I’d much prefer an outright repeal of the entire aca with some protections built in to ensure those who were coverered as a result of it had some protections while something that might actually work can be ironed out in a bipartisan manner. I am highly irritated by both national political parties being in a ■■■■■■■ match and race to see who can come up with the worst ideas
Some simple protections for people with preexsiting conditions and a simultaneous complete withdrawal of the government from the healthcare market is the only way I can imagine out of the entire mess…
I really see no benefit to asking the entity that pays $400 for toilet seats and $500 for hammers to regulate the entire healthcare industry to a larger and larger extent
The fundamental problem is that healthcare costs too much, so much that everyone needs some other entity to pay for it. That’s not sustainable. The underlying problems need to be addressed and I believe the best way to do that is through free market competition with certain protections for the consumers. We have consistently moved further and further from that ideal and in my view the results are speaking for themselves…
Well, again, an outright repeal would require either 60 votes or blowing up the filibuster.
Looking at the political realities, the question is, do you prefer a bill that will dramatically destabilize health markets and leave no protections in place for people who will lose their insurance, or do you prefer stabilizing what we have for now and working to elect people who can actually repeal in a decent manner, if that’s your goal? From what I can tell, Republican congresspeople think that as long as they further screw up enough of Obamacare so that it implodes, their work is done. They have no plan in place to protect the 14+million people who would be estimated to lose coverage NEXT YEAR if their plan goes through.
It’s interesting. My FIL is a Trump supporter who listens to the worst of talk radio. He’s an ER doc. When you ask him his opinions on healthcare, he hates Obamacare but supports single payer. It’s really weird – it’s the most socialist idea and he HATES socialists, but as an ER doc he winds up seeing all the people who don’t get ordinary medical care and sees how screwed up everything is when people who are poor cannot get coverage for basic care. It comes back to bite us all.
I’m just baffled that ANYONE (in their right minds…and I consider everyone in this forum to be of sound mind) can be in favor of this bill?!? It undoes SO much good that has been accomplished over the past 7 years. Instead of working on the bill to make it better and address the issues that everyone has (premiums, deductibles, accessibility)…which could have been done; which the Democrats asked for repeatedly; they attempted 60+ times, and wasted millions of our taxpayers dollars to repeal the ACA. All the while, (8 years now), then DID NOT work up their own plan! Instead, they hastily threw something together to cater to the “100 day agenda” of Drumpf which failed…NOT BECAUSE OF THE DEMOCRATS…because of their own party! It REALLY has to stink when the people in your own party won’t vote for it. So, what made those extreme right party members happy? STRIP MORE OUT! Gut medicaid! Make rape a pre-existing condition again! Take away the annual and lifetime caps provision! Allow the States and Health Insurance markets to say that YOU (yes, diabetics and all other people with pre-existing conditions) now able to be discriminated against again! Make being over a certain age another discriminator for health insurance companies!
All of the GOOD that the ACA accomplished is now (not yet, and I hope the bill is DOA in the Senate), but if it passes…all of the GOOD will also be swept away with the bad.
No one ever denied that that there were problems with the ACA…No bill is EVER perfect. Years were spent in an attempt to work across the isle to make it better…but that can’t be possible! We have to WIN! It has to be OUR bill!
But you better believe there will be tax-cuts for the wealthy! Both in this bill and in the coming budget
@Sam You are just being way too reasonable Sam. I can’t understand why, regardless of political party or persuasion people cannot get behind this common sense idea.
I for one want to just say that I’m not going to say anything else at this point…I’ve said my piece. Everyone here obviously has their own beliefs and convictions about the validity of the ACA and the goodness of this new bill that passes. I respect you all, regardless of your views on this topic. If I’ve personally offended anyone with anything I’ve said thus far, I want to apologize…this is a very emotional topic for me (and everyone it seems.)
In the end I just hope that my children…3 with pre-existing conditions…are not penalized. I just fear that care for them is going to become unreasonably priced (even with me having an employer based insurance plan.) This new bill would eliminate the employer mandate.
@TiaG I think if you will remember correctly, it was Harry Reid who had already blown up the filibuster. The Republicans may be stupid, but the democrats are truly evil.
And also, you seem to be saying that the Republican bill is so crappy because it allows the same lobbyists to influence it who screwed up the ACA. Why were those lobbyists given such an inroad with the ACA? Lobby the dems= great, lobby the repubs= bad?
It’s truly a swamp. I hope and pray it gets drained in my lifetime.
The Republicans may be stupid, but the democrats are truly evil.
I am curious. What is your definition of what constitutes good and what constitutes evil? What intentions, goals or actions tally up on either side? I mean this not in any hostile way. It just seems so totally opposite from my interpretation of reality that I think you either must define the terms of good and evil in a very different way than me, or must be using some completely different set of facts to come to this view.
And also, you seem to be saying that the Republican bill is so crappy because it allows the same lobbyists to influence it who screwed up the ACA. Why were those lobbyists given such an inroad with the ACA? Lobby the dems= great, lobby the repubs= bad?
I’m not saying it’s ever good when lobbyists guide the discussion. I was pissed off that insurance companies, pharmas, PBMs, etc. got to have such say over ACA in the first place. I’d say I’m a typical liberal in that sense – truly suspicious of corporations and their outsize power. As for why they caved to them in the first place – well, it’s why politicians always cave to them. They’re powerful interests. They fund their campaigns (on both sides). And the Democrats believed the doomsday predictions the lobbyists put out about what would happen if they didn’t get their way.
But I think at this point people need to stop re-litigating the past. Democrats did not implement the best system in the world. Got it. Agreed.
At this point though, instead of making excuses for something vaguely shady your side will do (cave to lobbyists) on the grounds that the other side did it first simply look at the facts and ask yourself: What is the probability that, given the slimy tentacles of lobbying in Washington on both sides, that a Republican bill that starts out with this as the meat will actually end up less of a sop to special interests than Obamacare? That’s what I am saying. I am not optimistic at all on that count.
Tia, I think the issue here is one of stupidity on both sides. I am a fiscal conservative but left leaning on social service issues. I think I am truly somewhere near the middle on most issues. That said, I have been shaped by having poor care delivered to me by the VA, writing a contract that procured a VA contract for a medical device company and seeing how government regulation actually allows companies to charge more than they should be getting. I have also been the beneficiary of using risk pool insurance from my state when I couldn’t secure insurance for my family due to preexisting conditions.
I can confidently say, that I think the answer the Republicans passed won’t be workable, and probably won’t come to pass. The ACA picked winners and losers, i.e. gave huge wins to Pharma, but passed a ridiculous tax on medical device companies because they didn’t have the margins to cave into the democrat demands at the time. That tax on top line revenue hurt all small med device companies and helped big med device companies have an even bigger advantage.
As a country we need SIMPLE solutions. Anything that takes thousands of pages to pas, can’t be explained, requires our POTUS to lie to the country, and picks winners and losers by industry is bunk. Having the government in charge of healthcare would be a worse disaster than we currently have. What we need is to rethink the whole thing. We have a very large country with a huge number of hospitals, and we need to make healthcare more transparent and affordable. The only way this is going to happen is to get rid of the things that are obscuring the landscape and let the consumer see what things cost and give them choice. Shielding insurance behind employers, setting pharma prices through middlemen to hide rebates and other incentives just make sure that no one knows what things cost, and therefore can’t come up with solutions.
@Chris, I think all these solutions sound reasonable. I agree, the government is too opaque, the process by which it dispenses its largesse is ridden with waste and inefficiency (though outsourcing those jobs to contractors tends to be worse).
The thing is, the Republican bill did not address any of the issues you mention.
I agree ACA has flaws but I think the core bones of it: not allowing denials of preexisting conditions, having some core services that must be provided, and preventing things like annual or lifetime caps, are necessary. I also think you will always need some subsidies for those at the bottom of the income pool, or for those with disabilities. But do I think all the other stuff in there is necessary? No. Ironically, this bill doesn’t really touch all those other initiatives and handouts – it just takes away all the good stuff from ACA and all the stuff you hate is still in there! The AHCA has nothing about removing middlemen, increasing transparency, or allowing people to know how much things cost, etc.
I do think healthcare will probably need to be changed from the ground up at some point. But I think we should not do that by first blowing up health care and then letting a bunch of people die and the rest get really angry and then rethinking what we need, now that all existing systems are nonfunctional. I just think it’s always easier to tear things down than to build them up, and so we should be very, very wary of tearing something down that is pretty functional for a lot of people, unless you have something in place to help them transition.
Tia I agree with you completely about the republican bill not doing anything I said. Neither side is advocating for more transparency, they just appear to shift who benefits, i.e. government picking winners and losers.
Transparency will only come from grass roots efforts to hold elected officials accountable. Otherwise we will just go down another rat-hole. That is why I will vote to defund things rather than “fix” or “grow” them. When the holes become obvious then they are easier to fix.
Interestingly, I have had a bunch of exposure creating business plans to sell med device products in European countries, and while many of those do a great job of treating the normal health of most citizens, many of these countries withhold approval for expensive new cancer treatments and medical devices because they don’t want to pay for them. One example from the early 2000’s is France’s government withheld approval for public use of implanted defibrillators for 8 years, even after the government medical board decided that the medical evidence for using these devices was overwhelming. So only people who could pay outright or had private insurance got these life saving devices during these 8 years. I don’t think our population would look kindly on these solutions.
