Try two for senate defectors, it is 52-48, three defectors and it is finished. the medicare voucher should work great down the line.
Pretty Much People whose lives were saved by it. . . hate it because the idea of having to thank Obama for their lives galls them. Make it hard to claim he didn't do anything good when you have to thank him for your life Rocket River
Nope, the Republicans have already said it will be done through the reconciliation process. They don't need a single democrat. But it doesn't matter because they can't get enough Republicans.
So basically, you're saying it's the democrats fault for obstructing progress to overturning a law universally vilified by Republicans?
Indeed. I saw an interview with a woman who spoke at a town hall. She: "Obamacare saved my life." TV reporter: "So, are you satisfied with Obamacare?" She: "No." [I forget why. Cost, I think.]
What do you think of the House proposal? By the way, for the thread, no surprise that the AARP has come out against it. ---- Comparing the GOP plan for tax cuts and a 5:1 age rating with the subsidies now offered under Obamacare, AARP estimates that an unmarried 64-year-old making $15,000 a year -- assuming they live in a state that has not expanded Medicaid -- would see their premiums go up $8,400 a year. For this reason, AARP calls the bill an “unaffordable age tax,” and says it will have a disproportionately negative impact on poorer, middle-aged Americans. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/aarp-health-care-bill-gop/
On a side note I think we both know there is no easy solution to the health care problem. Do you expect the Republican plan proposed to be any better or worse than the heavily flawed system in place?
I've honestly been so busy that I haven't done an analysis of it worth a damn. I'm also hesitant to spend any time on it because it seems to be DOA. From the talking points I've heard, I absolutely support the idea of letting insurance companies tack a surcharge on the premiums of people who don't buy plans and carry continuous coverage. It works for Medicare and I think it was a HUGE mistake for ACA not to do it. From what I understand though, it does nothing to create a lower cost option (a Copper plan if you will) that will excite young people so I think it would still be a failure. The Age tax is misleading if the bill still puts the cap on premiums.
Easy fix to the bigger issue of cost drivers? Absolutely not. I definitely think there are easy fixes to stabilize the ACA. Easy at least from a mechanical point of view. From a political point of view I think it's impossible for a Republican controlled House and Senate to fix healthcare. I think Boehner was 100% correct on this. You have scorched earthers, libertarians and moderates in the Republican party and they couldn't be any more different. Republicans in swing districts will never go back to their constituents and say "I voted for this bill approved by the Freedom Caucus because I believe you get the healthcare your financial success dictates and that anyone who can't afford good coverage should seek out charities." From what little I've looked it over, I don't think it would be better or worse, it wouldn't exist. The individual marketplace is dead unless something happens that will stabilize it. This bill doesn't even attempt to do that, offering no real changes to the market until 2020 (if I read that right.) For the majority of counties there will be no marketplace if the Republicans don't stabilize the ACA this year. THIS YEAR, as in, January 1 2018 there needs to be stabilization measures in place. The only way around that I guess is if the insurance companies love what they are hearing and decide to take it on the chin for another year.
Then there's Palin America crowd who love Meddycare and will start flooding town halls at the first word of Death Panels. Yuge Tent. Seriously though, everyone of all creeds and parties has a different opinion of health care and that should be expected as a communal good. We can put lipstick on it and pretend it's a private good, but we end up with half assed incomplete measures like the HMOs of the 90s. I don't know where The Donald stands on it...whether to Palinize healthcare by passing wasteful corporate freebies like Medicare D or to Bannonize it by either blowing it all up and proposing crippling expensive measures. Either way, reverting back to the pre-Obama status quo will exacerbate the increasing drain on the economy. The margins are getting thinner and thinner as the Boomers start taking guaranteed entitlements.
Meanwhile, republicans preemptively attack the CBO. Guess it will really make this new plan look worse than most people thought... GOPers Preemptively Trash CBO Before It Scores Their O'care Replacement http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/republicans-say-no-to-cbo
I'm not a health care expert but I'm confused by the continuous coverage requirement. Medicare at least has an insurance pool that generally wants health insurance so regardless of whether there's a penalty, people in the Medicare pool are generally enrolling. The individual market is filled with people who didn't sign up today because they are healthy and that was with the individual mandate. How will the surcharge ensure that the healthy enroll? Plus the ACA exchanges had an open enrollment period and then you were locked out of subsidized health care if you didn't enroll in that period. This new system almost ensures that people will just sign up for insurance only when they're sick. The surcharge is even weaker than the individual mandate. This surcharge just seems to have shifted the penalty from the IRS to insurance companies but you can still get the tax credit even if you incur the penalty. And as you point out, there's no cheap plan for the healthy either. This marketplace seemingly will end up more unbalanced than the current one. Plus the Medicaid cuts mean that a whole new pool of people will be forced into the individual market and the tax credits won't be close to helping them pay for a premium. Also while the age tax is misleading the math seems to suggest that the tax credit doesn't keep pace with the new cap on premiums (I think its going from x3 to x5 for the elderly). And one last thing, the ACA was actually funded and paid for. The Republicans are repealing almost all of the funding and their new cost controls (the tax credit, medicaid changes, and regulatory changes) won't be enough to keep up. This thing won't be revenue neutral.
It was never about Obamacare. It's all about trying to discredit the black guy. That should be pretty obvious with the fact some people say they like the ACA, but not Obamacare.
My system would mimic Medicare's open enrollment/late add system. Basically January 1, 2018 is the last true, free national open enrollment. Everyone can enroll without any penalties. After that, anyone who enrolls in the future without a qualifying life event pays a penalty and has a six month pre-existing condition exclusion unless they have continuous coverage. The penalty you would pay would be based on the number of months that you were without coverage the prior year, with the same 3 month break that ACA allows for. 3% per month, so yeah, 30% surcharge. But keep in mind, January 1, 2019, you enroll without continuous coverage, not only are you paying a surcharge, but you have a 6 month pre-x exclusion. I also think the insurance company should be able to have a standard and a preferred rate and should be able to apply a surcharge to people who don't qualify for preferred on a simple uw system. Height/Weight, smoking and a few other simple UW questions. Individuals can be moved from standard to preferred, but can never be moved from preferred down to standard as long as they keep continuous coverage. The copper plan that should be available should be essentially similar to the short term plans that insurance companies sell now or indemnity plans. You must be under 35 to purchase it and older than 18. Plans can be fully underwritten for rates and they can deny coverage as well. All Copper plans would also be HSA eligible, regardless of the plans benefits. Also mandate that any insurance company that sells a Copper plan must sell a Silver plan. The copper plans would qualify as continuous coverage in the future. These combined with other mechanical changes: 1) Insurance companies do not bind coverage any longer until first premium has been paid 2) Reinstatement of the risk corridors for 3 years I would also want to establish a federal risk pool, call it Medicare Part R that would be established in say 5 years, giving us 5 years to fund it. Medicare Part R would be designed to move those who are truly high utilization (talking millions in claims, not someone with diabetes) out of the private system. The logistics need to be worked out, but I would move towards it now. This would stabilize the individual marketplace in my opinion, but doesn't address cost drivers in the healthcare system. To do that you are going to HAVE to give power to the federal government to negotiate and apply restrictions to Rx pricing. I also think there is some stuff being tossed around in Texas to force emergency rooms into mediation if they aren't in-network with a member's medical plan. That's brilliant and things like that need to be addressed as they are big cost drivers.
After 13 hours, the bill was pushed out Ways and Means at 4:30 a.m. Will our resident patriots bemoan legislators' inability to read the bill because it was passed in the dead of night again?
https://www.axios.com/comparing-the-gop-tax-credit-with-obamacares-premium-subsidy-2305136456.html So its going to hurt poor rural people the most. I wonder who they voted for?
