Paul Ryan: Obamacare repeal is first priority under Trump

difference would be removal of coverage mandates

 

The idea that you would remove the mandate, keep guarantee issue AND provide subsidies to allow people who couldn't afford it to buy in is absurd. You are simply keeping Obamacare without forcing (at least some) healthy people into the system.

That is the stupidest idea ever. The population covered under individual plans is already too sick. Insurance companies lost nearly a billion dollars in Texas alone in that marketplace and now you expect them to continue to cover the sick but lose a chunk of the healthy? And that's success?

 

Exactly... the whole process doesn't work if healthy people don't purchase insurance.... unless the government decides to foot the bill with massive debt and tax implications.

 

I'd give him his props, but that's not enough for me to give him my allegiance.

If that's all it is, that's neither universal healthcare nor universal health insurance.

 

Gotta say, watching the right actually having to do something on Healthcare has been a real treat so far.

 

Healthcare is a huge mess .

I don't know if the ACA helped , we don't have the counterfactual for what would have happened to costs had the act not been passed . They could have been higher or lower.

What people need to understand about the healthcare problem is that it is a multifaceted issue. Any industry that contains insurance created moral hazard. So there is an insurance problem ... The ACA tried to fix this by increasing the pool of insured to balance the risk to insurers . I didn't like it as a healthy 25 year old ... But I understand why they tried to solve it this way.

The other issue is on the demand side . We are demanding more healthcare than ever . This is for multiple reasons.

One more issue is on the supply side. Many new treatments and drugs are frequently more expensive than their older counterparts . With insurance to cover the bill , patients have little incentive to select cheaper, and similar options.

Healthcare is a massive problem, however it is probably a bigger problem that our government will collude with corporations to try and "fix" the system. The companies only interest is to maintain their profits .

 

Sounds like nirvana. Curious how it will increase options and cover people with pre-existing conditions while also covering the millions of people who gained health care coverage under ACA... all the while reducing costs. I look forward to learning those details.

 

Simple, limit the amount of coverage, solves everything.

 

Yes, looking forward to see how the sausage will be made. They want to get democracts to participate and share the heat when it goes t*** up with voters as it surely will. But trump has people, the BEST people, so it will be luxurious and amazing.

 

Dems have no political reason to support a replace bill that needs 60 votes, and they shouldn't

GOP will have to improve things by repeal and by executive action (waiving penalties, etc) to pressure Dems to replace

 

A death panel solves EVERYTHING.

(except for the poor saps saddled with low lifetime expected earnings and a condition requiring expensive treatment, but **** them, they're leeches anyway, and I'm not one of them)

/sarcasm

 

Good to hear this update -- at least Kevin McCarthy is starting to show some leadership and starting to think ahead a little bit.

Republicans pledge detailed plan.

“We want the American people to know that we will not, under any circumstances, repeal the Affordable Care Act until we have a full, working Republican alternative for disposing of participants’ withered, virus-infested remains,” said House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), adding that current enrollees can rest assured that the GOP is working tirelessly to draft provisions that will ensure every single Obamacare recipient can have their ashen and tumor-riddled carcass cremated, buried, or dissolved in a quick and efficient manner at minimal cost. “To those presently insured under the ACA, you can expect a smooth transition in the weeks ahead from your current coverage to our much cheaper, easier, and more convenient corpse-elimination plan. Your putrid lifeless body and the putrid lifeless bodies of your loved ones will be well taken care of—that’s our party’s guarantee to you.”

 

Well not as bad as theonion plan, but the Republican plan by Paul Ryan to reduce cost is a watered down version of death panel where coverage is limited for preexisting conditioned patients.

 

I haven't seen details yet, but the elephant in every healthcare discussion room is that a very small pool of people create most of the system's healthcare costs. How do we deal with the incredibly expensive very sick people? Making everyone participate is one way (idea but not reality of the ACA, I think). The only other way is to provide a lot less treatment for the incredibly sick. I wish we could confront this as a society.

It's easy to tell someone else that they don't get to have years and years of cutting edge treatment to give them hope of survival. It's hard when you yourself have the condition, or your partner, or your parent. But something has to give.

If the system ended up where really really sick people either paid a ton of their own money, or just got a guarantee of palliative care, I think I'd honestly be okay with that. Even if I end up getting really sick, god forbid.

would like to hear from justtxyank, who has spent a lot of time in the industry.

 

As someone with a child with one of those nasty "pre-existing conditions" that prior to ACA got her (and in some cases, my entire family) on the insurance company's no-insure" list, let me explain how I she (and me, via my insurance policy) is creating "most of the nation's health care costs."

She had transposition of the great vessels when she was born. She was immediately transported to Packard Hospital attached to Stanford University, where she had an arterial switch operation at age 5 days. An extremely expensive operation no doubt. She recovered and was released at age 16 days (the fastest of the 20 such operations before her). She was on dijoxin and a water retention med in her formula daily, and during her normal well baby vistis they obvious paid more attention to her heart, but other than every six month (and later annual) cardiology exams with echocardiograms (probably still expensive) she has led a perfectly normal life (other than she can't have kids, she has to take antibiotics before and after any dental visits, and she is cautioned against piercings (she has earrings but no other thankfully) and tattoos (none again, thankfully).

So yes, the annual echos are expensive, but other than that, nothing else different. Normal sicknesses, normal medical treatments. Normal costs. And she is 23 years old now. But it is RISK of something happening, something really expensive happening, that has her on the no insure pre-existing condition list (the fact that most insurers refused my entire family was also aggravating). But isn't that the normal insurance model... some people with minimal draw on insurance and some people with greater draw on insurance. Some low risk of need, some high risk of need.

 

insurance for preexisting conditions is a contradiction

insurance is for events that may occur in the future, by definition

people with preexisting conditions may be deserving of having their care paid for by others, but insurance is the wrong mechanism

 

What do you propose? I would go with medicare for all, would you?

 

The conversation is about Healthcare, not insurance. How do we provide good healthcare to our society at a reasonable cost, knowing full well that inherently some people will cost way more than others, due to no fault of their own?

This is the crux of the problem, because the right can't fathom that a profit model can't fix everything.

 

Okay, then what are you giving up to pay for massively expanding that program? Is your solution just "tax the rich"? I mean, so far that's the only "solution" I've heard from the left, they always want to add more programs or massively expand current ones but we never hear them be willing to give anything up to pay for it. In their eyes the "rich" are just daddy's checkbook....and that type of mentality is hard to take seriously.