Democrats will not take the house or senate in 2018 unless the courts are able to get house districts un-gerrymandered. Only 3 districts were thrown out in Texas and one of them is already filled by a Democrat. I doubt there could be that much change in such a short time. Democrats should take everything in 2020.
best way to lower premiums is to eliminate regulations that are the cause namely, Guaranteed Issue, Community Rating, Medical Loss Ratio, and Essential Benefits
Not to be lost in all this, as Trump/republicans change the ACA replacement bill to get more conservatives to agree... Revised GOP health bill saves less money than original, number of uninsured stays the same http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/pol...3k4A3TqEss0WTiv2gOGN/story.html?event=event25
A GOP rep being interviewed on CNN is already blaming Obama for the house not being able to pass a bill.
The goal was supposed to be to actually lower the cost of health care. Lowering insurance premiumss while raising all the other costs you pay does nothing to actually help people. You seem to be aligned with the GOP's goals of symbolic wins that hurt actual people.
More proof the Trump/republican ACA replacement plan benefits the rish, hurts lower-income people... GOP Obamacare replacement cuts aid for lower-income people, makes more higher-income people eligible http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin...amacare-replacement-cuts-aid-lower-income-pe/
People like those aspects of "Obamacare". Hence the 17% approval rating of current health care bill. That's like saying if car manufacturers weren't required to include air-bags, the "free-market" would produce a version of a car without air-bags; hence will be cheaper. I can hear Trump's voice saying "People will have the option to buy ALL KINDS of cars! Price for cars will go down! You will have more options!". When the options are not inherently equal..... Some "regulation" is better for public good.
Skimpier benefits including loss of pre-existing conditions coverage? Thanks Trump and republicans! GOP Health Bill Changes Could Kill Protections For Those With Pre-Existing Conditions http://www.npr.org/sections/health-...ign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20170323
"you pay" is the key phrasing in this post costs don't matter as long as someone (everyone) else is paying The goal should be to get as many people as possible paying for their own coverage and care. That's the only way to create the incentives to drive down costs. Millions added to the Medicaid roles is not an accomplishment, it's a metric of failure, of an increase in the number of citizens who can't pay their own way.
If airbags are good, why must they be mandated? Snoopy doesn't acknowledge that there are tradeoffs in life. In this example, safety vs. cost. We should be free to make that determination for ourselves (fwiw, I think most would pay for airbags and their wouldn't be a market for vehicles without them, but you never know what choices people will make when given freedom to do so). Snoopy wants the government to make those cost/benefit determinations for us. Another example is mandated fuel economy standards, which lead to lighter vehicles and more traffic deaths.
Bad optics from Trump and the conservative wing of the republicans, working to reduce women's health care benefits... http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Twitter-reacts-to-Pence-s-female-free-photo-of-11024021.php
Taking millions off the Medicaid roles means those millions will go back to their old (Republican approved btw) plan of going to the ER when their medical issues get real. Who gets to pay for that trip? WRT medical care, there are two classes of people, those who pay and those who do not. Those who pay always end up subsidizing those who do not. Municipal hospitals who turn no one away at the ER get their funding through taxes. Other hospitals, who turn away as many as they can but still treat the most serious cases, cost share these expenses with their paying customers. The payers should get a say in how the non-payers get their medical care, since they are the ones paying for it, right? From this perspective, the payers should demand that the non-payers get cost effective medical care and not run to the ER when things get real. If the most cost effective care is Medicaid, then so be it. This is the debate that we should be having.
Apparently, Trump considers a priority of the Trump/republican health care bill as a way to hurt Planned Parenthood...
It worked out well putting safety belts in cars. They were good, and not mandated for a long time. It's not freedom to make a choice for everyone when airbags are removed from cars. It's only freedom for those that have the money purchase cars with airbags. Poorer people don't have that freedom.
There is ZERO evidence that works. First off, something like 60-70% of the country gets heath care through their employers, so most people aren't paying for their own coverage as is. Beyond that, the ultimate version of your world is having everyone uninsured - though it may be the ridiculous result of this bill, I guarantee that's not anyone's actual goal, nor has that been proven to work anywhere to help drive down costs. Scrapping essential benefits doesn't lower health care costs - it just redistributes them. A man might pay less while a woman pays more. But it doesn't improve health care at all. The bill is projected to slightly reduce health care costs on the private market - not by actually making their service better or the cost of services cheaper, but by making health care unaffordable to old people and poor people, so they just don't get coverage so health care is limited to the healthier few. Great for a small number of people, terrible for most (since they will eventually get old), and terrible for the health and productivity of the country.
Except you not having an airbag has consequences for everyone else. When you get maimed in a car wreck for being stupid and don't have health insurance, the rest of us have to pay for that. And the person you crashed into has to live with unfair guilt of your possible death. You seem to want to let stupid people freeload off society - very libertarian of you. And cheaper gas and a stronger economy. And, of course, real life data suggests that safety actually improves and you have fewer overall deaths over time. But hey, stick to your simplistic theories over real world data.
