Senator Tom Cotton says House Speaker Paul Ryan’s Obamacare replacement bill will not pass the Senate. Meanwhile, on Face the Nation, House Speaker Paul Ryan said there would be a ‘Bloodbath’ if GOP Fails to Pass Healthcare Legislation.
Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Sunday said he agrees with President Trump that 2018 will be a “bloodbath” for Republicans if Congress does not pass legislation repealing and replacing ObamaCare.
“I do believe that if we don’t keep our word to the people who sent us here, yeah,” Ryan told CBS News’s “Face the Nation,” when asked if he agreed with Trump’s reported comments about the 2018 midterm elections.
Ryan, who used a PowerPoint presentation to defend the House proposals last week, said during the CBS interview that members of Congress are “breaking your word” if they don’t keep campaign promises. “Look. The most important thing for a person like myself who runs for office and tells the people we’re asking to hire us, ‘This is what I’ll do if I get elected.’ And then if you don’t do that, you’re breaking your word,” he said.
Ryan’s Fear Mongering
Are we to believe that voters will switch back to Democrats (who will not reform health care) if Republicans don’t?
Ryan’s fear mongering is nonsensical. How many times has he broken his word? Is Ryan still in office?
Political Risks
The Financial Times reports Republicans Confronted by Political Risks of Obamacare Repeal.
Republicans are being confronted with the political hazards of fulfilling a core Donald Trump pledge as forecasts suggest their plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act will rip health insurance away from millions of people.
While 20m people secured health insurance under President Barack Obama’s reforms, at least 15m will lose it under the Republican plan, according to the Brookings Institution, a think-tank. S&P Global Ratings forecast that 6m-10m people would forfeit coverage.
“I’ve been involved in campaigns since 1970 and I have never seen a more politically dangerous undertaking than the way they are handling this,” said Steve Bell, a former Republican staffer on Capitol Hill.
While moderate lawmakers worry about low-income Republican voters losing health insurance, rightwingers on the other side of the party complain that the plan from the House of Representatives is insufficiently radical.
Republican leaders are braced this week for an official estimate of how their plan would affect health coverage from the Congressional Budget Office, a non-partisan body. But in anticipation of an ugly number, which could come as early as Monday, the White House has sought to undermine the CBO’s credibility.
Tom Cotton, a Republican senator from Arkansas, said the bill in its current form was a non-starter. “I would say to my friends in the House of Representatives . . . do not walk the plank and vote for a bill that cannot pass the Senate and then have to face the consequences of that vote,” he told ABC.
Paul Ryan, the House speaker who is the bill’s biggest champion, has said Republicans must “make good on our word” to repeal and replace Obamacare, which has been a party mantra in four consecutive elections.
But he has dodged questions on how many people would lose coverage under their plan, stressing instead that the change of system would be managed to minimise disruption.
Republican Dilemma
Politically speaking, it is far more likely there is a Republican bloodbath over a botched health care replacement, than no replacement at all.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock.
Paul Ryan seems like a poor leader; he does not work with the other repubs very well. Senator Paul offers pertinent advice, and he just gets ignored. There are a few repubs I would like to see lose the next election, as long as they are not replaced by dummycrats.
Ryan is nothing better than a political whore who is beholden to the status quo. He was firmly against trump all the way, but him and McConnell both play the, “Oh yeas, we are behind Trump 100%, yatta, yatta, yatta…”. and sabotage him behind the scenes every inch of the way. Republican-Democrat is the topical fake news story, The truth is that there is no such thing and hasn’t been for years, but instead, a huge push for ‘The Agenda”.
Is…is…..Ryan a Rino even…at all……
Ryancare is atrocious, continues to exclude the free market, and gets nothing right. Fix it, Republicans.
Ryan is a goober from that Chicago suburb known as southeastern Wisconsin….
Same place Scott Walker, and Reese’s Pieces are from……. Chicago suburb of southeastern Wisconsin….
What’s wrong with Scott Walker? Best gov Cheeseland has had in a long time.
Didn’t say there was, but they supposedly all grew up together – and have acted as a triad before………
Can someone explain to me how it’s fair for people not paying insurance premiums to get coverage for per-existing conditions when they get sick? Isn’t that what insurance is?
Because “fair” is just a word. Which can,according to those progressively indoctrinated enough to never outgrow children’s fairy tales, mean whatever their master choose it to mean, at any given time.
I think it was Marx who told us what is fair.
“From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”.
Progressives will not be satisfied (and not even then) until we ALL submit to this ideology. Whether the world is actually fair is far less important than our submission (if not acceptance) of this theme. It is the ROOT of their power, the notion of fairness, which as you say is only a word that any rational mind would immediately understand is defined by each of us relative to our own interests and values.
The “collective” is NOT a financial goal or ideal, It is a MENTAL collectivism where we ALL share the same ideology to the EXCLUSION (rejection,violently if necessary) of all others.
It is not arguable that shared values are the basis of a peaceful society, but it is highly questionable to believe that those values can be imposed upon people with any hopes that they will last. So far, communist experiments have failed in large scale attempts, but not without huge costs, and this is what makes it such a deadly ideology as it sees NO cost too high to achieve its goals.
“Fair” is just a “weasel” word that Con Artists, and Politicians with their Paid Protestors use……..
I find it amusing you attach the word “progressive” to the word “fair”. Trump didn’t make a single campaign speech without saying either “unfair” or “they haven’t been fair”.
The ones running the publicly funded indoctrination/”education” “system” for the past century, have had a lot more sway over what words “mean” at any given time, than Trump.
Besides, Trump is,, by pre progressive movement standards, very much a progressive as well. Just as wedded to the idiocy that government can somehow be some kind of useful institution, as the rest of them are.
can anyone explain to me why they think that health insurance is the same as healthcare?
Unfortunately the USA has too many robotic product consumers whose higher brain functions no longer fire on all cylinders. The main interest is immediate gratifications. Give me this, give me that, give me more. Insurance, cell phone minutes, food, super-sized drinks. Hardly matters what, as long as there is more of it. The capacity to reason and think logically are underdeveloped. It should be obvious that not everyone needs or wants healthcare insurance with high deductibles and high premiums shoved down their throats by the USA Senate like Iraq War II. People can be healthy and in good health without government-enforced health insurance mandates. MSM certainly does not help with its phony headlines like 40,000 deaths if Obamacare is repealed.
Health care is a battle the GOP (Cotton, McCain, Neo-cons) and Democrat War Party Senators want to lose for the American people. The Senators want War with Russia very badly, and the hope is that the American people will blame Trump and Ryan over health care. Then a more compliant Nancy Pelosi will deliver the House of Reps and War against Russia in exchange for preserving Obamacare, health insurance company profits, and the continued collectivization of USA society on the path to Lenin’s Stalinist worker’s paradise. The USA Senate is becoming the House of Traitors. No one can explain it, because it is too complex, like Obamacare itself. But if you read American history or look at books like Robert Caro’s LBJ biography, Master of the Senate, you will see that these congressional trade-offs are historically the norm in the USA.
Those of us in the financial services field who are not blinded by Ideology realize that we simply do not, nor can not, with the current private sector/quasi monopolistic nature of health care delivery in America see a Republican Plan which will work much better than Obamacare did as had the Republicans tried to work with fixing the various issues with it instead of demonizing a Republican Heritage Foundation (including the mandate) plan it could have worked far better than it did. The Republicans by demonizing it have actually speeded up the inevitability of single payor.
We currently have rationing based on ability to pay in the USA and if you think we do not have a monopoly in the hospital industry then go try and open one in a community which has a hospital already and see how much luck you have, or for that matter try and negotiate with a health care provider (I have) and see how much luck you have with that. Heck try and get a straight answer on how much your total bill will be.
I tend be a capitalist within reason and a pragmatic one at that and I see no better system possible in a modern complex society like ours than a Medicare for ALL payor plan which preserves the vast majority of private sector providers.
Have you used Medicare?
How about the VA healthcare system?
It’s one thing to admire something in theory, and something else entirely to force everyone in this country to adopt it.
It’s a funny thing how Obamacare, through the creation of another entitlement, has changed the conversation from fixing healthcare to fixing Obamacare….something that was supposedly created as a response to a crisis that until now was not actually born.
And all we now hear in our conversation is NOT healthcare but insurance and how many have it….regardless of if they can afford to use it due to exceptionally high deductibles.
We so much want to believe that our problems can be solved by a law, or specifically “systems” that will somehow circumvent the necessity of actual WORK that would EARN that which is needed for sustenance, rather that a government created entitlement that takes from a diminishing population to provide to a growing dependent one.
Is this the economic”growth” we have been looking for?
We don’t have to force people into Medicare, just have it available as a single-payer option for those under 65 alongside the unaffordable-for-most private insurance plans. If you don’t want it because you can get a better deal from an employer or elsewhere then don’t buy into it. And are you aware of Medicare Advantage plans? They’re a hybrid of Medicare and private coverage for those who want (or need) supplemental coverage to enhance their basic Medicare. That would be available to everyone too — but only if they can afford it, so don’t worry about anyone getting a slightly larger cookie than you.
You can’t have that without cost controls, as well as mandates to treat, draconian enough to render providers effectively nationalized as well. You need to wrest control over the supply of doctors from the AMA, for one. Or you’ll always have too few willing to work at the wages you can afford to pay.
Ditto for lawsuits against care providers. Having the government involved in paying for malpractice insurance, just so ambulance chasers can have some deeper pockets to fleece, isn’t exactly sustainable either.
In reality, single payer means European style. Managed, and rationed, from the janitors on up.One can try to pretend there is a third way, but like in all else in the world, there never is. Every line in the sand at the halfway house, will just be gamed until it’s no longer sustainable, and needs to be abandoned for one with less opportunity to game/make free decisions. All the way until we are Europe. Or more like, until both Europe and we are like Europe would have been without drug prices and research subsidized by Americans.
European style also means a substantial shrinkage of the health care sector as a whole. Since there, the the ones both paying and rationing are the same, almost exclusively healthy, people. Meaning, they’ll inevitably choose to dedicate less of the total share to health care, than a bunch of sick guys would. In America, a geezer can burn millions sustaining life another day or some if, as is not uncommon, their “plan,” via their doctor who takes a cut, allows them to “demand” it.
So, if for some reason, the goal is to make sure “everyone has health insurance,” you either have Europe, or you simply put blind trust in a free society being charitable enough to offer some help to those who happen to be unfortunate. And then let the chips fall where they want.
If you pick Europe, you’re on your way to a slow motion Soviet Union. Starts out seemingly OK, but all movement is backwards, as there is no incentives for forward motion.
If you pick freedom, things may always be a bit rough around the edges and without formal guarantees, but efficiency improvements will, according to all and any theory, as well as whatever there is of available empiri, ensure that even a charity level that is a small fraction of what the “Europeans” are mandated to contribute, will over time render more better care in absolute terms, than even an unsustainable large share of the frozen forever processes of a command economy.
Which is just a roundabout way of restating the age old dictum that the exponential growth function with the largest exponent, will ALLWAYS,,in the end, not just surpass, but completely dominate any others. And I can’t imagine even Krugman being able to delude himself into genuinely believing, that a centralized, command economy style, health care sector, will result in a faster rate of efficiency improvement, than a free market one.
They do not crave efficiency, they only crave CONTROL. Efficiency is only a ploy that they attempt to claim, not based on any evidence, only theory that size implies efficiency, like General Motors. Any search for supporting FACTS are more rare than affordable healthcare.
@Garry Gentry — I don’t believe you work in financial services. If you do, you should work in another field.
Doctors, who as a group are depicted as having no business sense (see every boiler room broker movie), can tell you that Medicare doesn’t pay bills on time. The AVERAGE time for uncle sam to pay is more than 16 months. SIXTEEN MONTHS. As in MORE THAN ONE YEAR.
You supposedly work in finance and you think accounts receivable should be in arrears for 16 months? Are you insane or lying about what field you work in?
PS — according to the GAO, Medicare is going to be bankrupt in 2018. Even government bureaucrats know medicare isn’t viable long term
I had a Medicare-covered operation and overnight hospitalization in mid-December and Medicare had paid everything before the hospital’s January 31st billing cycle.
You might have a doctor with a sucky office manager (who happens to be his second wife) who doesn’t submit Medicare bills correctly nor promptly, lets things pile-up and intends to fix it later, never gets around to it, and eventually turns it over to an outside billing service. You doctor thinks he’s getting under-compensated 14 months later than he expected when actually he’s just been charged the hidden cost of enjoying his trophy wife (who wants to be in the office to make sure wife #3 doesn’t usurp her).
What is it that you fail to understand about financial failure and collapse. The current system you and so many others enjoy as “something for nothing” is NOT financially sustainable.
Medicare is “less not sustainable” than the other options because much more of the money that passes through it is spent on actual healthcare rather than the useless friction of administrative overhead and the drain of huge salaries and cushy retirements for executives. Effective spending good; waste and corruption bad. Why can’t you understand that?
“Perfect is the enemy of good.”
— Voltaire (if he wrote in English).
Insurance is not sustainable, especially that which is furthest removed from real markets (Medicaid medicare). Government continues to simply insert cash behind program losses…that are mounting radically.
Insurance is a “scheme” that relies on our nature to pursue the good deal, the something for nothing, and we are scared to death that our doctor and hospital bills will ruin us. It is the insurance companies that have enabled the run up in healthcare costs, just as it has been student loans responsible for the high cost of education…and new cars for that matter. No one worried about what anything costs, only what their monthly nut is. Rather than us dealing with out of control healthcare costs, our government has tasked itself with how to shift those escalating costs onto more and more people, and when they run out of those victims, it will simply be added to our debt……the same they are doing with medicaid, medicare and soon social security. All shortfalls between our promised entitlements and reality are taken up in our debt, and that is fine as long as you believe that debt is infinite, that it will never be called or paid, nor interest accrued…which is a bad bet. And to think or expect government to be the pinnacle of efficiency and propriety is just simply LAUGHABLE.
@firstname bullsh!t — “…much more of the money that passes through it is spent on actual healthcare rather than the useless friction of administrative overhead…”
OK, you might have well just admitted that you are too stupid to comment or you don’t know a damn thing about medical costs. Your statement is just complete bullsh!t and evidence of your ignorance. Not even medicare staffers would write something that stupid
Until you write something that suggests you have a clue, your comments aren’t worth reading.
@firstname lastname — you are either a fool or a medicare employee making excuses.
According to medicare staff (not MY doctor), the average payment period is 16 months. That is medicare’s version of the story.
A year ago, my doctor claimed the average wait was 14 months, while medicare at that time said the average was 13 months.
Whatever boo boo you went into the hospital for was either you being a hypochondriac (the doctor didn’t do anything) or else your entire story is false.
If you want to argue that medicare itself is lying when THEY say the average wait is 16 months, then we all know how much to value your comments here
No, I’m saying you are a stranger to the facts (which is a kind way of calling you either uninformed or a liar).
“Ryan Foresees ‘Bloodbath’”
At current rates, that will cost $20,000 depending upon your care provider, $500 if you have no insurance and use a provider who takes cash.
I can remember when you could get a bloodbath for $25 tops.
It’s pretty simple.
Republicans won the last election with two promises.
Build the wall.
Repeal obamacare.
True. But Republicans, like DImocrats, are politicians, which means that they lie for a living.
Republicans won the last election with gerrymandering.
So, Phil, how do you gerrymander (a) the Senate, and (b) the Presidency?
By failing to count illegals TWICE.
I think you’d fit right in on Capitol Hill. . .if you’re not already there.
According to progressives, you are likely not a real American unless you did come here illegally….or as a slave.
Interesting choices… presidency and senate both elected in ways that distort the value of each vote, presidency via electoral college, senate through a system that gives Montana the same number of senators as Texas, or California. That’s why Trump is so unpopular- millions more Americans voted for the other team.
And they were all located within two very small regions….east coast and west. Look at the voting district maps and tell us how democrats were cheated. The thing is completely red with a few dark blue spots that look like mold starting on a loaf of bread.
Gerrymandering was invented by progressives who insisted that convoluted districts be drawn to forcibly elect minorities. Progressives continually demand democracy but entirely unrestricted in any way including actual proof of identity, yet routinely reject any democratic results that fails to provide the desired result. Democracies would typically reflect the majority will unless that majority is white or conservative. When democrats won the presidency they blatantly told republicans that elections have consequences and that they should be content sitting in the back of the bus… but when they lose…well! When they lose they scream and shout DEMANDING a seat at the table….because they are a MINORITY, and regardless of democracy or RULES, they MUST be considered.
An Obamacare law that grabbed 17% of the nations economy and 100% of Americans freedom of choice in their healthcare, was passed with ZERO republican votes, and neither they nor their progressive media had any issue with it….after all, they were doing it for the children. But let’s watch a republican bill get passed with little or no democratic support, lets see how the media presents THAT democratic process. We KNOW what the rules are….the republicans in congress know what the rules are as well as they KNOW they will be lynched if they deprive a single person of insurance or cause a single rat to increase….and we KNOW that they could put the Obamacare bill back up 100% intact and the democrats STILL would not vote for it if it was associated with Trump.
Gerrymandering complaints from the left are LAUGHABLE given their perspective on the democratic process, as ALL districts are corrupt if they fail to vote democratic.
“Gerrymandering was invented by progressives who insisted that convoluted districts be drawn to forcibly elect minorities.”
My your ignorance (o perhaps your cupidity) certainly shows. The so called “Gerry-Mander” long predates the Progressive Era. Governor Gerry was a Democratic-Republican, a Jeffersonian.
To wit:
“Etymology of gerrymander:
early 19th century: from the name of Governor Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts + salamander, from the supposed similarity between a salamander and the shape of a new voting district on a map drawn when he was in office (1812), the creation of which was felt to favor his party: the map (with claws, wings, and fangs added), was published in the Boston Weekly Messenger, with the title The Gerry-Mander .”
Yes, Republicans are corrupt and Democrats are doing it for the children. What was once seen as simple corruption is now social justice. Progressives INVENTED social justice gerrymandering. I should have been more specific.
I must disagree, 2 banana: Repubs did not win , Trump won – in spite of the republicans.
He won on more than a wall and a repeal; I think my favorite is “Drain the Swamp!”
Ryan is a 2-faced forked tongue RINO. Believe nothing he tells you. He groveled before Obama’s feet and gave the ^$%&%* whatever he wanted.
If Trump hitches his wagon to this GOP healthcare fiasco he will pay dearly in 2020. It will neither lower your costs nor give you better healthcare.
The GOP congress didn’t write this new proposal. The healthcare industry (their sugar daddies) wrote it.
Now they have to hurry up and pass it before the masses figure out what’s in it.
I really hope that Trump is just letting Ryan hang himself. Based on his Apprentice persona (which may have just been TV, but…) Trump seems to enjoy playing childish Machiavellian office politics. Maybe Trump gets a thrill from manipulating Ryan into committing career suicide?
The problem is time. Uncle Sam has a severe cashflow problem coming up in 2018 (when even the government bureaucrats concede Medicare will be cashflow bankrupt). It will take time to implement a real fix, and RyanCare clearly isn’t going to solve anything. its crap.
If Pelosi or Ryan (or anyone else in Congress) actually believed in Obamacare or Medicare — they would be leading by example. They and everyone in Congress would be on the same programs as the people they work for.
Good riddance to Paul Ryan the loser.
But please Mr Trump stop wasting everyone’s time playing Congress’ stupid games. You were sent to Washington to drain the swamp, not encourage their nonsense
I like your idea that Donny may be “manipulating Ryan into committing career suicide?”
That would give me a thrill. You go Donny!
If you have to go to the government to protect your health, there is something fundamentally wrong with our government.
+1
Ryan is going to get the ax is he doesn’t repeal Obamacare, that is what he is afraid of. All the loser has to do is put forth the EXACT same bill that both the Senate and House passed back in October/November of last year (and vetoed by Obama). Problem solved.
Ryan thinks he can screw over the middle class in order to placate the welfare crowd that leans heavily democrat (always has). Is this Ryan guy really that dumb? Trump won middle class America, who is fed up with endless taxes to support endless welfare and illegal immigrants.
Ryan is likely going to be thrown out, and quite bluntly good riddance to him.
As for the rest of the isolated criminals in Congress (BOTH parties)… if they really believed Obamacare/RyanCare was important, they would lead by example. Congress, congressional staffers, Supreme Court, all federal employees would be on Obamacare.
Even that witch Pelosi knew from the start that Obamacare was crap, which is why she and the rest of the losers voted to exempt themselves instead of leading by example. First rate losers, every stinking member of congress BOTH parties.
Paul Ryan just ended his political career. The man is too stupid to lead anyone.
Obamacare will get repealed because America can’t afford to keep it. The sooner the criminal class in Washington figures this out, the better off they will be.
As for stupid liberals who can’t do math and think Obamacare is fiscally viable, perhaps you shouldn’t have majored in gender inequality “studies”
“Ryan is likely going to be thrown out, and quite bluntly good riddance to him.”
Yeah well, I’ve been saying that about super-RINO McCain also, but he is still around.
Don’t bet against the stupidity of the average voter. But maybe there is hope! After all, Donald got elected.
If you have to go government for health care there is something seriously wrong with government.
I’d rather have the Canadian health care system than the turd sandwich we have today – or the future turd sandwich we’d get (under the current proposed plan) if Ryan gets his way.
Canada’s health system depends on massive subsidies from oil royalties. It does not pay for itself, despite Canada having substantially higher taxes (and fewer people). It also relies on implicit subsidies because Canadians do not pay for any “research and development” costs — they get a free ride from the US system. Admittedly, a lot of R&D is really the exorbitant costs of the FDA and US university system, but Canada is still not paying even for the legitimate research costs.
As for the quality of care… it speaks volumes that many wealthy Canadians (including the last health minister) travel to the US for health care.
Canada has two health systems — a government system for the poor, heavily subsidized by the US and by oil royalties…. and a second system (travel to the US) for the wealthy.
People who majored in gender inequality studies really need to learn some basic math. Canada’s system would collapse without ongoing subsidies from the US.
Meanwhile, the cost inflation that is destroying US healthcare is ongoing in both Canada and the UK — the two systems liberals think are blueprints for further f’ing up health care in the USA.
As messed up and overpriced as the US health system is, putting the post office in charge will just make things worse.
Even losers like Pelosi and Ryan know this, which is why they exempted Congress from the suffering Obamacare is causing.
Both the Commonwealth Fund and WHO studies show that the USA pays the highest per capita costs for health care by far (I think it’s over $10,000 today) and the quality of our medical care is ranked near the lowest of the industrialized 1st world nations. Some nations spend HALF the per capita costs that we do and give their citizens health care quality that ranks significantly higher than ours.
That’s BS.
And it needs to get fixed. That’s the reason we voted for Trump. He’s only one man. I realize that. But if he can’t fix the corrupted system – then at the very least he needs to pull back the curtains and EXPOSE IT to the nation. That’s a big part of draining the swamp. To EXPOSE the skulduggery so the people know what the hell he’s dealing with!
If he goes along with Ryan it’s political suicide for both of them.
I don’t think your statement is correct — or rather it is only half correct.
From an accounting standpoint, the US pays twice as much… but that is because our hospital costs include a lot of things that are overhead or just not healthcare at all. Presidents of non-profit hospitals make seven figures in the US… which adds to costs but is not health care. An army of hospital administrators (not just billing clerks) adds to costs, but not to care. Non-profit hospitals have significant “fund raising” staff that are very well paid.
We also have lots of people who don’t pay their bills on time — Medicare at the top of the list. Medicare decides almost a year after the fact what they might cover and might not. Billing codes for medicare and private insurance is byzantine chaos, where the exact same procedure gets reimbursed at different rates depending on what mood the insurance company is in, the phase of the moon, and who knows what other random variables.
To compensate, doctors try to bill everything at the highest rate — and hope after all negotiations they come out ok. Medicare expects services rendered today, the nurses get paid today, the IRS wants taxes today — but medicare pays the bills 16 months later (maybe). Private insurance pays months later, after arguing endlessly over prices — often with little rhyme or reason. Services were already rendered, costs already incurred.
Imagine running a business where you sell a product now, and argue about the price after the fact — often after everyone has forgotten what the issue was? Putting the post office in charge (medicare is the same bunch of government bureaucrats) is not going to fix this and will likely make it worse.
Then there are lots of people who don’t pay. No insurance (even after obama fraud). Illegal aliens. In many cities people make up symptoms because the hospital has heat, A/C and food — while their apartment does not. That gets billed as healthcare, even though its not. Inner cities have “frequent flyers” (that is what emergency departments call the patients) — people who come in with gunshots or knife wounds or whatever ailment several times a week. These are not accidents or random illnesses — they are lifestyle choices mislabeled as health spending.
Now add the cost of drugs — that includes actual research costs, actual production costs.. but it also includes paying for FDA red tape, paying for college statistics professors moonlighting when they are supposed to be teaching, a battery of trial periods with tests who’s outcome cannot be repeated.
Also add the cost of litigation, where lawyers use 20/20 hindsight and crying plantiffs in wheelchairs to bamboozle sympathetic juries into awarding millions. Sometimes the defendant was incompetent (and should lose their medical license?), sometimes the doctor is only human, other times there really was nothing a doctor could do. Greedy lawyers and judges make no distinction, juries award millions — and US citizens pay the cost of malpractice insurance even though 2/3 cases (honest mistake and nothing could be done) are NOT malpractice at all.
The above all get charged as “health costs” even though they are clearly overhead or not really related. The US doesn’t measure health spending the same as other countries — a lot of US health spending should be labeled something else.
On top of these accounting problems, there is the underlying cost structure which is also obscene — but its not obvious that US costs are significantly different from other G7 countries (after you strip out the overhead above). Its impossible to say though, because we don’t have accurate accounting.
And only morons like Obama or Pelosi or Ryan would suggest that the bleeping US Post Office bureaucrats are going to make this situation better. Accounting and cost controls are not the expertise of the US government
I completely agree with you that Trump should expose the corruption that is Washington DC (both parties) whenever they attempt to use delay tactics to avoid needed changes.
Sunlight gets rid of cockroaches — and I apologize to any cockroaches that are offended at being likened to Pelosi or Ryan
One criteria that I’m looking for is the willingness of Congress to include the re-write as their own health care coverage. I’m tired of Congress exempting themselves from the rules and laws that they expect the rest of us to live by.
Republicans are every bit as bad as democrats in their own way. They are just as concerned about how they look to their true money supporters as the democrats. They are fighting trump just like the democrats except not so in the open. Both want to drag their feet and hope trump goes away in four years. All the while trumps own cabinet are gently tugging him from true change. Look at ryancare, it truly is obamacare lite. The whole thing is sad.
As long as “we the people” are held responsible for what will prove to be infinite healthcare demands of those who can claim to not be able to afford it, there will be no escape. The demand for what we are not willing to pay for will destroy us.
If you can’t afford to pay for basic health care out of pocket, then take fewer chances.
Exactly, Sixooo. I am a non-smoker (for 40 years now) and I am NOT HAPPY to pay the medical expenses for nicotine addicts (just one example).
What we are witnessing is gross incompetence from the republicans who are great at obstructing but miserable at governing. They are all bought and paid by American corporations so their interests align with the rapacious corporations instead of the American people.
Really dumb comment.
You could do a simple search and replace republicans –> democrats … and the statement would be equally true. Only an idiot believes there is any political party difference anymore.
The only reason the country has to take this moronic Ryancare detour is because that witch Pelosi committed fraud and bribery to jam obamacare down voters throats while exempting both parties of criminals inside the beltway.
Hillary lost because she is a crook and doesn’t even try to hide it. Paul Ryan, Warmonger McCain, Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz are all the same tired high school clique that has been mismanaging things for decades, when Bubba Clinton or Obama weren’t mismanaging things. And Bernie Sanders is so dumb (senile?) that he proposed Venezuela Hugo Chavez style socialism.
Both political parties should be labeled DnR (look up “do not resuscitate” if you are confused)
Idiot.
Bought Democrats have no sympathy from me either.
Just extend Medicare for all. The system is in place, the administration is in the place, the rules are in place. Probably need to make a few tweaks and all will be good.
And yes, EVERYONE will have to buy into the system or pay stiff penalties. That is how insurance works to keep the price reasonable for everyone.
You need to learn some basic math Joe. Medicare is bankrupt, even the bureaucrats who watch over it say 2018 is the end.
Further, you should pay for your own nasty diseases. The rest of us do not need to subsidize your smoking habit or whatever you have. And if you want to even pretend to be American, forcing people to buy your insurance does not in any way fit in with the notion of freedom.
You propose to rape your fellow citizen to pay for your misdeeds — you hate freedom.
C’mon MedexMan. You know the vast majority of Americans can’t afford the vile, monopolistic sick management industry in these once-great United States. So good Americans are forced into wage slavery at a local retail outlet to get garbage health insurance. Aren’t you the one that truly hates freedom?
Medicare’s sustainability can be fixed. But first the government needs to step in and force the medical community into capitalism with transparent pricing.
If you can’t afford the overpriced private system, you sure as hell can’t afford the even higher priced one mismanaged by post office rejects and lying politicians.
As for your ridiculous suggestion that medicare can be made sustainable — that sounds ominously like the post office promising that stamps will never go above 21 cents. Its crap.
Lots of lying politicians have made the same empty promises you made about fixing medicare — and inevitably they just raised taxes and fixed nothing.
The UK already tried single payer and more transparent pricing — they still needed North Sea oil royalties to make ends meet. Even then, they started outsourcing hospital management to private companies several years ago (Richard Branson has Virgin Health that supposedly does a better job than the NHS, but still has cost issues).
Please do some research about how single payer systems have already been tried and already failed in countries with better bureaucracies that the US. It really makes all liberals look stupid when you suggest the crowd that gave us Amtrak is going to run things better than European socialist governments that are having big cost problems.
Well it is interesting listening to people who mostly don’t have a flippin clue here! I have a wife who is on medicare disability, and have coverage through my old employer because it had wonderful premiums of 1300 a month, but low out of pocket. Funny she was mid level executive who wrked in devision denying health care.it was for United Heath. The bottom line was they spent 20% of every dollar that United made denying care.Just imaginef the number of dollars abd people needed to do this. Well no with Obummer Care, they cany deny, an low an behold the drop coverage where they are losing there buts. Interesting that MD’ s for the most part can pay off their student loans without much trouble unless they are in family practice. Most MD’S in places like Canada, Eruope, UK make a decent living, no just an obscene like IN USA. OR REAL Obscene like wall street and corporate types, including Executive management in all hospitals. Go an look at all the big teachING public hospitals(it’s public record, and the salaries will blow your mind) Also hospitals get raped by costs from medical equipment and drugs. I worked 40 years in heath care and a single payer system is the only way to get costs under control. Plus you have to eliminate all the insurance bloodsucking company’s that try captalism/ the middle men bleed from the system, and add nothing. MD’ s, and administrators of hospitals would shout and hollar, but still make a good, not great living. And low and behold private insurance would become real competitve, and cost s would be watched down everwhere un the heath system. I have see the numbers, and untill we tell the health care industry where the sun shines, get reddy to be bent over. Yes all voter should tell every elected official, you get the same health care we do, no excuses. And if Drs, and executives don’t like, then let them go work in the dog eat dog world of Wall Street, and do a job that truly serves only themselves, and not the lives of others in society. Just saying😊
Ps sorry for bad spelling diction, sentence sructure etc, while doing it on phone late at nite., but i am sure you can follow what I am saying.😊
Let’s face it nothing is going to change as long as industry and the Medical industria lobbying complex is eliminated or exposed. No matter what changes this administration makes, the people of moderate or lower working means are going to get screwed. Make insurance companies work for our buisness it’s the only way. Unfortunately too if we were not trying to rule the world and stir up hornet’s nests everywhere there might be more money for heath and everthing else in America, but as ESEINHOWER said it is hard to get rid of guns and butter guys of the MLITARYICPLEX. PS, I AM NO KNOCKING Mds, the barrier to entry is long, and often unlike Wallstreet the don’t start earning till about age 30, and heath care more than skimming and churing money is an honorable profession. Just got to remember we live in the land of survival of the fittist. Yah Mish I have been going through 17 years of sorta what you did w your wife, and it is one son and a bitch. Would love to have just one system and payer to deal with!!!!
If I was a Dem political strategist who wanted a single payer national health care system I’d be delighted with the way this is unfolding. Within 4 years there will be dem white house, senate and house with a national moratorium on health care related personal bankruptcies.
Here’s a number that I heard the other day, not sure how accurate but probably close. 155 million people get there health insurance from there employers.
Isn’t that a problem.
“Are we to believe that voters will switch back to Democrats (who will not reform health care) if Republicans don’t?”
No, they will stay home, like the Democrats did last election. Midterms are always low turn out, it’s a question of who gets more of their base to the poles.
We as a nation can afford neither Obamacare nor Ryancare since neither one does anything about the reason for the actual costs of healthcare. The cost of automobile insurance would skyrocket in price if one could buy insurance after one has an accident. If the doctor said you have six months to live how much would be that million dollar life insurance policy? Then why should we expect health “insurance” to be different?
The fact is that the healthcare industry is a monopoly that engages in deceptive practices and restraint of trade. If your automobile needs repair the mechanic you choose must give you a written estimate as to labor and parts costs. But go to the doctor’s office and ask how much he will charge for a broken arm and no one can tell you. The standard answer is that “we have to bill the insurance company first and then you will get a bill for the remainder.” Well then, how much will you bill the insurance company? Oh, it depends on you insurance company and your particular plan. What if I don’t have insurance? Oh, well, I don’t know.
Antitrust laws are still on the books as is Wright-Patterson (deceptive practices), and a host of other anti monopolistic and anti competition laws. That is both federal and state laws. So why aren’t we clamoring for the AGs, both federal and state, to do their job and take the various healthcare entities to court, force them to obey the laws? If I like my doctor and he has his one clinic that is not affiliated with an HMO or hospital, then should I need hospitalization he will not be allowed to treat me because he does not have privileges with that hospital. Restraint of trade, pure and simple. In many rural parts of the country this is how lack of competition occurs. Town has a hospital and if any local doctor does not agree to the treatment schedules (like prescribing MRIs for broken bones – MRI is good for soft tissue and not bone) then a hospital affiliated doctor will be assigned to you and by the way, the hospital retains the records of treatment, not you or your personal doctor.
So why is ryan trying to do an insurance deal, a single payer type scheme that will not contain healthcare costs? As long as most of congress is beholden to the healthcare lobby then there is no solution.
Washington DC (both parties are the same) don’t care if you live or die. Actually, you probably pay them more taxes if you die, so hurry up and die taxpayer. We need to get on with taxing your heirs to death next.
Anyone who thinks they can still buy 21 cent stamps from the post office is probably dumb enough to believe government is going to control health COSTS. Its moronic.
This same government goes over budget on everything — aircraft carriers, farm subsidies, FEMA, legal costs, postage, medicare/medicaid, social security, building security (for themselves anyway, the TSA is a joke). Even the state department’s rebuilding of Afghanistan went tens of billions over budget and was riddled with fraud.
Lets be blunt here: the US government has a basic culture problem. They don’t care about private citizens except for the taxes they can take. If Congress actually believed in obamacare, they would not have exempted themselves — they know the plan is crap. Obama isn’t on his namesake plan either — because he knows its crap.
Stop thinking the government is going to fix things for you. America wasn’t built on that fraud, but that mistaken thinking is sure tearing the country down
The liberal, or more correctly the progressive thought process is that government knows best because the elite run government. Of course government never fixes anything per se. Oh, but Nasa sent men to the moon. One wonders if private enterprise would have done it cheaper an sooner if there was a profit motive. Having read enough history of war I can say that governments run wars in the most stupid and wasteful manner. But health care really has several parts which most individuals rarely understand. We have the normal transactions such ad yearly checkup, vaccinations, and the like. Prepaid medical expenses would cover that. then we have the exception handling cases. One breaks a leg or incurs s flesh wound requiring stitches, usually from some accident. This is the normal insurance risk pool type of affair. Then we have the catastrophic illness and preexisting conditions such as diabetes. Here one can argue for the intervention of the government for payment of the treatment. Pre-existing conditions are like your automobile having been in an accident and now we want the government (read taxpayers) pay the freight. Pre-existing conditions may be precipitated by acts of the individual. Diabetes is often the result of individual choices, so why should the public be held for ransom for pre-existing conditions?
Now compare this the assertion that women should have the right to abortion on demand regardless of individual behavior. Pregnancy is not a preexisting condition, it is the result of an individual choice. My point is that there are a great many pitfalls to the thinking about a nationalized healthcare system. Government can not fix what it doesn’t understand. But it can skew the results of an attempt of consensus by the people. This is one of the pitfalls to modern politics.
Everyone else on the planet has health care systems that cost half as much as the US, or even less. The entire rest of the developed world covers their entire population for what the US spends per capita to cover half, freeing their companies to compete without having to provide health insurance.
For five year plans and officially determined prices to have even a shot at working, even the Soviets realized they needed a New Zealand.
In addition, the socioeconomic structure of the US is less amendable to low cost medical care than it is in other countries. You simply cannot pay doctors here, what they get paid in Europe, and still expect to recruit amongst the best of graduates.
The US has used it’s reserve currency status, to hand so much money to financial and legal racket flotsam, who have then used their windfall to award themselves so much privilege (zoned themselves into de facto gated enclaves while the rest is ghettoifying fast), that top grads won’t become doctors unless they are paid enough to raise their families behind the zoning walls as well.
Noone, or at least few, go into medicine just to get rich. But everywhere in the world, doctors, who always work long hours, expect to not straight up suffer from lack of ability to lead a comfortable life, compared to all manners of financial racket and asset pump beneficiary halfwits. In America’s larger cities, that now takes Beverly Hills School District money. Plus Ivy League tuition for 3 kids. In Northern Europe, all it takes is being able to afford a house properly insulated for a cold winter. And even in Northern Europe, things are getting trickier, as the worldwide experiment in financialization is causing dislocations even there.
When you have societies where more than half, and growing, share of output is being consumed by a small, concentrated clique of people who in return produce LITERALLY NOTHING, or even less, of value in return, everyone else will suffer. And those we want ti have as doctors when we get sick, have not the slightest problem in the world doing “well” in the rackets instead, if that is the only option they have left for not falling on the “suffering” side of the ledger.
IOW, it’s not as simple as Trumpama “creating a healthcare system” and the everything will be Hope and Change and Great Again. America is pill rotten down to the very foundation. There’s virtually nothing left of any value. It’s all theft, shit, scam and scum, with nary a bright spot left in sight. And if there against all odds are one, you can pretty much guarantee the racketeers, form Yellen on down, will quickly dismantle that one as well, and feed the pieces to Goldman Sachs and their progressive enablers.
@mike — you need to better research your opinion
The rest of the world does NOT provide the same level of care as the US does. Depending on opinions (and they are mere opinions since many doctors in the same specialty cannot agree) — the US level of care might be better or more wasteful. But the other countries do not provide the same levels.
If you think every hospital in a major city in Europe will automatically give you an MRI or CAT scan, I have oceanfront property in Oklahoma to sell you. Fewer hospitals have the machines (or as updated), and their use is a lot more selective. In the US, many hospitals have the machines and over-use them as “defensive medicine”.
Other countries that you falsely claim offer “universal care” have even bigger differences. Costa Rica, to name one country with a better health record than the US, has a health system that does not cover anything close to what Americans expect. The power grid in San Juan, Costa Rica (the capital city) simply wouldn’t support the MRI machines that are common in Boston, Chicago or LA. To claim that Costa Rica’s “universal care” system is equivalent to the US is just plain ignorant.
Most Costa Ricans eat better, get more exercise, and get a consistent 8hrs of sleep — all factors in their superior health outcomes which have ziltch to do with the imaginary health system you seem to think would be a cure all if it existed anywhere on Earth.
Instead of insisting the US through money at a stupid overpriced health INSURANCE scam (that is all obamacare is or ever will be) — maybe you should try to educate yourself on how other countries actually function.
No country offers the health services the US does, at any price. No one. That is why the ultra-rich usually come to the US for advanced surgery procedures.
But many countries get better outcomes because of other lifestyle choices they make. Better eating habits, better exercise habits, better sleeping habits, etc. And those are not things that the governments (there or in the US) really control.
If you want to make the US more like these other countries, it would be far more accurate (though still incomplete) to say the US should slash taxes — which would let people work fewer hours for the same take home pay, and let them get more family time (less stress), better sleep, and at least in some cases better food (compared to fast food crap we eat at the office anyway).
I don’t know how many Americans would use the extra hours for “good” (this would be a major gotcha), but it has a much higher potential than a stupid tax for insurance scam that mostly just adds stress to everyone.
The blind and ignorant assertion that more government can solve every single problem — including problems caused by big government — is absurd.
Please take the time to study how other countries get better health outcomes, and stop just assuming more taxes can fix every problem. They don’t and they can’t
At current rates of medical cost inflation my total income will be consumed by insurance premiums sometime after 6 years from now. Long before then I will be locked out of the US healthcare system. If somehow people like me get government subsidies to offset premiums then taxes will need to be increased or money printed in quantities to kill the economy.
There really is no other option other than price cuts of at least 50% in the delivery of healthcare to bring costs down to the level in other developed nations. After all the problems with the Democrat ACA I am shocked this new Republican ACA doesn’t even begin to address this fundamental issue of the healthcare problem. It’s crystal clear to everyone here and I don’t understand why it is not being the first topic of discussion when presenting legislation to fix the problem.
You’re making the assumption that the republicans want to improve the healthcare system. They don’t. They want to channel more money into the racket, because more will come back into their pockets if they do so.
You liberals are making the assumption that ANYONE in Washington (which exempted itself from Obamacare) is trying to help the citizenry.
You already lied your @ss off to shove obamacare down our throats — you have zero credibility left. Just shut up.
It is not a liberal vs conservative issue to insist on value delivered for services paid. US healthcare is bloated with unnecessary overhead and provides very poor service. I have recently seen this with the care of elderly parents. Every medical service requires double checking, followup and review to determine if it is necessary or even safe. Diddling around with various health insurance price support programs will not fix the problem.
It would be great if there was a functioning system to provide emergency treatment for gunshots, accidents, heart attacks and strokes without releasing the treated patient into bankruptcy.. As well as a functioning system to provide routine care for a reasonable price. This can be accomplished and has been accomplished elsewhere. I don’t see how a system like this turns the US into a socialist country.
It hasn’t been accomplished elsewhere — that is just your political opinion, which is also why you can’t see that putting the US post office in charge of health care is socialism (BAD socialism as if there is any other kind).
Please do some research into actual real world outcomes before making more stupid socialist comments. No system — socialist or private sector — in the world has managed to control health care costs so far. And whatever isolated gains you think the Europeans have achieved (in your daydreams anyway), it is hardly straight forward or logical to think the US government could do the same.
Tell us why European trains run on time, while the US has Amtrak. Not excuses. Tell us why Amtrak has had more 5 year plans than the Soviet Union did, and it still sucks.
I saw a post on Zerohedge regarding Ryan. Made me pause to think it over, but the gist of it is they were making the supposition that Trump was letting Ryan have lots of rope to hang himself over this healthcare biz and then we’d be rid of him when he got voted out. Sounded good to me.
So much concern about “health care”, so little concern about the TRILLIONS pissed away on the wars, and the QE to keep the banksters from going down the crapper. Not to mention all the other criminal enterprises faciltated up there on the “hill”.
As Armstrong says….CRASH AND BURN is not far off.