Posted on 03/27/2017 12:52:30 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
"Prior to this year, the House voted to repeal Obamacare more than 50 times ---when it was clear that President Obama would veto the bill. The problem we are facing is that some of the people who voted for repeal 50 times will not vote for repeal when it counts, when it is "our moment in time," with Republicans in control of Congress and the presidency." --Rep Dave Brat
"This has been my complaint since before Obamacare became law. Nothing I’ve seen addresses the problem of increased costs of medical care. All these bills just shift the rising costs from the users to the taxpayers. The system can’t work if healthcare costs continue to rise at a rate that’s faster than household income." --mbynack
Costs go through the roof when the government unconstitutionally mandates that everyone MUST be covered and must be covered for all kinds of crap they don’t need or want and regardless of preexisting conditions or whether they can pay for it or even if they are not citizens. Tyranny is expensive.
To our Republican Representatives:
Repeal 100% of Obamacare and replace with free enterprise/free market solutions per the U.S. Constitution!
Nothing else is acceptable or workable. Socialism, communism, fascism, central planning, etc, is totalitarianism and never works!! Our federal government and our constitutional republic was not designed to be and was never intended to be a welfare state! Our Constitution was designed to prevent all this TYRANNICAL crap!
We rebelled against a tyrannical king for a lot less than this!
No excuses. If the house or senate rules are obstacles to repeal with a simple majority vote or within reconciliation rules (or whatever), then change the damned rules already so you can repeal this unconstitutional piece of socialist crap with the simple majorities you hold in both chambers! The constitution gives YOU the majority, the power to do that.
The congress and the chief executive have just as much power, authority and responsibility as the SCOTUS (and perhaps even more so) to ensure that the Constitution is upheld! Do whatever it takes to fulfill your constitutional DUTY!
We voted in Republican majorities and a Republican president specifically so you can do this REPEAL deal, ON DAY ONE!
Just shut up the ridiculous whining, hand wringing and squabbling and quit trying to pass additional or watered down but still tyrannical unconstitutional bills and just get the clean repeal DONE as you PLEDGED to your constituents and is your sworn constitutional DUTY!!
For crying out loud are you the elected representatives of the free citizens of a free market constitutional republic or are WE the captive subjects of a tyrannical USSR style communist government with a centrally planned economy?
To all:
Does the constitution even matter to you people anymore?
Does the Republic matter?
Does Liberty matter?
Does a free market economy matter?
Our constitutionally limited government was not intended to take care of us from cradle to grave.
It’s NOT their job!!
Conservatives and the Freedom Caucus are not our enemies. The big government globalist establishment is!
And if we go along with it trying for a free lunch, we are. The government does not owe us health care or health care insurance. It’s NOT a God-given right! Nor is it a constitutional power for the federal government. It's reserved to the states and the people!
Wake the hell up, people, it’s a lot later than you think.
You are correct. Thanks.
My heart and prayer’s are with you.
It is true that the system lets us down at makes almost everyone else in the health care system rich.
You have, however some claim on a society in which you have served. Perhaps one of the Christian cost sharing plans could help. And do not hesitate to bargain.
Blessings.
“That’s why I said for now. That would be a bridge too far to discontinue Medicaid and Medicare” “Later, yes, it needs to be addressed.”
Who are you kidding??? If one Federal program is illegal and has to go NOW!!!...then Medicare is illegal and has to go NOW!!! You just carved out a huge section of the American public. You’re doing the same thing Congress and the Unions did with ObamaCare.
This Constitutional argument is all BS, because if you can’t cut Medicare off at the same time, the system would blow up, but you have to because it’s un-constitutional.
well said.
my goodness the pharisees everywhere (including those lurking here) won’t like it, though. after all, tradition....right or wrong.
that being said, i know how godawful obamacare has been and the immense suffering it’s caused already, but in a way it’s been a constant mirror held up to the wicked politicians everywhere who have enabled it since day one. and it will never stop reflecting their sinful character until it is finally and completely repealed. thank God for hidden blessings.
“Medicaid and Medicare, for now, while repealing Obamacare.. Later, yes, it needs to be addressed. If it’s canceled, seniors can apply for catastrophic insurance coverage or any other insurance plan. “
You really think you have a prayer in hell of getting rid of Medicare??? And by the way...where’s the plan?????If this is what you want to do...show me the plan!!
Thank you. This is exactly how we feel! Thank you for telling it like it is.
The plan has nothing to do with the federal government. Seniors would have the option to buy senior specific tailored plans, either catastrophic insurance only or any other health insurance program, purchased from the lowest carrier across state lines.
4 will vote against straight repeal.
Use them to get what you can now rather than risking getting nothing later.
It never hurts to remember in all this that Trump is on record as a moderate on health care. Conservative on immigration, wall, jobs, taxes...but moderate on health care. He’s not hid it. He was open about it. Repeal AND Replace was always his public position, and we all remember him saying he will not let the poor die in the streets.
Take what we can now. Take more later. Keep getting closer and closer by taking when we can
“Seniors would have the option to buy senior specific tailored plans,”
What about those on Medicare Disability? And if this is THE plan, why is it I can’t find it. Which one of the Freedom Caucus members has this plan you are talking about?
You want cost reduction? Start with Tort reform.
Amen to that.
It amazes me I have not heard one thing about tort reform during this whole affair. This is one of the biggest reasons Docs practice defensive medicine which in turn cause health care costs to skyrocket.
...but then, reality hits and you realize most of the congress is made up of attorneys.
4 Thumbs up and get er done!!!
Nail that manifesto to the front door of the Capitol Building!
Well said, Jim.
Here, here, repeal means complete cancelation of. Not amending something. Do not mince words; not all USAians are idiots.
If a new law needs to be put in, keep it aligned with USConstitution. DC doesn’t have authority to do anything resembling ACA.
Jim, you have it right. Let me add a little for those that are in a younger learning stage.
A full repeal is a bill that is a one page document with a standard header, dates and salutations, and it simply spells out that the PPACA with reference dates IS HEREBY REPEALED.
That’s it.
A full repeal is simply a one-page bill that declares a law no longer exists. It’s gone.
There have been many laws repealed in this way in the history of our United States.
Note, a full repeal bill is introducing a law to take down a law. Just like the 21st Amendment is an amendment to take down an amendment, the 18th.
A full repeal of Obamacare could be typed in less than 15 minutes and introduced on the floor in the same amount of time.
Now, because a full repeal is a LAW, it must pass the Senate as a LAW and in the Senate, they have a 200+ year-old tradition of the Senate filibuster.
So a full repeal is not going to make it through the Senate.
This is why Ryan tried to use ‘reconciliation’ to ‘repeal’ certain budget items of Obamacare, but then he relabeled it from PPACA to AHCA. It’s a gimmick but he knew it had a chance to make it through the Senate because ‘reconciliation’ bills are budget bills and they cannot be filibustered. BUT ... it leaves Obamacare aka AHCA in place to be reversed in the future when democrats control Congress, and they won’t need a filibuster to reverse it all.
Reconciliation as repeal is a gimmick, a band-aid fix that will fall off down the road.
President Trump settled for a reconciliation bill approach because he knows, he has great knowledge of what Obamacare is going to do this year to American families and businesses. He has had American citizens to the White House where he sat with them to discuss the coming disaster. He wants to help people now even though he knows reconciliation, especially the kind put forward by Ryan, is a poor design. I imagine the President wanted something to help people now while working in the background to bring out a better more permanent bill. But he also knows there are other paths that might be better.
Obamacare was due (and still is) set to detonate by design this year on Americans and cause the whole system to scramble so that single-payer could be advanced. For those that don’t know, ‘single-payer’ is where health insurers cease operations as insurance companies leaving the federal government to dictate health policy for everyone as a purely socialist system. The President sees this coming.
Now, the President has also had close advisors and leading citizens advise him to let Obamacare collapse on its own. That means health insurers will not have customers paying the premiums because the premiums are a total waste. It was the Obamacare tax that drove many people to pay less with premiums for fake insurance. By ‘fake’ is meant where an individual pays $225 per month premiums for ‘coverage’ of mostly nothing, with an annual deductible of $9600 which is in effect a monthly amount of $800 out of pocket. What that means is simply an individual pays for all their healthcare out of pocket. So the choice boils down to paying an effective $300 per month in Obamacare tax penalty for zero care versus a $225 premium for zero care.
Coverage vs. Care
This is the socialist non-logic which many American clinics have seen from Canadians who travel over the border to get treatment in the United States:
********************************************************************************
“So what brings you to Seattle today Mr. Albert?”
“I came to get knee surgery.”
“And why could you not have the procedure done in Calgary?”
“I have the funds and I heard I can get it quicker here.”
“But certainly you could get the procedure done for next to nothing where you live, why pay out of pocket here?”
“Well, as I said, I have my own funds, and I really want to get it taken care of sooner.”
“How long have you been waiting to get it done where you live?”
“2 years”
“Do you have an estimate of how much longer you have to wait?”
“Not really.”
“So you are saying you are unable to get care for your knee condition in your home region, is that it?”
“Well, not really, I mean I am covered.”
“Oh so you’re covered, you just can’t get the care. I see.”
********************************************************************************
Obamacare wants us to go with a Canadian style system. We are ‘covered’, but if we want ‘care’, we’re going to have to first pay heavily out of pocket if we have the funds to begin with. In effect, we get ‘coverage without care’.
The above situation has been developing here under Obamacare and is scheduled this year to go into a hell twisting maneuver as the individual mandates come into play with full force this year 2017. This is what the President sees coming and why he knows there will be many families put through a load of butthurt by Obamacare.
Now, let it collapse is what the President was advised, and he knows that advice has merit. Because he can facilitate the old insurance market to return in place of Obamacare but there will be a gap before the insurers get back on that horse. They may have it working like it was pre-Obamacare by 2018 but for 2017 there will be massive amounts of pain and agony for Americans. And while Americans hurt massively in 2017 the President told his citizen panel that the press is going to lie, lie, lie that it’s his fault. We can expect that to start happening in a few months from now, just as soon as the democrats figure out how to make the President own all the pain.
But even as the President helps facilitate the return of the old insurance model, it still remains a non-free market. So the President has got to propose legislation that mandates states to dissolve their health insurance monopolies. There’s a lot more work to do, a lot more.
Government and the Healthcare Tar Baby
The more the government involves itself in or extricates itself from healthcare, the stickier the mess becomes. The problem with trying to get the federal government out of health insurance or regulating health insurance is that there will be a transient period where people hurt, a lot. A free market can take care of them without government involvement but it may take a year or more to get to them. And in the meantime, the leftist press gets all giddy about the disasters happening all over.
The hard-core left, like communists, fear when its opposition has solidarity and a velvet glove hiding an iron fist. I still think the President should start tweeting about the illegal transfers by Geithner of enormous billions of funds from the Treasury general fund to Obamacare to buy votes and to subsidize insurance companies until Hillary could be (s)elected. Geithner resigned shortly thereafter and for good reason. It’s a crime. It’s called enforcing the law with a side benefit of intimidating the democrats and getting them to cooperate. In effect, the President needs to lead a campaign branding Obamacare as a criminal enterprise, which it actually is. A few Obama officials dragged through the mud on charges of massive embezzlement and misappropriation of funds will taint Obamacare not only as ineffective but criminal. In this way, the President can get a full repeal, and an opportunity to sign legislation that opens up healthcare markets to competition.
Yes, both de-regulation and Tort reform are necessary.
Opposition to de-regulation is diffused and ineffective. It is an easy win, which is what both Freedom Caucus and Trump need right now.
Tort Reform has a highly organized, focused and effective opposition in the lawyer industry, aka the swamp industry. Both in Congress and State Capitols, Tort Reform is needed.
Tort Reform is desperately needed here in GA. But with Republicans controlling everything, no Tort Reform bill was even submitted.
Texas did mild, partial Tort Reform a few years ago and is a major reason they are growing faster than some other Red, low tax states. What other Red State even has a Tort Reform bill to consider?
I hope that President Trump reads this forum. Thank you for verbalizing this. Very important that the “powers that be” know that the people are not as stupid as they think.
I was arguing with my son, (who has been thoroughly brainwashed by his university) yesterday. I told him he has no idea what his is talking about, and that he has no idea what it is like to live in a free country because he is too young to have ever lived in one.
Those of us who are old enough to have experienced some degree of liberty want it back! We are counting on Donald Trump to do it, now, not later.
Would it be possible for the president to sign an executive order that tells the IRS not to enforce the mandates in the ACA? I would drop this monthly donation to Blue Cross Blue Shield immediately and go uninsured, since I am practically uninsured now anyway, but still paying over 20K per year to them. Every month that there is a mandate we are out another $1600.00. I could hire another employee for that.
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.