Obamacare...(new title): GOP DEATH PLAN: Don-Ryan's Express

[LadySkinsFan]

Then the Republicans need to stop passing laws to undercut the ACA.

[TradeTheBeal!]

2 minutes ago, Kilmer17 said:

 I hope the GOP doesnt do anything.

 

 

 

You speak for the entirety of humanity and all future generations to come.

[Kilmer17]

1 minute ago, LadySkinsFan said:

Then the Republicans need to stop passing laws to undercut the ACA.

I agree wholeheartedly.  What have they passed so far that's been signed into law to affect the ACA?

[visionary]

 

[Larry]

6 hours ago, Kilmer17 said:

Good.  I hope the GOP doesnt do anything.

 

Let it survive or die.

 

I don't think survive or die are even on the GOP menu.  

 

Think they're debating between making some changes to it (while keeping other parts), vs nominally leaving it in place while actually working to sabotage it, and then try to blame Obama for the results they worked so hard to achieve.  

 

6 hours ago, Kilmer17 said:

I agree wholeheartedly.  What have they passed so far that's been signed into law to affect the ACA?

 

Umpty-ump states deciding not to expend Medicaid?  

 

Umpty-ump states spending taxpayer dollars to fight it in court?  (Well, that's not "signed into law".)  

 

Or were you trying to pretend that anything short of actually passing legislation doesn't count?  

[Larry]

2 hours ago, visionary said:

 

 

Got a feeling that we're about to witness another Gingrich, and eliminating (of vastly politicizing) the CBO.  

 

After all, wouldn't want Congressional decisions to actually be colored by non-partisan information.  

[Jumbo]

2 minutes ago, Larry said:

 

After all, wouldn't want Congressional decisions to actually be colored by non-partisan information.  

 

 

 

In Trumpland, we don't need your stinking information. We make our own.

[mistertim]

Maybe they'll just start their own Alternative CBO

[visionary]

 

 

 

 

[LadySkinsFan]

The blame for increased premiums now falls on the insurance companies that still want obscene profits, and the Republicans and Trump. Fully.

 

Democrats need to make this very well as known, early and often.

[Mooka]

Btw, the CA state legislature passed single payer medicaid for all CA.

 

Many hurdles before it hits the governors desk and will need voters approval to pass any new taxes to pay for it though.

 

Not much national attention because itll be almost impossible to pass and isnt even paid for atm.

 

[Kilmer17]

2 minutes ago, LadySkinsFan said:

The blame for increased premiums now falls on the insurance companies that still want obscene profits, and the Republicans and Trump. Fully.

 

Democrats need to make this very well as known, early and often.

I think it's awesome how people now realize what a disaster Obamacare is, and are now trying to deflect the blame.

[LadySkinsFan]

The disaster is the Republicans ****ing with it so it doesn't work as intended, flawed though it is. Republicans making it worse.

[Kilmer17]

1 minute ago, LadySkinsFan said:

The disaster is the Republicans ****ing with it so it doesn't work as intended, flawed though it is. Republicans making it worse.

Pointing out that the GOP has passed NOTHING that affects Obamacare.  Nada.  This is 100 percent at the feet of the Democrats.  As was predicted.

[LadySkinsFan]

Republican controlled states opting out of the exchanges are the biggest offenders. For profit insurance companies, most likely helmed by Republicans, increasing premiums for increased profit.

 

Yeah, I blame Republicans.

[Riggo-toni]

The ACA was designed by conservative thinktank Heritage Foundation, implemented by Mitt Romney with a rapturous endorsement by Newt Gingrich, promoted as a national solution in a WSJ editorial written by Mitt Romney, and financed by a tax on expensive health insurance plans proposed by the McCain campaign in 2008.  Obamacare at its core was THE GOP plan....until Obama co-opted it.

[Kilmer17]

Just now, LadySkinsFan said:

Republican controlled states opting out of the exchanges are the biggest offenders. For profit insurance companies, most likely helmed by Republicans, increasing premiums for increased profit.

 

Yeah, I blame Republicans.

That's a flaw in the original law.  Again, as was predicted at the time.  As is the problem with young people opting to pay the fine rather than enroll.  Im glad to see people on the left finally calling it a failure.  Too bad they didnt listen at the time it was being crammed through.

[gbear]

On ‎5‎/‎28‎/‎2017 at 9:33 PM, Larry said:

I have to confess that I have severe doubts as to some of the proposals being made in here, to reduce health care costs.  

 

Many of them seem too simplistic, if not outright impossible.  "Just mandate that insurance companies must charge lower premiums, and pay a higher share of the costs, without reducing coverage."  

 

Now, I do have a feeling that there may be ways to reduce at least some costs.  but I feel like some of them will require huge attitude shifts.  on society as a whole.  

 

A decade or two ago, I head a report about a study somebody had dome.  I'm going strictly by memory, and have no link to any such study whatsoever.  So let's just call it a hypothetical, and pretend that I'm making it up.  Just assume that what I remember, is true.  

 

The study looked at four expensive but common medical procedures.  One of them was cardiac bypass surgery, I forget the other three.  They took all of the patients who's doctor recommended cardiac bypass surgery, and divided them into two groups:  Those who had the procedure, and those who chose not to have it.  

 

And they looked at their survival rates, which the study defined as "how many of the people, in each group, are still alive, five years later?"  

 

And in three of the four procedures they looked at, having the procedure did not increase the odds of the patient being alive, five years down the road.  Their odds of dying were the same, whether they had the procedure or not.  

 

So, let's just assume that what I remember is actually true.  Let's assume that cardiac bypass surgery does not actually improve the patient's odds of being alive, five years from now.  

 

Should we, as a society, at least consider the possibility that maybe we shouldn't have a system where other people pay for that procedure?  

 

I know, it's certainly easy to demonize a decision of "well, Uncle Joe needs cardiac bypass surgery, or else the odds are he may have another heart attack.  but this big entity (government or an insurance company) isn't going to pay for it.  And you can't.  So, you're not going to get it."  

 

What about the patient who's been in a nursing home for the last two years?  She can't speak a complete sentence.  (Although does sometimes appear to understand sentences.)  Can't stand.  Can't feed herself.  Has to be changed, every few hours.  

 

Does it really benefit society (or the individual, for that matter) to pay for her to live in a nursing home for five years, waiting for some medical condition to come along that will eventually end this?  What is anybody actually getting, for that money?  

 

But what's the alternative?  Kick her out and let her die in the street?  'Good morning, Mrs. Smith.  you've been here nine months, today.  The nurser will be in shortly with your ,mandatory euthanasia."?  

 

The current system, I feel like, isn't right.  But I'm not at all sure that I see a path to a better one.  How do you get to a better world?  (Especially when I'm not at all sure that I can even say what that better world is.)  

 

Part of me really wishes that we, as a society, would decide that maybe we need to relax some of the phobias we have against things like hospice, and I think things like suicide, and even physician-assisted euthanasia.  

 

Apologies for the probably morbid view.  

 

Funny thing is what you are suggesting is closer to what Tsongas and that Hillary lady were proposing in the 90's for which she is demonized to this day. He might have had a chance to be demonized as well, but he...well...he died.  They basically took an approach of we have x dollars which means we can afford to cover a,b, and c.  If you want D, we aren't saying it is no good.  We are simply saying covering it will not grant as many quality life years as a, b, or c.  So you can purchase insurance for D if you want.  It just won't be the insurance we believe all Americans are entitled to have.  The premise was basically greatest good for the greatest number possible using x dollars.

 

That failure became a starting point for the death panel misnomers that plagued the affordable care act decades later when they tried to cover doctors having end of life care discussions with patients.  Isn't it amazing how fear and slogans can slant a populations perspective for decades?  Sorry, I am feeling a bit jaded on the impact of politics on our healthcare, and yet it seems politics is a battlefield on which our fight must be carried.

[LadySkinsFan]

20 minutes ago, Kilmer17 said:

That's a flaw in the original law.  Again, as was predicted at the time.  As is the problem with young people opting to pay the fine rather than enroll.  Im glad to see people on the left finally calling it a failure.  Too bad they didnt listen at the time it was being crammed through.

 

The left wanted a public option, that would have forced competition in premium rates with insurance companies. 

 

Republicans wouldn't support that because the precious insurance companies wouldn't have made as much profit.

[NoCalMike]

20 minutes ago, Kilmer17 said:

That's a flaw in the original law.  Again, as was predicted at the time.  As is the problem with young people opting to pay the fine rather than enroll.  Im glad to see people on the left finally calling it a failure.  Too bad they didnt listen at the time it was being crammed through.

 

I think her point is that A lot of republicans, at every chance they had on the state level have done things to ensure the ACA could & would not function as intended.  It was obstructed at the state level and then when that obstruction caused problems, the same GOP members would turn around and shout from the rooftops about how the ACA was not working.

[Kilmer17]

6 minutes ago, LadySkinsFan said:

 

The left wanted a public option, that would have forced competition in premium rates with insurance companies. 

 

Republicans wouldn't support that because the precious insurance companies wouldn't have made as much profit.

The Dems had the POTUS, the House and 60 seats in the Senate.  Stop blaming others for your failures.

[Riggo-toni]

The problem with a public option is that ultimately politicians would have made it cover everything but cost almost nothing, and then kept borrowing money to make the difference. Nevermind cutting into profits, nobody can compete with an entity that can lose endless amounts of money with little consequence. The figures on how much people get out of medicare versus how little they put in are well into six figure deficits, despite the fact that people pay into it for about twice as long as they draw from it. If profits from the exchanges were so extravagant, more insurers would be piling in, rather than pulling out.

[Kilmer17]

7 minutes ago, NoCalMike said:

 

I think her point is that A lot of republicans, at every chance they had on the state level have done things to ensure the ACA could & would not function as intended.  It was obstructed at the state level and then when that obstruction caused problems, the same GOP members would turn around and shout from the rooftops about how the ACA was not working.

States rights again.

1 minute ago, Riggo-toni said:

The problem with a public option is that ultimately politicians would have made it cover everything but cost almost nothing, and then kept borrowing money to make the difference. Nevermind cutting into profits, nobody can compete with an entity that can lose endless amounts of money with little consequence. The figures on how much people get out of medicare versus how little they put in are well into six figure deficits, despite the fact that people pay into it for about twice as long as they draw from it. If profits from the exchanges were so extravagant, more insurers would be piling in, rather than pulling out.

I've been a single payor "supporter" (for lack of a better word) and that's obviously it's major flaw.  If all health care is covered, I want a tummy tuck for me and a boob job for my wife.  Who decides what is and what is not covered?

[TradeTheBeal!]

7 minutes ago, Kilmer17 said:

The Dems had the POTUS, the House and 60 seats in the Senate.  Stop blaming others for your failures.

 

The delays engendered in large part by the extended negotiations with Republicans in the Gang of Six, meant in the end that the normal legislative process—in which separate bills passed by House and Senate would be reconciled in a conference committee—was not going to work in this case. When the vacancy caused by the death of Senator Edward M. Kennedy was filled via a January 2010 special election by Republican Scott Brown, Democrats lost their 60th vote—and the McConnell strategy meant that there was no way, no matter what changes Democrats were willing to make in the final package, that there would be a single Republican vote to get them past the filibuster hurdle. Hence, the fallback to using reconciliation to bypass the filibuster in the Senate, and the inability to smooth out the rough edges and awkward language in the final bill that was enacted.

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/the-real-story-of-obamacares-birth/397742/

 

#alternativefacts

[Kilmer17]

Just now, TryTheBeal! said:

 

The delays engendered in large part by the extended negotiations with Republicans in the Gang of Six, meant in the end that the normal legislative process—in which separate bills passed by House and Senate would be reconciled in a conference committee—was not going to work in this case. When the vacancy caused by the death of Senator Edward M. Kennedy was filled via a January 2010 special election by Republican Scott Brown, Democrats lost their 60th vote—and the McConnell strategy meant that there was no way, no matter what changes Democrats were willing to make in the final package, that there would be a single Republican vote to get them past the filibuster hurdle. Hence, the fallback to using reconciliation to bypass the filibuster in the Senate, and the inability to smooth out the rough edges and awkward language in the final bill that was enacted.

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/the-real-story-of-obamacares-birth/397742/

 

#alternativefacts

They could have chosen to NOT pass it at all.