given the freedom to make judgments about their customers in any way without government interference. Young people are going have strong incentive to be thin, fit, drug free and get screenings and preventive care that will allow them to get into and stay in low cost plans. Those who do so will have absurdly low rates compared to anyone today.

Beyond insurance, we need to move more low level care to out of pocket payments. A truly free market system will work wonders in the long term in being able to radically lower the cost of care. We can expect radical improvement in cost, quality and convenience. Cell phones and lasik surgery are already given example of the power of markets and competition.

The other big issue that is criminally under discussed is obesity. It is a huge driver of the high costs and outsized % of GDP we are spending on health care compared to other advanced economies. We will not get costs under control until we get body composition back to 1960’s levels.

I wish we could clone Dave Brat.

********************************************

I totally agree. I follow him on FB and he posts a lot, commenting & explaining what is going on .... he’s really good about that. He’s very active in the community - every weekend he’s somewhere, usually multiple places, doing something with various groups so where Cantor only rubbed elbows with the rich muckety mucks, Dave is out & about with the regular folks & by his actions, seems to truly care about his constituents.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.