After weeks of closed door meetings, the Republican senate leadership has unveiled their “Obamacare Replacement” bill; which preserves everything in Obamacare that has driven the costs of health care skyward. The onerous regulations will remain, responsible people who buy insurance before they need it will still be gouged to pay for irresponsible people who don’t buy “insurance” until after they need it, the modest “opt out” provisions in the House Bill are gone, the subsidies will actually increase. The main thing it does is shuffle taxes around and bail out giant insurance companies.
More generally, it represents a failure to think beyond the confines of the law that is already in place. At a fundamental level, the Senate plan accepts Obamacare’s premises about the nature of health insurance and the individual market. It works from the assumption that the only way to make expensive health insurance cheaper is to subsidize it through the federal government. It is a plan that subsidizes, and therefore disguises, unaffordability, rather than attempting to bring down costs directly.
Precisely. The Republicans are really no different than the Democrats; they love Government and see Government as the solution to every problem.
Here’s what I don’t understand. To set this up, I don’t think the Government has any business regulating health insurance beyond protecting people from fraud. People should be able to work out any contractual arrangement with an insurance company they want. The Government’s only role should be to enforce that arrangement should either party try to renege; which would be done through the judiciary, not the legislature. That’s what I believe, but apparently, I’m in the minority. All right, fine. So, the majority believes that the Government should be able to tell insurance companies what kinds of policies they have to sell.
OK, if that’s the parameters for this discussion … why would it be so BAD, even in that scheme… for the Government to set a Minimum Coverage Baseline that was just Catastrophic Coverage + one check up per year? People would be covered if they got cancer or had a heart attack or were attacked by a bear … big expensive stuff. And they could get an exam from a doctor once a year if they want. That wouldn’t cost much, and the minimum that anyone needs. And if you have a minor medical issue, you assume the risk of paying for it out of pocket. From that baseline, you could modularize coverage, paying more for prescription coverage, and more for mental health treatments, depending on what you think you might need in the future.
You may not personally like that choice… but why doesn’t the Government even allow that choice?
I kind of suspect that its the insurance companies that want the Government to force middle-aged gay men to pay for insurance that covers obstetrics and gynecology, and tee-totaling Mormons to buy coverage for alcohol and drug addictions. And forcing normal people to pay for sex reassignments for those with body dysphoria. Having the Government force people to buy sh-t they’re never going to use is sort of Crony Capitalism 101.
I’m a physician, V. I don’t disagree with a single point in your post, but I can’t shed any light on the questions you raise.
Honestly, this is the one Current Events topic I haven’t been following very closely. Sadly, from a triage standpoint I’ve felt that the US healthcare system has been mortally wounded for some time now, and I don’t believe it stands much of a chance of recovery regardless of who gets elected or what resources are thrown at it at this point. Meanwhile, though I’m sure some law will pass and some regulations will change, this is one sausage I don’t particularly feel like watching get made.
While maybe the health care industry can’t be saved, there is still a lot about our nation that can. Why I like Trump, and why I think that a lot of others supported him, is about that everything else. Watching him tear around like Godzilla through the West Wing is satisfying at a visceral level, but in the end (or at least eight years from now) I believe we’ll find that our President will have left many, many things in far better shape than he found them.
I can’t promise that your doctor will be one of those things.
Hi V the K,
“why would it be so BAD, even in that scheme… for the Government to set a Minimum Coverage Baseline that was just Catastrophic Coverage + one check up per year? People would be covered if they got cancer or had a heart attack or were attacked by a bear … big expensive stuff. And they could get an exam from a doctor once a year if they want. That wouldn’t cost much, and the minimum that anyone needs. And if you have a minor medical issue, you assume the risk of paying for it out of pocket.”
Because at the moment, that out of pocket stuff can be hideously expensive and prescription drugs–whoooo–eeeee! It is a problem when basic procedures end up costing a fortune. Heliotrope kindly pointed me in the direction of this fellow, Karl Denninger who has interesting ideas on how to tackle the costs of medical care–basically teat it like any other service we pay for and make costs transparent and competitive. I have issues with some of what he suggests, but it is a really interesting approach to tackling the problem of costs. Warning–he is no fan of what the Republicans and Trump have currently done for healthcare with their Senate bill …
Obamacare does not tell Insurance companies what kind of health insurance they can sell.
I say that because Obamacare has turned health insurance into a governmental social program, not insurance.
Insurance–ANY insurance, be it life, health, home, car, liability–is nothing more than a financial shock absorber. It is intended to even out large expenditures. You should always expect to play the insurance company more in premiums than you receive in benefits. Always. If you don’t, the insurance company loses money, and eventually must go out of business.
This is why they should not be required to cover pre-existing conditions. Simply because they KNOW they will lose money on them.
This is why your policy should not cover things you do not need, because it drives up the cost.
Obamacare is attempting to be what NO government program should be: a charity.
Crony Capitalism 101 actually is:
1) have any government agency from the federal acronym soup strictly regulare your industry;
2) make your corporation too big to fail, as deemed by dear government;
3) make the people legally obliged to buy a product from your industry;
4) try to be a monopoly or a quasi monopoly with just a handful of other nationwide crony corporates;
5) suggest the government that failure of the people to spend for item #3 should increase their tax liability;
6) congratulations! You’ve got yourself a captive market — cf. items #3 to #5 – onto which you will be able to force your ever crappier products or services for ever increasing bills;
7) if by any chance your greed nevertheless manages to completely dry out the s*ckers wallets and threatens your profits or puts your balancesheet too deep in the red, you can always put into action #2 just after you dumped all your (pump and dump, by definition) stocks at the peaks.
Et voila.
*regulate
We had “minimum”. Obamacare wrecked it, by mauling Medicaid. The United States isn’t supposed to be a nanny state. The mindset in the healthcare industry has suffered from it. People have died, because of the death panels. My mother for one. Just because some twinkies at nurses’ stations don’t feel the need to call an MD on someone they think is dying. So, I’m not so keen on helping this little Cas person out with her comprehension skills.
I don’t want to purposely pay for Cas’ health problems.
The Senate “version” is intended to deep-six the whole “repeal and replace” of ObambiCare and it is an establishment shot across the bow of President Trump.
Now we will have to wait and see on the other Trump initiatives in terms of the Senate stonewalling by such forms of “cooperation.”
The Donald may be pushed into finding his own Executive Branch bill to submit. That is what Obama did and what Bill Clintoon tried to do using the smartest woman in the world.
Cas,the liar @ #2 links to Karl Denninger and rides my coattails by announcing that I “indly pointed” Das “in the direction of this fellow.” I did.
Cas has a long record here of taking a topic and niggling it to death. That is the Cas modus operandi. Cas is a person who is most at home when prognosticating, objecting, goal shifting and proclaiming.
Denninger is one of hundreds of alternatives to ObamaCare and worth a look. ObambiCare was a devious scheme written by Robert Kreamer in prison and its primary goal was to bankrupt the health insurance industry and drive them out of the market leaving a scorched earth in which only the government could and would insure. It was the blitzkrieg predatory to single payer.
Most folks have paid scant attention to the fact that Sebelius moved millions onto Medicaid instead of “forcing” them to pay the IRS penalties or the enormous Obamacare rates.
This was also a means of breaking the middle class. That is always the class that needs the most watching and control in adolescent and mature socialist states. The goal of socialism is to sort everyone into a “sustainable” niche and keep them there under the eyes and control of the nanny state.
I sincerely hope that we who comment here at GayPatriot don’t get into dreamscaping, carping, blathering and promoting how the details of health care in the United States might be delivered by the government.
It is my belief that health care can be delivered to all without being government run. But, for socialists, that is akin to saying that people should be allowed to think, own guns, speak their minds and actually disagree with the government.
Repeal, repeal, repeal…….. screw the replace! If we don’t kill the welfare state it’s going to kill America as we know it or did know it, but I think it may already be too far gone.
V the K, your example of x-rays is a perfect case in point. If Costco did x-rays, you could jolly well bet they would be $5 a piece or even less.
A few years ago, I worked as a volunteer in a free pharmacy. We gave non-narcotic prescriptions away to those who brought valid prescriptions from local doctors only. That also included dialysis. Most of the time, the script we got was written by doctors who did not charge the patient.
If the AMA were to lighten up on the nurse practitioner regulations, a lot of care could be given for the fairly routine stuff. When a nurse does a flue test, the only reason the doctor writes the prescription is because of the tort insurance the medical practice drags on its back. The service is still going strong and there really is no overhead as industry, locals, and professionals donate their time and the inventory.
We could go on and on about the incredible amount of pure waste there is in getting routine medicine to the common ailments. At the local level, just about anything is possible as long as the government doesn’t barge in start regulating right and left.
And V the K,
Thank you so much for AGREEING with me that healthcare costs are too much. It is funny to see you bend like a pretzel to avoid saying that. I know, you will get an attack of the cooties if you actually said “I agree!.” 🙂
And Heliotrope,
Well big guy. There is no pleasing you–I give credit where it is due, by citing your lovely find, and all you can say is that I am “riding your coat-tails.” 🙂
And we have moved up from “doesn’t tell the truth” to “liar.” That is a good one. As I said before, please kindly put some meat on those soup bones. Your stock is a little thin right now. A soupçon of evidence would be greatly appreciated.
Your circular arguments are well known & repetitive, Cas the Liar. No one needs to itemize or prove anything to you. Why should they. You just bring the same thing up again & again, hoping for a win. You argue & vomit out from the context of the ideology that no one can do better than anyone else & from the lie that America needs to be different than it is. We became the world’s top dog BECAUSE we are the exception. Your socialist left bank experimentation lost in the last election. You’re not winning, you’re not winning battles. You people are starting to fragment, lose your cool & fading. I find your ideology despicable.
You think because healthcare insurance costs were high that socializing healthcare entirely or setting it up to fail so there’d be single-pay – was the answer. We fought wars against your ilk. We’re still fighting them. I put people like you down daily. You’re just another insect. Trying to get a rise out of your betters. Heliotrope has gone out of his way to explain almost everything under the sun to you over the course of a year or more or less. Instead, you just become an irritant. Looking for a slip up that you can spin to “prove” your own Commie talking points. VtheK & ILC go out of their way to be kind even to the most blustery among us & then you attack V, in your most mealy mouth passive regressive style. There really is nothing more disgusting than a passive regressive. Even Obongo Obama & Corrupt Hillary aren’t passive regressive. Emotionally retarded.
Good luck with your party’s extinction & the fragmentation of the Left. Your desperation is showing. It’s not pretty.
Part of the problem with costs is, to coin a phrase “You can lead a man to info, but you can’t make them think.”
When I worked at Aetna, they were rolling out all sorts of cost of care tools. Likewise, the big hospitals were designing their health plans to encourage their people to stay in their networks, again to keep costs down. How many people use those tools? A fraction.
Heliotrope,
You call me a liar for the third time. I ask for the third time for the evidence you have to make this claim. Please provide the evidence, or should I just think of this as another one of your rhetorical tricks that you hide behind when you cannot actually engage in a rational argument?
@3 – Cas – in theory, I’ve come round to thinking that a single-payer system with some reasonable baseline of services is needed. Additional coverages and services would be available for purchase.
But that’s theory.
In practice, it would be a disaster since the “minimum” would soon become maximum: birth control pills, unlimited counseling “just because”, hair transplants, aroma therapy, crystals, and (as will be the case in 2018 in Ontario) “genital transition” surgery.
And, don’t forget, unlimited care for aliens (legal and illegal) that make it over the border (girl in CA, brought illegally in as a sick infant, has received FOUR liver transplants).
http://www.citynews.ca/2017/06/22/ontario-offer-genital-transitional-surgery-2018/
In 2016, Ontario spent 43 percent of the provincial budget. By 2030, it will consumer 80 percent.
https://www.td.com/document/PDF/economics/special/td-economics-special-db0510-health-care-pr.pdf
It would be no different here. We need to address the numerous structural issues driving healthcare inflation (and some of the medicine won’t be easy to swallow).
Hi KCRob,
Thank you for your reply. I can understand how someone who comes here illegally (and is still illegal) and gets four transplants would piss you off; it would piss me off as well. I looked at the pdf. How much of these issues would be dealt with by actually having hospitals, doctors, et al post prices, just as Denninger suggested? As I said to Heliotrope when he first shared the hyperlink, I have some issues with his approach, but I agree that pricing has to be transparent–and it is not. If the approach actually lowers costs of services, then I think the Ontario situation gets better. What do you think?
One thing to remember, Canada spends far less per person on average for healthcare than the US does. And on many metrics they do better than we do here.
Here is the United States of America and one of its 50 states. It is not grammatically correct to write of here when one is not a part of the amalgamated population of wherever here is.
I am and have been 7 hours east of the United States for several weeks. I am a citizen of the United States, I live in Virginia and I have voted in presidential elections since 1960. Because I am a citizen and resident of here I am permitted, grammatically, to refer to here from anywhere I have internet access. I am not an ex-pat or living abroad for a year or more.
So, Cas, the liar, in what region of the United States do you reside and what is the nature of your U. S. citizenship.
Going back to your Serenity days, you have always played the troll the game of hiding even your regional whereabouts. But now you pass yourself off as a part of the United States electorate who is worried about “our president” now you have moved your locus to “here.”
Deception of this sort is the source of skepticism. We pretty much know that you (#9) Heliotrope, Cas is a Mayflower moving truck barreling down the highway at 70 mph with its trailer full of goalposts; (#15) Your circular arguments are well known & repetitive, Cas the Liar. No one needs to itemize or prove anything to you.
You need to polish up your vernacular. The “whilst” has mostly disappeared, but then you come up with “What you got in mind, Peter, my lovely?”; “would you be ever so kind as to put some meat on those soup bones, my sweetheart?”;“by citing your lovely find”; please kindly put some meat on those soup bones. Your stock is a little thin right now. A soupçon of evidence would be greatly appreciated.
Who in the United States writes like an English children’s author?
St. Augustine of Hippo determined that “in the absence of all will to deceive, lying is altogether absent.”
Serenity-Cas has come here and attempted to stir thing up for some time. Only recently, has the Cas personality started to infer the common bond of being a US resident and voter with allegiance to our form of government by referencing “our president.”
It is distasteful enough to play the Cas goal shifting, circular argument, niggling games of quarrelsome demands, but to have her project herself as one in same among us debating a system which directing affects our lives is loathsome.
I have put this question of general location in the US and US citizenship to Cas before and, naturally, she just disappeared.
Liars are like that.
I rise to retract and extend my comments @ #7 above. Being skeptical of Trump’s ability to maneuver Congress, I fell for the trap of thinking that the Senate had gone rogue on The Donald. It hasn’t. After doing due diligence, I am withdrawing my comment, made is haste and shooting from the lip.
Secretary Price, Trump and the Congressional leaders are by-passing Obamacare while allowing it to remain and creating a second system which will steal the oxygen from Obamacare and cause it to wither on the vine.
The Senate bill actually solidifies government health care through Medicaid for people in the lowest income brackets. It also solidifies Medicare. The Senate can pass it with a mere majority under the rules of reconciliation.
That reconciliation repeals Obamacare spending, tax increases and mandates. It chokes Obamacare, but it does not repeal it. The House must follow suit.
The next action comes from Health and Human Services Secretary Price who uses the voluminous language in Obamacare which directs the Secretary to flesh it out. Secretary Price, “fleshes out” Obamacare by rescinding 200 or so Obamacare rules created by Sibelius and thousands of “letters of guidance” sent hither and yon by the Obamacare bureaucracy.
Obamacare will still exist, but gutted to the bone.
Then comes new legislation permitting insurance to be sold over state lines, medical malpractice tort reform, and many other cost lowering measures.
With all its teeth pulled, Obamacare can gum itself to it own demise.
This “process” is too arcane for general consumption; it is the game of lawyers and schemers getting around the obstacle rather than trying to mow over top of it.
I live in an area where everyone gets top notch healthcare whether they can afford it or not. I live not too far from where there are people in great need of health care, but it is not available to them, whether they can afford it or not. We have discrepancies. But those problems are best worked out at the state level and then locally. From my perspective, the Trump crowd is on the right track.
The unions backed Obamacare because their pension funds were in deep trouble from overpromising in health care. Multinational corporations (which own the Chamber of Commerce) wanted health care costs off their ledgers. Big Pharma jumped into Obamacare to protect their profit structure. Big Education gets mountains of medical grants from the government and it smelled more money under Obamacare.
Those forces are forces to be reckoned with in the same way Trump is a force to be reckoned with. This story is far from finished, but I believe the chapter on Obamacare has it on its knees.
We have long had a system of Medicare and Medicaid and they are both financially troubled. Obamacare did absolutely nothing by way of trying to bring those systems back to solvency. The nation expects and has been promised that the poor and the elderly will have socialized medicine. Now we must make it work and provide the mechanism for those who pay for their health care to get best possible care and value for their dollars spent.
Obamacare was a scheme to wreck healthcare in the US in order to bring it all into the control of the state. That train is about to leave the tracks.
Dear Heliotrope,
I have two questions for you:
You are calling me a liar because I have told you that I live in the US and you do not believe me–the word “here” does not apply to me apparently. What could I say to make you believe me? Q1. What evidence would be good enough for you?
You have called me a liar for the fourth time and I again ask for the fourth time: Q2 What is your evidence that justifies your claim? I read your reply–and the only thing that vaguely looks like evidence is that I apparently sound like a children’s book author, which gave me a bit of a giggle. And to answer your rhetorical question of who writes like that here in the US–I do! 🙂 So, as far as I can tell, you are acting as I assert you do when you can’t mount a rational argument or when someone doesn’t buy into your rhetorical flourishes–you just make unsubstantiated ad hominem attacks–in bad faith.
You quote St. Augustine to me. I am not as well versed as you in the Saint, but this stood out for me when reading the Confessions:
“What then have I to do with men, that they should hear my confessions–as if they could heal all my infirmities- a race, curious to know the lives of others, slothful to amend their own? Why seek they to hear from me what I am; who will not hear from Thee what themselves are? And how know they, when from myself they hear of myself, whether I say true; seeing no man knows what is in man, but the spirit of man which is in him? But if they hear from Thee of themselves, they cannot say, “The Lord lieth.” For what is it to hear from Thee of themselves, but to know themselves? and who knoweth and saith, “It is false,” unless himself lieth? But because charity believeth all things (that is, among those whom knitting unto itself it maketh one), I also, O Lord, will in such wise confess unto Thee, that men may hear, to whom I cannot demonstrate whether I confess truly; yet they believe me, whose ears charity openeth unto me.”
Or, not, as the case may be.
Hi Heliotrope,
“The Senate bill actually solidifies government health care through Medicaid for people in the lowest income brackets. It also solidifies Medicare.”
What an interesting word–“solidifies.” What does that actually mean? If you mean taking people off the roles, I think the Senate provisions will do a good job of that. How does it “solidify” health care for the poorest folks on Medicaid? And how many other folks will lose coverage, Heliotrope, while the lowest are “solidified”?
As for unions etc supporting the ACA, I think they would be very happy with Denninger’s approach to lowering healthcare costs in any case (as long as it could be done).
I can’t even read Cas’ bile anymore as she responds to Heliotrope. Phony baloney claptrap. The handle on my barf bucket is broken & sandwich bags aren’t big enough. It’s funny though, that Commies think everyone pays attention to them. Little voices, fading into the distance. Insignificant & desperate to avoid their demise. They eat their young & put their old out to die in the elements.
Poor Pelosi & her big old rack.
Then do not read what I say, Hanover.
That will help your nausea.
If you are a citizen of the United States, just say:
“I, Cas, am a citizen of the United States.”
If you live in one of the 50 states just say which general area you live in, such as:
“I, Cas, live near the one of the Great Lakes.”
This is the second time over the years that I have asked you to do this.
Dear Heliotrope,
If you want answers to your questions, you will need to share with me the evidence that you have that proves to your mind and objectively to others that I do not live in the US. Evidence that allows you to call me a liar even after I have told you I live “here” in the US. Your approach to me in this matter has been wrong and disrespectful on any number of levels. You may be completely unaware of this, but over the course of the last few days you have not “asked”, you have “demanded.” You have insulted. I ask you for a real apology–just as you would offer if you had behaved this way to a person standing in front of you. You don’t have to offer it, but I give you bupkis until I receive it.
I would like us to share some mutual common courtesy from now on. On that note, please tell me of the injuries that I have caused you. I am responsible for my mess and I will listen and respond to you with openness and respect. I expect the same in return from you. Either we can talk to each other going forward with mutual respect and the sharing of our ideas or we can ignore each other.
You decide where we go from here.
Cas
Bwaaaahahahahahaha!
You continue the deception. You feed the skepticism. You can not bring yourself to answer the most simple of fact questions.
So, you are actively deceiving for no purpose. You are not hiding Anne Frank in your attic. ICE is not banging on your door in the dead of night. You choose a game of cat and mouse over your friggin’ citizenship and general area of residency.
By implication, you “imply” that you are here in the good old USA. You refer to our president. But skepticism abounds on my end of you babbling and I call BS on you.
You don’t dare tell the truth of your status, because you will have to admit your deceptions. Liars are always caught up in that crap.
I told you that your deception gets under my skin. You boldly assumed that you, generally, get under my skin. Not so, Cas, the liar, I can stand maggots until they lie.
You want to “share some mutual common courtesy.” That is an intergalactic hoot!!! Just as soon as anyone who agrees to any of your rules, you start throwing red flags, blowing whistles and assessing penalties.
Cas, the liar, you are the classic sophomore, always ready to niggle, change the goals, unload conditionals, and so for in your search for attention.
I linked to one of dozens of alternatives to Obamabicare which I have in my research bank. I informed you that it was an example and not something I was promoting or caring to debate. It was to educate you that there are serious people who are seriously proposing serious alternatives. BOOM.
You come right back and want to debate particulars. Sophomoric to the hilt.
Either tell the truth or not. You have pretty well hung yourself with most everyone at GP. Your games go nowhere and you bore us.
Thank you for your reply, Heliotrope. I guess you and I are the last two folks reading this thread–how apropos for an ending! As Augustine would observe, you made your choice and I have made mine. I love your rhetorical flourishes by the way, very Trumpian.
You admire Trump a great deal. And a major reason for this is is that you share many of his qualities, good and bad. I am struck, for example, by how you emulate his rhetorical style–he uses “Crooked Hilary,” “Lyin’ Ted,” and “Little Marco.” I watch the way you label people, “littlelettermikey, the fascist,” and “Cas the Liar” (a little Medieval, I think, but so be it) and “DemonizingRats” more generally. The thing about Donald Trump’s naming habits, and I am not the first to point this out, is that its amazing how his nicknames for people actually reflect his own impulses.
Your insulting name for mike interests me, for example. You appear to have fascist impulses yourself, Heliotrope. For example, I haven’t seen mike write that a whole (under-) class of people should suicidally eliminate themselves, as I have seen you write. I haven’t seen mike write about his emphatic agreement with George B. Shaw’s eliminationist approach to the poor–society should actively get rid of them, but you have. And mike didn’t write how he supported the behavior of those who use barely disguised threats of harm in order to silence commenters on this site–but you have. I don’t follow mike’s comments as much as yours, but then again, I haven’t really engaged mike, I have engaged you. That love of force as a solution to problems that you go to when you get “stirred up” is definitely a fascistic impulse and you have it.
I don’t think you are a fascist. I do think that your support for the rule of law is a bit Trumpian as well, as your behavior on my last example I mentioned (which happened to me by the way) demonstrates. You love the Constitution. No doubt. But I would wager that in a national emergency–a Reichstagian fire of some sort perhaps(?)–you will be near first in line when our President uses Article 1, Section 9, Clause 2 to deal with the emergency, so as to support his use of it. So, I see your insulting titles as projections of your own inner impulses and your subsequent behaviour, just as I do with Donald Trump.
As for your complaints that I won’t share answers that you want–did it ever occur to you to actually ask why I might be changing the way I talk about this country and my place in it, instead of you adding up 2 and 2 and coming up with 5? There are a lot of other possibilities than your choice. Think about any of those?–Nope. You went straight for the “liar” moniker without evidence and without charity. And when I challenged you on it, instead of being a man about it and owning it, you worked your way into a little corner where you currently reside. Very Trumpian. Why not tell you what you want to know now and be done with it? One should not reward poor behaviour–and your behaviour has been poor. St. Augustine had some interesting ideas on the approach you have chosen to take-you could reread him for profit.
That is it from me. Thank you for the arguments we have had. They have been interesting at times and I learned quite a bit over the years.
And so it is put to rest.
Cas tacitly agrees that our president and here (in America) was a deceit. Thus, Cas, the liar is a shoe that fits and she wears it into her departure.
That taffy won’t pull. Cas, you are past your expiration date and turned to mush.