I expected another round of fruitless failure where appeasing the “Freedom Caucus” would be at the expense of moderates.
Instead, Trump Tells G.O.P. to Fall in Line or Be Stuck With Obamacare.
President Trump issued an ultimatum on Thursday to recalcitrant Republicans to fall in line behind a broad health insurance overhaul or see their opportunity to repeal the Affordable Care Act vanish, demanding a Friday vote on a bill that appeared to lack a majority to pass.
As House leaders struggled to negotiate with holdouts in the hopes of rescheduling the vote, Mr. Trump sent senior officials to the Capitol with a blunt message: He would agree to no additional changes, and Republicans must either support the bill or resign themselves to leaving President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement in place.
“Guys, we’ve got one shot here,” he [Trump] told members of the Freedom Caucus at a meeting in the Cabinet Room, according to a person present in the room who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the meeting was private. “This is it — we’re voting now.”
A new estimate of the bill’s cost and its impact on health coverage further soured the picture for wavering lawmakers. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office on Thursday issued a report on the revised version of the health care bill showing that it would cost more than the original version but would not cover more people.
Recent changes to the bill, made through a series of amendments introduced on Monday, would cut its deficit savings in half. Instead of reducing the deficit by $337 billion, the new version of the bill would save only $150 billion over the decade.
Democrats say that the purpose of insurance is to share risk, and that without federal requirements, insurers would once again offer bare-bones policies. Before the Affordable Care Act took effect, maternity coverage was frequently offered as an optional benefit, or rider, for a hefty additional premium.
On the Ball Tweets
Why Bother?
If all you are going to save is $15 billion a year, does it make any sense to take a lot of heat and get clobbered in mid-term elections?
Is there a reason those who expect to use the most services should not pay more? Why shouldn’t maternity leave cost more? Why shouldn’t smokers pay more? Why shouldn’t the young pay less? Why are there no cost controls anywhere in the system?
Is this miserable replacement bill the best Republicans can come up with?
Obamacare is in a death spiral. Insurers are dropping out. Is there any reason to not let Democrats be the ones demanding changes when the system blows sky high instead of infighting now?
The public is massively against the Obamacare replacement. Even Republicans are against it.
Badge of Honor?
Obamacare Replacement Dead?
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Man, you are conflicted.
I think Trump wants the vote to fail. He can then blame the Republicans not being in line with him (which is exactly what they do). After his own popularity rises compared to those “corrupt politicians”.
Later he can pretty much get his way…or not…time will tell.
Truth to be told I find US politics more than a bit incoherent.
‘Zactly…TRUMP = 4-D chess….Ryan & Repubes, playing with themselves
The problem with leaving medicine to the private market is that insurance companies would’nt dare touch anyone 1. Over 60, 2. Diabetic, 3. Heart Issues, 4. Obese. What happens when an obese smoker needs a triple bypass ? Give him a few extra cholesterol pills and the business card of a discount funeral home ?
Insurance is not the only answer to health care and good health, though consumers are salivating like Pavlov’s dumb dogs for more health insurance at less cost as the best way to cheat death. The health insurance industry was Obama’s major career funder. As Health Insurance Salesman in Chief, Obama’s White House did a brilliant marketing (con) job (e.g. keep your doctor, have the same health plan as members of Congress, pay less money). But the health insurance product was deficient (e.g. skyrocketing premiums, high deductibles) for those not getting it as a freebie. About 10 million, or half Obamacare’s touted 20 million new customers, get health insurance for free via programs like Medicaid. Of course they want more and better at the same price (free) and are willing to march in the streets for the media cameras against Trump.
Why should a woman who does not plan to have children be forced to pay for maternity care insurance? It makes no sense. The feminists should be protesting this, rather than falling in line with the Marxist collective. It is like someone who does not drive or own a car and takes the bus to work being also forced to pay for unneeded automobile insurance. If insurance companies do not wish to offer free or low-cost health insurance to poor, obese smokers et al., the solution is grants to charitable hospitals and free medical education to doctors who work at charitable levels. Makes much more sense than billions for insurance subsidies, vast health exchanges, claims processing bureaucracies, etc. What is saved by eliminating paperwork and bureaucracy could block-grant fund all the needed charitable hospitals. The goal should be enough charitable outlets, not forcing health insurance sales.
“Why should a woman who does not plan to have children be forced to pay for maternity care insurance? It makes no sense.”
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Well then, why does my cable company make me buy stations that I never watch? Why can’t I buy just what I want/need? Because a standardized solution that applies equally to everyone will ALWAYS be cheaper to implement and administer than any a la carte system!
Your cable company isn’t insurance; however, the American military is insurance, so let’s bring back the universal military draft with no occupational exemptions, no educational exemptions, and no exemptions for, apparently, the current fifty genders so everyone can play there little parts in providing for the general welfare starting at age 26, apparently the current temporal boundary for the rite of passage into adulthood. It’s about the time the girls, and assorted genders, die in equal rates with the boys to go along with the girl’s equal pay with boys for time in grade instead of the boys doing all the dying so Omar and Fatima can have gay marriage in Damascus.
You can drop your cable subscription if the total cost/benefit to you doesn’t appeal to you. If there was a Minimal Channel Coverage Federal Mandate or you’re thrown in jail, Obamacare style, your cable bill would be infinitely more expensive and problematic.
you are not forced to pay for cable t.v. you are forced to pay for insurance unconstitutionally.
medicare rates are the same for everyone and social security payouts are the same for women who live years longer than men.
when govt mandates insurance they create profit for favored industries
Everyone should pay for maternity costs for the same reason they pay for schooling for children. If there is no new generation, no one is going to be paying for your social security. My kids are a huge expense, and yes, it was my decision and I don’t expect to be subsidized. But I have to say it pisses me off when married couples with double paychecks bitch about how some people get free rides from the government. Like them. Their social security checks are going to be paid by my kids, whom I raised at great expense and trouble. Their diapers in the nursing home are going to be changed by (I hope) other people’s kids. We all have an investment in the future generation even if we don’t have kids ourselves.
So, yes, it makes sense for everyone to have to pay for maternal and pediatric care.
So are you saying that health insurance is a right?
Or are you saying that health care is a right?
You have to be careful here because making either one a “right” puts the burden on someone else to provide it. Make insurance a right and someone has to work to pay for it. Make health care a right and someone has to work to provide it.
And the last time I checked, forcing person A to work to provide anything for person B is either indentured servitude or outright slavery.
And since person A would likely be outnumbered, outvoted, and thus *forced* by person(s) B to participate, it would have to be slavery because at least indentured servitude has the veneer of being “voluntary.”
So taking your “thinking” to its obvious conclusion then there should be no government (or any taxes) after all there will always be a group of person who feel that they should not be forced to pay for what the other group wants. For instance, why should group A (lets call them pacifist) pay (via taxation) for the desires of group B (lets call them the warriors) to fight wars in far away places where group A has absolutely no interests? Another for instance lats say group A (lets call them walkers) don’t want to pay for road construction after all they don’t drive (they just walk). Group B on the other hand (lets call the the Cadillacs) want everyone to pay for those roads. See the problem with your thinking is that you are damn sure that other people should help pay for your wants/needs and you should not pay for theirs. What do you call that?
I agree that there is a flaw in his thinking. Living in society means compromises, and a society can endure only so long as a sufficient number of its constituents believe that those compromises are preferable to the alternative. The compromises asked of some — like slavery in past societies, or the military draft — may be objectionable to many individuals, but such compromises can be sustained if those who object are not strong enough to rebel. The question, then, is how to arrange the compromises in society so that they are shared equitably, yielding a stable and prosperous polity. And it is quite clear that in this society there remains very little will for meaningful compromise in the face of shrinking economic resources and opportunities.
You may wish to treat healthcare as a public good, something like roads or a military, in which the state holds a monopoly and sets prices and wages. We do not consider the road construction crews to be slaves, since they could in theory decide to build something else. But there is a slight difference in that someone who builds roads can do many other things in life, whereas an already certified doctor has no other comparable business. Surely you must see that in line with traditional American individualism a doctor — or any professional, really — would object to forced employment by the state as a condition of practicing medicine.
I would argue we are better off with private healthcare, supposing we could eliminate the healthcare cartels that obscure pricing, limit services, and throttle the production of new doctors while driving up the cost of a medical education. But state-run healthcare would be better than the corrupt system we have today.
You’d sign a contract at 25, or 18, or your parents would at your birth, that states that as long as you have no or few lapses in payment, you are covered for X, Y, Z, or perhaps “covered according to a standard the AMA considers minimal,” even after you are no longer all that attractive a customer anymore.
You’d pay more than if you just bought year-on-year coverage for a 21 YO. Your choice. If you chose the yer-on-year, you should consider setting aside some savings. Or go all in burning the savings from cheap YoY catastrophic plans on starting a business that, if it pans out, later would make the cost of care for a 60yo peanuts in comparison. Again, your choice. That’s what freedom is all about.
And if you miscalculate and end up croaking at 60 from lack of expensive care? Better people than you have died younger than that. Another dead geezer is hardly the end of anything. And certainly not something worth sacrificing basic freedoms, and championing tyranny, for.
The best thing that can happen, if the bill passes, is that the version the Senate passes is very different and the House-Senate conference committee eliminates the bad parts of both.
The worst thing that can happen, if the bill passes, is that the version the Senate passes is very different and the House-Senate conference committee combines the bad parts of both.
The worrisome aspect is starting with the mind-set that health care should be managed at the Federal level – that it must be nationally socialized. In this sense Obamacare has won the argument already no matter the outcome. Congress should simply repeal the bill and return the matter back to each state to resolve, while creating a framework for interstate competition for insurance and medical care costs. This is the Constitutional way forward.
The Europeans, living within the bastion of socialized medicine, would never, never, in a million years accept a one-size-fits-all health care system.
If and when Obamacare self destructs no health insurance will be offered. Taxpayers without insurance owe a $2,500 penalty. Voila! the federal budget balances. Medicine becomes a cash business. Patients negotiate for cash while they do not negotiate when they have insurance. Physicians’ associations will offer medical coverage for a flat fee. When physicians are on the hook for health costs they will pay more attention to prevention, and economical care. Health costs are assured of falling without any help from Congress.
I suspect the Republicans intentionally intend to keep Obamacare on the books. Obamacare collapse is good for the system and will bring Democrats to the negotiations for other health reforms.
Better yet, outlaw health insurance. Not one person in DC has the balls to even mention such a thing.
%100 correct. Health insurance can’t exist under capitalism. Their product is not attractive to young people (which is the consumer they want) and it is very attractive to old people (which is the consumer they don’t want). So health insurance offers a product that should fail in a free market society and the reason it does not fail is that corporations offer it to its employees at very heavily subsidized (via the tax system). BTW if ACA is to provided a bunch of freeloaders how is it that an employee can get 1000’s of dollar benefits (via corporate sponsor insurance) and not pay a dime on that money?
Go back to sleep! Politicians on both sides cannot afford to let the ACA fail. Too many people have come to depend on it. That was the plan all along. Suckers!
“Politicians on both sides cannot afford to let the ACA fail.”
Correct. If the Reps let it fail and obstruct any Dem efforts to kick the can of inevitable failure down the road via greater thefts from taxpayers or more debt liable to same, the Reps will be blamed. Both sides of the aisle are owned by the FIRE sectors anyway. The changes that absolutely need to be made are -RADICAL- and would require temporary but significant economic pain so, as usual, pols won’t choose that necessary route. It’s SNAFU and it will remain that way as always.
“Politicians on both sides cannot afford to let the ACA fail. Too many people have come to depend on it.”
Math doesn’t care. The Romans had their days of Bread and Circuses. The Roman Empire collapsed and it all went away.
Wrong…universal care (which Trumpo secretly supports) is on the way….healthcare for all, and USA USA USA finally joins the rest of the civilized world. Worried about cost control? Step one: anyone that smokes or is obese will be shot where they stand. Also, take away the extra welfare bux that those in ‘da hood use to keep having babies to get a fatter monthly check.
The fix is in.
The GOP holdouts are folding one after the other.
The vote will pass tomorrow.
The bribes must have been generous.
It pays to be a holdout.
In the meantime illegals foreigners still get free healthcare in the USA while our premiums and deductibles continue to rise.
I thought Trump was going to fix that.
We’ve been hoodwinked once again.
Just a bunch of clowns at a circus, nothing will ever change. Why even bother discussing these or other issues for the same results. Bunch of squealing pigs !
Do not give up yet, M. Trump, you can both have the cake and eat it, as promised, for sure!
(We europeans deeply thank the american people for the sacrifice of testing in a real world case where populist promises lead, so we don’t have to try it out on ourselves with Mme Le Pen and her friends. The Brexit will do it as well but it’s a multi-year story, while we can enjoy right now the Trump Show).
Debt epitomizes having your cake and eating too. I don’t think Europeans have anything to brag about in that regard. Simply have your ECB continue to buy ALL assets in order to maintain the illusion of sustainability.
We americans prefer our populists to the European approach of importing Muzzies to take over and run your countries. Let us know in about twenty years how good it is.
Beware the NYT, I quote:
“A Quinnipiac University national poll found that voters disapproved of the Republican plan by lopsided margins, with 56 percent opposed, 17 percent supportive and 26 percent undecided. The measure did not even draw support among a majority of Republicans; 41 percent approved, while 24 percent were opposed.”
Does anyone yet know what is in this bill? But a poll has already been conducted that shows Americans are thoroughly opposed …
From the Quinnipiac website:
“Replacing Obamacare will come with a price for elected representatives who vote to scrap it, say many Americans, who clearly feel their health is in peril under the Republican alternative,” said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.
So “… Americans … clearly feel their health is in peril?” Any bias here?
One other possibility would be for opponents of the bill to simply abstain from voting. I don’t know how this might affect the bill’s chances but, if it passed because opponents abstained, it would at least deny Ryan a true victory.
Mish … no matter what Congress does now, their decision is going to be challenged in the Supreme Court just as Obamacare was … but there is no Supreme Court until vacancies are filled, no? With a Shumer filibuster on the way, a Democratic Party Catch 22 scenario is unfolding with no end in sight.
Thus keeping the matter at the Federal (national) level will also see legal challenges going for years. Would the same be true if it were simply repealed and returned to state-level jurisdiction? Difficult to see all 50 states mounting legal challenges, therefore better odds of successful and meaningful reform.
Note to the Republican Party – follow the Constitution.
I agree with Mish.
Potential savings of merely $15 Billion per year is virtually nothing in the grand scheme of things. If you fiddle with the existing legislation, there will always be dissidents and any band-aid solution is never as good as something worked out originally. Either introduce a totally new well-thought-out scheme. or leave it alone.
If left alone, sure Obama will have his “legacy” but it is a poor legacy that many will negatively remember. Costs will continue to rise and the current system could well collapse. Trump can then say that he tried reforms but dissidents from his own party and virtually all the Dems wanted this situation.
I think that what Trump just did is a smart political move. Change Obama Care and he wins. Don’t change it and he still wins.
This proposed law sux, almost nobody likes it but Trump has put R Reps in a lose/lose position. If they don’t vote to kill O’B care then they lose in R primaries if they vote this monstrosity into law then they’ll lose in the general elections.
Rs approached this as “anything will be better than Obamacare” but they have formulated something that isn’t and will give Dems total control by 2020 which will lead to true national health care then.
actually the best move for R congs is to vote for this plan and then pray it dies in senate, which has always been likely outcome
Trump should terminate all waivers created by Congress and the previous administration waivers or let them expire and allow full implementation of Obamacare without all the handouts to special interests. Allow everyone in the USA have what they want the full and fair implementation of Obamacare including the counting of Cadillac healthcare plans as taxable income. Trump does not need to repeal this monster right now.
Let the cards fall where they will and make sure the public knows this was/is the Democrats plan. Many baking this monster currently were granted waivers, including hairdressers in Pelosi’s district. The only way this monster passed the first time was to grant special waivers for certain groups, mostly the big private and public unions in the USA.
Trump does not have to tackle healthcare right now. I would love to see all of those crying about paying income tax on their Cadillac plans and a lot of things would change. Instead the repubs as usual cannot do squat and put forth a simple plan. You cannot cover everyone in the USA. Not those that get government backed healthcare on the taxpayers dime (Medicaid) will never allow this monster to end.
“Trump should terminate all waivers created by Congress and the previous administration waivers or let them expire and allow full implementation of Obamacare without all the handouts to special interests.”
As Karl Denninger at his Market Ticker has shown in detail, high medical costs are due to anti-competitive behavior exemptions allowed by government, obstructions to competitive behavior erected by government, and long-standing nonsense like the government not requiring competitive bidding for the massive amounts of pharma products it buys. I recall a 60 Minutes from -DECADES- ago complaining about the last point – they pointed out that the VA with its competitive bidding for drugs paid something like a penny (or less) for each aspirin while medicare/medicaid paid a dollar (or more) and that was at decades ago prices.
Most of the problems with medical costs could be solved virtually overnight WITHOUT even messing with the fundamental Obamacare program. However, as with the simple change to the US code related to the hiring of aliens where a changed or added sentence in the code made by the person identified in that code as the single person responsible for any changes, the POTUS, would hold employers legally responsible for ID verification and the reporting of suspicious IDs to ICE and would thereby start a southward exodus overnight, this medical care “reform” is just window dressing by OWNED pols.
“medicare/medicaid paid a dollar (or more)” While under hospital care, not at a pharmacy.
If the vote fails this will be a classic case of being careful for what you wish for ……….
The Democratic Party is beside itself with glee hoping that the Republicans fail to pass their bill. If they were smart they would want it to pass so that the Republicans own health care. If the vote fails, Obamacare implodes and it remains around the Democrats neck.
Republicans own part of the implosion themselves but hopefully out of the ashes of Obamacare true (bipartisan) healthcare reform will occur.
I think that this is how Trump is neutering Ryan. Trump has given Ryan 100% support in moving the bill that Ryan wanted. When Ryan can’t get it through the House that he leads, Ryan is the loser.
Next time,they need something to go through the House, maybe Trump’s team should write it and Ryan can support.
Spot on, mm. I think Trump wants this bill to fail, and hang Speaker Ryan in the process. Then maybe Trump will pull a rabbit out of a hat, killing two birds with one stone.
Strange that the word “compromise” gets used so little in this discussion. I’m sure everyone doesn’t like parts of the bill; but everyone agrees that Obamacare is a disaster.
Yes, but this bill is an even bigger disaster. Hence the lack of compromise.
Hardly; it’s very difficult to something that liberals totally effed up. I’m voting for repeal and forget about it.
Ha ha ha. Your definition of “everyone” appears to include very few real people. The people who have ACA insurance are happy to keep what they have.
Healthcare is but one piece of this ongoing disaster. All of it is a suspension of reality.
No discussion of the issues the Freedom Caucus has with the bill. The Trump says this is good and vote or else leaves me with the feeling his standard of good is anything he can sign and claim victory.. The Bill does not repeal Obamacare, it leaves 19 cost driving mandates in place and further leads the USA further down the Socialism Road.
Take the time to do it right and honor your promises to the voters that gave you the majority.
Cost control. That’s what voters want. 150 million workers want cheaper employer deductibles. The bill doesn’t even address what most voters want. The bill does nothing but oppress the elderly. Voters have parents that they don’t want oppressed, and voters plan to become elders themselves one day. Voters certainly don’t want to oppress their future selves.
Enough with the nightmarishly expensive favors for lobbyists that drive costs to the moon. Enough with bankers printing outrageous medical inflation. Bring on the $3 bottle of antibiotics that Mexicans can get from any pharmacist without an expensive prescription, and bring on the $200 whole body MRI scans that are so popular in Japan. We don’t need to spend several times as much as the rest of the world for the same thing.
All of those things would require government regulation. If people actually wanted those things, they wouldn’t have voted in a Republican Congress, because Republicans are not going to force the heavy hand of government on the market.
Wrong. Most people who vote do so on one or at most two pet issues, such as abortion or government spending. All the rest is just blah, blah, blah to these voters. In my experience, very, very few people that I interact with have any interest or concerns with “regulations” or “too much” government.
If Trump manages to push this monstrosity of worse version of Obamacare that should be called Ryancare through he will have destroyed his presidential career and it will lead to democrats winning in 2018 and 2020.
.
The problem is NOT health insurance the problem is COST of HEALTHCARE that leads to high cost of health insurance and high deductibles.
Solve the cost of healthcare and health insurance will be readily available through free markets.
I agree about the high cost of healthcare. One egregious examples is because of medicaid. Medicaid is required to pay the minimum price for a drug sold in any state. So what happens is the drug companies charge an outrageous price everywhere in the US knowing medicaid will have to pay that price. They sell the same drugs for much less in other countries because those countries equivalent to medicaid negotiate their own prices. In the US we typically pay 50% or more for the exact same prescription drugs.
STOP local hospital monopolies and abuses of local market leadership positions by hospitals in buying up doctors offices and anti-competitive behavior in NOT having price lists and charging different people different prices for same service and massive administrative bloat and highway robbery by drug industry and the cost of healthcare will drop a lot and drop the cost of health insurance with it.
The Free Market will fix all of those things. Hospital charging too much? Entrepreneurs will step in and build lower cost, more effective hospitals. Doctors not allowing price discovery? Entrepreneurial doctors will step in and provide transparent pricing. Drug companies overcharging? Others will step in with better prices. It’s called capitalism. And it always works. Trump knows this and knows the best he can do is step back and get government out of the way.
Other drug companies can’t step in with better pricing. The real expensive drugs are patent protected. You have two choices, pay or move to another country where the exact same drugs cost a lot less.
Patents are government sponsored monopolies that are enforced with the violence of government. And the government is stopping the importation of the same drugs from foreign countries. Again, let the Free Market work and get the government out of the way.
The problem with your “thesis” is that we live in a “captured” system. Think of the “company store” model, and understanding will flood your brain.
I don’t know what the answer is, but our health insurance system is sure messed up. Recently my husband had to go to an emergency room in the middle of the night. Turned out it was his first ever kidney stone. The hospital billed almost $10,000 for a 7 hour visit that was mostly spent sitting in a room waiting, with a few expensive tests. The insurance company approved about $1,800 and the hospital accepted that as payment in full. So did it cost the hospital $10,000 or $1,800 to treat my husband? I guess if you don’t have insurance you get the $10,000 bill.
Cost of labor and materials for a gall stone diagnosis was probably in the neighborhood of $300. Then add the cost of insurance billing and management overhead, probably another $500. The add $1000 to pay Wall Street bond holders of the hospitals debt.
Yes, the $10K was the street price for uninsured losers. But they can always mortgage their house or get a temp job to pay it off.
That’s normal practice. The provider charges an outrageous fee and the insurance company negotiates a much lower price.
What people don’t realize is even if you don’t have insurance, you can frequently negotiate down your bills. The hospital won’t take you to court. They eventually hand it off to a collection agency that will likely take pennies on the dollar.
“Non profit” hospitals often force poor schmoes into bankruptcy pursuing inflated sticker price bills.
Medical expenses are a leading cause of personal bankruptcy.
Need bankruptcy reform thrown into the health care reform stew pot
Yes, one of the major benefits of health insurance in the USA is that you get access to the lower rates that your insurance company has negotiated. If you don’t have insurance, you get tagged with the full $10k (in your example). Sure, you can try and negotiate with the hospital and MD’s individually and you will likely get 25% but still wind up owing $7500, a far cry from the $1800 that the hospital accepted from the insurance company. That $7500 bill could be enough to push people into bankruptcy before the ACA and have their credit dinged. Why is no one asking if this is what the Republicans want to return everyone to?
BTW: I think that the difference between the $1,800 paid and the $10,000 original bill might be able to be written off as a business loss. This is also something that people should be looking into and putting a stop to if true
The whole charade is fixing the wrong side of the problem. The problem is high health care costs. Not high insurance costs. Insurance costs reflect the cost of health care.
It’s analogous to driving a car that gets 5 MPG and not being able to afford gas. Instead of the obvious solution of replacing the car with one that gets good gas mileage, you keep coming up with new ways to pay for the gas.
I’m all for dropping this, laying the failure on Ryan and McConnell, and moving on.
However, I remember in 2007 when W’s partial (more like microscopic) privatization of Social Security sunk and with it his political capital, ruling as a lame duck after the vote. By that template you pass a bad bill but I suspect that it’s just more evidence of W’s weakness – W couldn’t market water to a thirsty man.
Speaking of Social Security privatization, did ANY media outlet ever look at that and figure out how much a minimum wage worker would now have in stocks 10 years on from that failed legislation? They can’t do that story (just like they can’t look at how Obama came to say ‘if you like your doctor.,….) because the answers don’t support the ’cause’.
To me it looks more like – do we really want the poor to own stocks? It’s the same driver behind rich LAers asking restaurants to RAISE their prices to keep out the riff raff.
pensions might be in worse shape than SS right now
It’s been my experience that any change of the rules gives my insurer an excuse to up my premium. Oh, and my deductible.
I am amazed that those congressmen and women who profess to believe in a free market economy have become obsessed with providing something they call insurance with something that bears no relationship to insurance. The only way a national healthcare insurance, and I used that term loosely, is if one starts demanding under threat of court action that the healthcare industry as a whole and that providers in particular cease their monopolistic practices, their collusion to commit deceptive and predatory practices, and their fraudulent pricing practices. Bringing every healthcare corporation, every hospital, every clinic, every healthcare practitioner to the rule of law would eliminate the need for expensive and complicated healthcare insurance programs. The solution is so simple and yet to implement it means that most of the elected politicians must go against their moneyed interests, their big donors, the special interests that own them. Well, perhaps they should take a page out of Davy Crockett’s book when leaving Congress. “You can all go to hell. As for me I’m going to Texas.”
Come on people!
Why so concerned with such minor details as your health & government chaos?
Stay focused on the simple facts like Trump:
“I CAN’T BE DOING SO BADLY, BECAUSE I’M PRESIDENT AND YOU’RE NOT.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/mar/23/trump-reporter-im-president-and-youre-not/
Trump is the winner; everyone else is a loser.
it seems that the Donald is playing a clever game of divide-and-rule here.
as i see it, if US political establishment cant make its mind up over what to do,
then dont go bleating on and saying that its not my (ie Congress, Democrat or Republican) fault.
Trump is the only person with any credibility in this particular saga.
There will be no political solution to health insurance (or health care). The only solution that will work is not even remotely politically feasible. Don’t bother blaming or pointing fingers unless you want to look in the mirror. The public is economically illiterate and has an entitlement mentality while believing that government can function as a charity. Any solution except freedom will fail.
“Don’t bother blaming or pointing fingers unless you want to look in the mirror. The public is economically illiterate and has an entitlement mentality while believing that government can function as a charity.”
True for most, probably not as true for many who take the time to read and comment here. Besides, if one is in a lifeboat with 9 out of 10 of the occupants drilling holes in the bottom of the boat like Monty Python’s Gumbys, encouraged to do so by a captain who profits from them doing so who has a yacht he’ll be airlifted to when the lifeboat sinks, what can the informed person actually do about anything? That’s why I take the George Carlin view of and attitude about this ongoing fiasco.
The US medical care “debate” in reality:
Why Steve Bannon Might Be the Winner of the GOP’s Health-Care Civil War
March 24, 2017
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/03/bannon-health-care-bill.html
…in the hall of mirrors that is Washington, the big winner to emerge out of the health-care debacle could be Steve Bannon. That’s because Bannon has been waging war against Ryan for years. For Bannon, Ryan is the embodiment of the “globalist-corporatist” Republican elite. A failed bill would be Bannon’s best chance yet to topple Ryan and advance his nationalist-populist economic agenda.
Publicly, Bannon has been working to help the bill pass. But privately he’s talked it down in recent days. According to a source close to the White House, Bannon said that he’s unhappy with the Ryan bill because it “doesn’t drive down costs” and was “written by the insurance industry.” While the bill strips away many of Obamacare’s provisions, it does not go as far as Bannon would wish to “deconstruct the administrative state” in the realm of health care. Furthermore, Bannon has been distancing himself from the bill to insulate himself from political fallout of it failing. He’s told people that Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn – a West Wing rival – has run point on it. (Bannon did not respond to a request for comment.)
Look, this is the way it works.
The health care corporations (insurance, pharma, medical device, etc, companies, AMA, hospital networks…..bribe the politicians. The politicians turn their pens over to the corporations that write up the legislation to benefit themselves and screw the consumer – then the politicians (w/ a wink and a nod) rubberstamp whatever the corporations put in front of them (w/o reading it) and new health care law is born.
This is the way ObamaCare was created. And AHCA is no different.
This is your government in action. The one “of, by and for the people”.
Bend over. Your about to get the bullhorn up the kazoo like the Mexican matador.
Chalk up a victory in the win column for the bull. Let’s hope the American people are as lucky in our quest for decent health care at a reasonable price.
“On Monday, a matador was brutally sodomized by a raging bull during a match in Mexico City.”
http://www.dailywire.com/news/14739/raging-bull-rams-11-inch-horn-mexican-matadors-michael-qazvini
LFOldTimer, shhhhhh!!! The proles might begin to fully realize the people they vote for don’t actually work for them and then where would the oligarchy be with that facade of voter control lifted? Horrors!
The “Change You Can Believe In” candidate v2.0 might eventually help to convince them although there should have been SCADS of evidence already up to this point even if one hasn’t read that 2014 Princeton University I’ve here linked to and included excerpts from which in the few mostly overseas MSM articles that covered it at the time had titles like “Study Proves US is an Oligarchy.”
Predictably, govt/socialism is failing the people around the world. People have blindly placed their faith in govt, who not only fail in their job as regulator, but lie about virtually everything to the point that everything is upside down. The food pyramid is upside down, creating an obese society. The media destroys information, scientist destroy truth, and doctors are destroying health. Haven’t people had their fill of govt yet? You better start taking responsibility for your own health, because govt will demonstrate they could care less. http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=231928