Posted on 03/31/2017 1:45:02 PM PDT by Red Steel
[Full title] MEADOWS: The Obamacare mandates, there are 12 of them. Mark Meadows says Freedom Caucus will go along with AHCA if it kills community rating and EHB regulations
In the debate over repealing and replacing Obamacare, Republican leadership complains that conservatives have been moving the goal post. And Mark Meadows says they're right.
"Well we have," the Freedom Caucus chairman admits with a sigh during a sit-down interview with the Washington Examiner. "We've moved it much closer. All they have to do is kick a little chip shot through the goal posts...."
This comes after weeks of intense negotiation with leadership and the White House on the best way to overhaul Obamacare. But Meadows says his group of three dozen conservatives aren't asking for one thing before demanding another. Instead, he insists that the Freedom Caucus is conceding.
The group has abandoned their demand for a clean repeal. They're not asking Speaker Ryan to clear the slate and start over. Just eliminating the Obamacare mandates for coverage of Essential Health Benefits and the price controls known as "Community Rating," Meadows said "would bring the vast majority of the Freedom Caucus to a yes."
Before it went down in flames, the American Health Care Act only eliminated two of Obamacare's 12 mandates, specifically the individual and employer mandates. If Ryan can kick two more mandates, then he can get the win.
That can't be that hard Meadows said, considering Republicans campaigned on getting rid of Obamacare completely. "In the end," he said, "the request is pretty simple, just two more of the 12 Obamacare mandates."
the AHCA bill was polling at 17%. A Freedom Caucus Repeal and Do not replace bill that returns us to Healthcare as it existed in 2009 would have 7% approval.
People do not want discrimination on pre-existing conditions. Period. Democrats would destroy us with ad after ad of people saved by Obamacare and now dying or DEAD!
These are the facts. Repeal without a Replacement is political suicide.
Makes me upset that so many Republicans were willing to go along with Ryan Care in the first place.
You health care socialists should get a few things straight, especially in this forum. A real purist (I am one) would favor spending whatever time is needed to educate the public on the merits and constitutionality of free market health care. Then we would pass legislation with a clear plan to phase out all federal health spending except military/veteran. This AHCA crap sandwich will always be a crap sandwich, and it will be owned by those who support it. Ballooning health care costs and/or people losing health insurance will ultimately lead to single payer and rationing and higher taxes and poorer medical care. When that happens, you health care socialists will be attacking us constitutionalists for opposing single payer. With “friends” like you, who needs enemies?
Oh, and by the way, article 1 section 8, part of the supreme law of the land, does not list health care as a federal responsibility. What other parts of the Constitution should the federal govt ignore?
Community Rating is an Obama admin regulation which requires health insurance providers to offer health insurance policies within a given territory at THE SAME price to all persons without medical underwriting, regardless of their health status.
With this, you might as well NOT have an insurance business.
You don’t know what you are talking about.
A real free market plan, presented correctly, would be widely supported. Why do you think the GOP ran on just that for the last three election cycles?
And we just need a plan that makes sure those with pre-existing can get coverage, in a way that is similar and fair in comparison to Medicaid. (That is, no reason why the poor have to be poor to stay on Medicaid, but those with pre-existing conditions who hadn’t bothered to get themselves covered adequately should have others pay for their health expenses if they are wealthy.)
What, do you work in the health insurance industry or something?
This is excellent news.
This is how enduring deals are made.
For the purists here, there was never, ever going to be a pure repeal vote. That was always just lies and political posturing by Republicans.
It would fail by 400 votes in the House of 435.
Covering pre-existing conditions is not insurance. Rather, it is a “gimme.”
Insurance is protection from the RISK of loss. There is no risk in a pre-existing condition, because the loss has already occurred. It’s like a property owner buying fire insurance on his house that is engulfed in flames. That ain’t insurance.
There will always be the question of how to cover the indigent and those with chronic conditions that make them uninsurable. The answer will presumably be some combination of Medicaid, high-risk pools, and means-tested premium support. The details matter, but I'm not terribly hung up on one formula over another. The key thing is to separate the welfare function from the insurance function so that markets can work for the great majority of the American people who are able to participate in the market system.
These are the facts. Repeal without a Replacement is political suicide.
...
Yep. Pure free market ideology doesn’t work with healthcare. I just tell myself we’ll get a lot better law than what we would have had with Hillary.
But it is like the government selling flood insurance to those in flood zones.
http://business.time.com/2012/10/30/should-the-federal-government-be-subsidizing-flood-insurance/
I haven’t made a particular point yet in this matter, because it’s philosophically horrifying, especially if it’s true.
Simply put, in a world where Quantitative Ease creates money from thin air, entirely on a whim, how can “Free Market” have any justification? Money is the unit of measure of the Free Market. But money comes from nothingness. QE created money totally 25% of GDP over about 6 yrs recently.
How can GDP mean anything when its measure is whimsy. How can markets mean anything? How can the budget?
Bernanke destroyed a lot of moral measure with what he did. If dollars are stolen, so what?
Yeah, he admits that they moved the goal posts towards the Trump/Ryan side of the field. In other words, the Freedom Caucus has been conceding, not being "purists."
Raycpa wrote:
“Translation: Uncle. Trump wins. We will deal. We don’t want him doing a deal with the Dem’s. Please give us at least a crumb so we can save face.
Straight out of Art of the Deal.”
Good observation!
Your comment indicates one of three things:
1. You didn't read the comment
2. You didn't understand the full comment, which you truncated
3. You intentionally misrepresented the comment.
So Trump gets more concessions from conservatives by threatening to cater to the Democrats. Trump wins, but conservatives and the people who voted for him to repeal Obamacare lose.
I didn't think that would have been greeted with so much glee on Free Republic, which is still supposed to be a conservative site.
Not glee. Just observing what is happening.
It is quite strange to see so-called conservatives who think we cannot get rid of AHCA without an apocalypse. Fact is, almost all politicians love it, Trump included. It doesn’t hurt them and may, in fact, pad their pockets. It only hurts the citizens of the US. And thus the rearranging of deck chairs.
No one minds a smoker paying 50% more!
States will have the power to mandate pre-existing conditions coverage.
Yeah, but after the Senate gets done it will be a very different bill. That would happen anyway.
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