Deleted. I can’t delete others posts, but I can delete my words in the initiating threads.
3 Likes
Just hoping R Paul doesn’t decide to vote yes again.
1 Like
Sure. Just like it was for the clusterfark that is the ACA, that ruined our healthcare system as a Trojan horse for socialism.
Mr. McCain is a shortsighted, vindictive traitor who certainly doesn’t belong having a vote in the Senate.
And I’m sure the Constitution doesn’t mean a thing when it comes to how our country is governed.
The real reason I dislike Mr. McCain is that he is a bald faced liar. He won reelection to the Senate on the promise that the “first thing we’ll do is repeal Obamacare”. How low is it to lie to your constituents to satisfy your own vindictiveness?
And the ACA was NOT “1000% more bipartisan”. It received not a single Republican vote, House or Senate.
Graham-Cassidy is meant to dismantle the really stupid things that the ACA has wrought, while enabling the State’s ability to take care of their populations. No one would lose their insurance. That is a lie and a scare tactic. Going forward from it would be, if the democrats so desired, a bipartisan effort to refine it.
But at it’s very core it respects the Constitution. The Federal government is enjoined by the Constitution from meddling in affairs that it is not specifically allowed to. The Federal government has NO Constitutional authority to run or health care system.
UGH. This is the bill that just won’t die. Now it looks like the Senate is aiming to pass a version that includes special perks (read bribes) for the three senators who have come out saying they oppose the bill ( Rand Paul, John McCain and Lisa Murkowski). Instead of taking funding cuts, they now get funding boosts – all in an effort to secure these senators’ votes. I honestly don’t think we can relax until October 1st. I get that the Republicans are really, really fond of the Koch piggy bank but this ush to vote on a bill that hasn’t even been through a CBO analysis and is being marked up and changed at the last minute just seems ridiculous to me. I’m not sure if they are even bothering with Susan Collins, from Maine… theoretically they need just two of those senators to defect and the bill passes.
Mr. McCain is a shortsighted, vindictive traitor who certainly doesn’t belong having a vote in the Senate.
So do you believe that all senators have a moral obligation to vote with their party on all bills? Even when they don’t think it’s in the interests of their constituents? Basically, he sees the process as insane, thinks the bills they’re rushing to pass are crummy, and can’t, now facing imminent death, in good conscience support them. He literally has nothing to lose as he’s dying. Clearly he is voting based on his conscience, not self-interest.
Also, I’m fine with “giving power back to the states” except G-C-H-J explicitly BARS states like California from using those grants to set up their own single payer systems – why?? If it was all about states’ rights to self-determination they would not put that specific proviso in there. (Also, totally opposed because California gets a huge funding cut, so for purely selfish reasons I don’t like the idea of healthcare funding in my state being gutted).
Also, I’m really not sure how you can say for sure that “no one will lose their insurance” the bill hasn’t had time for even a cursory analysis at this point.
1 Like
No. But I do believe that all senators have a moral obligation to tell the truth. Mr. McCain lied to his constituents when he campaigned on the promise that " the first thing we’ll do is repeal the ACA". Senators, like all elected officials, don’t seem to understand that they are our representatives, not our masters.
Because when that single payer system collapses, as it most certainly will, who will be on the hook to bail it out? That’s right, the Federal government with MY taxes.
I guess just like the hyperpartisan supporters of the ACA kept lying about how many more people would be insured and get healthcare when the bill was passed. Medicare enrollment increased, but total number of insurds did not, and_healthcare_ is much harder to come by now.
I guess when the CBO continues to get it wrong, then I think their scoring should be taken with a grain of salt.
It does not have constitutional “authority” to collect taxes either 
And yet we all pay taxes.
I believe you are wrong. If the ACA was not constitutional the Supreme Court would have infirmed it.
1 Like
I feel like @ClaudnDaye. One of my big fears for my son is that he lose his pre-existing conditions coverage some day. This simply does not seem right.
Graham-Cassidy does not remove pre existing condition coverage. It provides the funding to allow each state to have its own high risk pool. There is also talk of adding a “backstop” provision in case a State cannot find their high risk pool.
Quit listening to the lies and misinformation that is being thrown out against this bill.
Because when that single payer system collapses, as it most certainly will, who will be on the hook to bail it out? That’s right, the Federal government with MY taxes.
This is an assumption not rooted in any evidence – at what point did the federal government bail out any other single payer systems in states in the past? Even if it does fail, shouldn’t the states each have equal latitude about how to implement their own program if the whole point is to “respect the Constitution.” It certainly seems incredibly meddlesome to explicitly bar a system that states have implemented in the past, to varying degrees of success, on their own in the past. If the federal government has “NO Constitutional authority” to run our health care system, then that goes both ways.
And by the way, you can make all sorts of arguments about what YOUR taxes should or shouldn’t be used for. I’ve seen a lot of mean-spirited comments in past weeks saying victims of Hurricane Harvey should just suck it up and eat a $600k loss for flood damages, when ridiculous, non-existent zoning laws and rampant development in Houston likely had a huge role in the scale of devastation. But the fact is, politicians who prized growth over flood control, developers and poor planners are the ones who created that mess, and yet individual people who bought their houses based on outdated flood maps or even 50 years ago are the ones who suffer.
Yes, McCain campaigned on the promise of repealing ACA. But to me this just shows how ridiculous it is that Republicans had 8 years to come up with some solution they could all get behind and are now unable to have consensus on even vaguely viable plans. It shows the dishonesty of their rhetoric. The fact is that Republicans don’t honestly believe it’s their job to ensure people have increased access to health care, and as far as I can tell, they believe it’s okay for fewer people to have healthcare, for more individuals to face extreme moral hazard for the choice not to get healthcare, and for people to go bankrupt if they haven’t lined up the right insurance, in exchange for less government intervention.
That’s a legitimate political position. The trouble is, that’s NOT WHAT THEY SAID THEY WOULD DO. They basically said their plans would lead to MORE people having health care, wouldn’t harm people with preexisting conditions, would be better than Obamacare and nobody would lose insurance. Well, no reputable projections, from any groups (left, right or non-partisan) predict that simply doing away with Obamacare will lead to fewer uninsured, fewer people going bankrupt, and fewer people accessing life-saving care.
I don’t think promising that the first thing they’ll do is repeal Obamacare means that a responsible senator should do it no matter how crummy the plan is. I think senators have dual responsibilities – to do what they promised and also to aim for their constituents’ well-being. In this instance, McCain made a promise that, given the current makeup of the senate, he is unable to fulfill. Personally I would rather that then someone who worries most about fulfilling a poison promise.
Medicare enrollment increased, but total number of insurds did not, and_healthcare_ is much harder to come by now.
That is simply inaccurate. Total number of enrolled has increased, total number of uninsured has decreased dramatically in EVERY single cohort and the reason the expansion is lower than projected is largely because the Supreme Court blocked the requirement that all states increase their Medicaid expansion --which was at the behest of conservative states’ atty generals. I would venture to say that insurance has become more expensive for certain groups and that it’s become much cheaper and more accessible to others. The exchanges are flawed, I agree, but they still have added millions of people to the rolls and at least in California, I have several friends who absolutely love them.
Personally, I think Republicans have some good ideas and I think Democrats have some good ideas. I think if they operated on the assumption that the other side wasn’t made up of malicious crazy people then they could come up with a plan that works better than Obamacare and certainly is better than all these half-baked schemes the Republicans have been tossing at the wall like so much spaghetti, just to see what will stick. Personally, if CGHJ simply took all the same money currently in Obamacare and gave it back to the states unchanged to implement their own systems for five or ten years, removed a lot of the complexity and weird bureaucratic regulations in Obamacare and did not roll back Medicaid, i’d be open to it even though it would bug me that people in Alabama, say, are likely to get much worse health care than people in California. It’s not ideal but at least I’d have the option of living in a place that aims for universal coverage, rather than a place that doesn’t care about that.
By the way, I think the ACA pre-existing coverage protection and the allowance for 26 year olds to stay on their parents policy is a HUGE benefit to everyone. GCHJ may claim it’s protecting those requirements but if they allow the states to do away with them, then the preexisting coverage protection is much less robust.
1 Like
Harold, I greatly respect you, Mr. McCain, and every other veteran who put their life on the line for this country. There is not enough that this country can do to repay the debt we owe you and every other veteran.
However, Mr. McCain did not earn the right to lie to his constituents. If he had not promised, PROMISED, to vote to repeal the ACA as a condition for the electorate returning him to the Senate, and then reneged on this promise, I would not have a problem with his intransigence.
I will not honor him for breaking a major promise.
… and it looks like it’s officially dead – at least for this week. Maybe next week they’ll come up with one they concocted using an old MadLibs booklet.
I would vote that we not have politics on here - too inflammatory - however since everyone else is wading in
Personally I find the whole debate ridiculous - the entire western world offers either completely free medical care to its population or it offers reasonable cost structure - the U.K. Has had it since 1943 - rich people buy extra insurance and get the top treatments but everyone gets treated for on average a lower cost. For diabetics it’s completely free - everything all drugs and supplies - if you want dexcom you get it immediately or the latest diabetic drug
The government ensure that the cost of medicine is controlled - in the us fat pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies just get rich by charging what they want - a box of tresiba pens costs 5 times as much in the US as anywhere else in the world- my doctor charges 50 usd to take a one touch blood test - it’s insane
When you make health a profit or loss industry then it never works as the insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies just pay off republicans and democrats to get what they want and everyone else loses
2 Likes
Ok didn’t realize that thanks
1 Like
@Robellengold That’s fine and dandy for the rest of the world, but Socialism is antithetical to the American experience.
There are certainly problems with our healthcare system here ( exacerbated by ill conceived healthcare boondoggles like the ACA). But the only thing Socialized medicine would do in this country is 1) totally and irretrievably ruin healthcare and 2) bankrupt our economy.
@ClaudnDaye Medicare is a limited program funded by what some people call a rather excessive payroll tax. It has been largely successful because it primarily only covers the elderly.
It has only become contentious as it has greatly expanded, and concomitantly run into funding issues. Now Bernie Sanders wants to make Medicare universal.
Taking a limited program designed to be funded for a limited population and trying to grossly expand it is like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Either the peg or the hole will have to be totally deformed to make it fit.