U.S. Senate votes to unravel Obamacare, defund Planned Parenthood

[NeverSure]

You failed to address my points which had to do with the cost and the forcing of people to pay for it.

Then I suppose you're very much against other government-mandated services for which we're "required" to pay, such as education (even if you don't have children!), fire departments (even if everything you own is made from asbestos and stone) and interstate highways (even if you don't own a vehicle)?

Should we go back to the days of private fire brigades that were owned by insurance companies and fought over territory (sometimes while the property thereupon burned)? The only reason for-profit health care is tolerated is because health insurance companies can obfuscate, delay and deny claims as people don't die from their illnesses as quickly as houses perish from fires.

Such a free market approach didn't work for fire services and it doesn't work for health care services. If your main complaint is that you're forced to pay for it, you're just going to have to put on your big boy pants and deal with it, because that's the system that seems to work best. And just like education and interstate highways, it's necessary for the public good. If the cost is too high, burning down the whole system isn't the answer. Become an advocate for single payer/UHC and do something about it.

Are you really so blind that you can't see the difference between a fire department and a law that forces you to buy a product from a private large corporation? Are you so blind that you can't see how much the insurance companies lobbied in favor of this bill?

Wouldn't we all love to own a big business and then have the government force everyone to buy our product at our set prices. Doing that is historically unprecedented and just plain a ripoff.

[attrayant]

Are you really so blind that you can't see the difference between a fire department and a law that forces you to buy a product from a private large corporation?

I'm glad to see you're in favor of single payer. Why didn't you just say so from the start?

Are you so blind that you can't see how much the insurance companies lobbied in favor of this bill?

Do you have anything substantive to offer in support of your position? Because all I see is more rhetorical questions.

The official statement given by Americas Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the trade group that represents the nations health insurance companies, regarding the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is that it will expand access to coverage and take steps toward delivery system reform, but will raise costs and disrupt coverage for individual market customers, employers, and seniors.

Paraphrasing the AHIP statement:

While AHIP has voiced limited support for certain provisions of the ACA including expanding coverage to uninsured Americans and reforming the Medicare and Medicaid delivery systems by moving away from the fee-for-service structure it nevertheless has severe criticisms of many of the ACAs provisions, specifically those related to guaranteed issues and the low penalties for those who choose not to purchase insurance.

AHIP also objects to the fact that many of the reforms go into effect simultaneously in 2014, which it says could potentially result in significant destabilization of insurance markets in many states, particularly for those who rely on individual and small group coverage. Finally, AHIP believes that the health reforms do not do enough to control rising medical costs, and that ACA coverage expansion will not be sustainable until policymakers and stakeholders take meaningful steps to reduce the rate of growth in medical costs.

That sure doesn't sound like a ringing endorsement. But wait - there's more!

According to the National Journal:

The backchannel spending allowed insurers to publicly stake out a pro-reform position while privately funding the leading anti-reform lobbying group in Washington. The chamber spent tens of millions of dollars bankrolling efforts to kill health care reform.

Further:

The largest health insurer is threatening to drop out of the ACA exchanges, citing "low growth projections" for those enrolled and "too much flexibility" when it comes to allowing people to change plans. Apparently, the ACA is bad for business. This is not bad news for those of us who think health insurance shouldn't even BE a business. This says more about the insurer than it does about the ACA.

Tell me again why health insurers would have lobbied so hard for something like that?

[slerickson]

Capitalism is a piss poor model for health delivery. They lower expenses by lowering benefits. 30% admin overheard and counter productive advertising and bloated salaries at the top.

But as has already been pointed out, having a worthless Congress things ain't going to get better. They of course get the royal cadillac plan plus retirement. Good reason to be ex-pat.

And as a side note there's a whole lot more to planned parenthood than contraception and birth control.

Edited December 5, 2015 by slerickson

[NeverSure]

Do you have anything substantive to offer in support of your position? Because all I see is more rhetorical questions.

The official statement given by Americas Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the trade group that represents the nations health insurance companies, regarding the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is that it will expand access to coverage and take steps toward delivery system reform, but will raise costs and disrupt coverage for individual market customers, employers, and seniors.

Paraphrasing the AHIP statement:

While AHIP has voiced limited support for certain provisions of the ACA including expanding coverage to uninsured Americans and reforming the Medicare and Medicaid delivery systems by moving away from the fee-for-service structure it nevertheless has severe criticisms of many of the ACAs provisions, specifically those related to guaranteed issues and the low penalties for those who choose not to purchase insurance.

AHIP also objects to the fact that many of the reforms go into effect simultaneously in 2014, which it says could potentially result in significant destabilization of insurance markets in many states, particularly for those who rely on individual and small group coverage. Finally, AHIP believes that the health reforms do not do enough to control rising medical costs, and that ACA coverage expansion will not be sustainable until policymakers and stakeholders take meaningful steps to reduce the rate of growth in medical costs.

That sure doesn't sound like a ringing endorsement. But wait - there's more!

According to the National Journal:

Further:

The largest health insurer is threatening to drop out of the ACA exchanges, citing "low growth projections" for those enrolled and "too much flexibility" when it comes to allowing people to change plans. Apparently, the ACA is bad for business. This is not bad news for those of us who think health insurance shouldn't even BE a business. This says more about the insurer than it does about the ACA.

Tell me again why health insurers would have lobbied so hard for something like that?

You're not reading what you paste very well. Let's look at the nucleus of it again.

"...it nevertheless has severe criticisms of many of the ACAs provisions, specifically those related to guaranteed issues and the low penalties for those who choose not to purchase insurance."

Its criticisms have to do with the fact that there isn't more force put on people to buy their product!!!

Cheers.

[up2u2]

You're not reading what you paste very well. Let's look at the nucleus of it again.

"...it nevertheless has severe criticisms of many of the ACAs provisions, specifically those related to guaranteed issues and the low penalties for those who choose not to purchase insurance."

Its criticisms have to do with the fact that there isn't more force put on people to buy their product!!!

Cheers.

Right Wing 'smoke and mirror' semantics. In a 'one payer' Health Care system EVERYONE is FORCED to pay for health care but not to Corporate America that adds their big fat profit margin. One way or another you pay. What you are advocating is for the most expensive health care system in the industrialised world with the lowest health care outcomes for patients. Slice it and dice it anyway you like a 'one payer' health care system takes control of health care costs and forces costs down. This is not rocket surgery this is proven throughout the industrialised world. America is just playing catch up not reinventing the wheel.

It is this simple, get Corporate America out of funding the health care system and the Taxpayer funds it directly by all taxpayers. Saving over 10 year forward estimates $5 trillion dollars.

Here is Bernie Sanders comprehensive proposed American Health Security Act S. 1782

America really needs to wake up.

[smotherb]

They're against stupidity.

1. Obamacare isn't national health care. It's state by state and varies all over the place.

2. Obamacare isn't government provided health care. It's a mandate that requires all Americans to buy health insurance from private insurance companies.

3. As a result it has become welfare for the big insurance companies, something they salivated over while it was being passed.

4. It is overpriced. When you force someone to buy something but don't put in price controls, the sellers of medical care and insurance get richer.

5. The implementation sucks. It has never been well organized. It was thrown together without much planning and it has never really worked.

6. Bottom line is that it sucks but Obama's narcissism won't allow him to admit that something he pushed through is a failure.

7. The refusal to roll it back is based on pride and not common sense. The whole program stinks.

Your memory of events if funny, if nothing else....

Why don't you give us some data that refutes these points?

I think we would all like to hear how Obamacare is a roaring success.

There are other schools of thought on Obamacare. It may have died a death of sabotage.

The point is, as I see it,the US needs a good national health care system and a good national education system. We are the only advanced nation which does not offer national health care for its citizens. We are no longer the sole source contractors of high technology, or anything else. The US worker has to compete with every other worker in the world. That means if we want to stay the best paid workers, we have to develop skills no other countries' workers have. To do that, we need the most educated and the best medically cared-for workers. You can't get that by individual hard word; that has to come from public demand.

Let's look at :

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/03/for-those-that-hate-obamacare-do-you-know-why/387913/

The Affordable Care Act has drastically cut the rate of uninsured Americans by a third–16 million people–according to numbers released Monday.

Minorities and young adults have seen the biggest gains in access to healthcare.

Despite demonstrable evidence that the Affordable Care Act is helping to address America's relative squalor compared to other wealthy countries in terms of citizen access to healthcare, few hearts and minds have been won. As of September, only 37 percent of Americans approved of the law (even though 75 percent of newly-insured people like their plan).

*************************************************************************************************************

The Five Big Buggaboos About Obamacare—according to the Republicans

1. Healthy People Won’t Sign Up
2. You Won’t Be Able to Choose/Keep Your Doctor/Plan
3. Obamacare Will Explode the Federal Deficit
4. Okay, Then, It Will Bust States’ Budgets
5. Premium Rates Will Shoot Through the Roof

Well, they simply are not true.

Let’s look at some other opinions: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/17/the-five-biggest-lies-about-obamacare.html

This is another area where Republican saboteurs of the law can, if they choose to, make it not work. That is, Republican state insurance commissioners can approve big premium hikes just to make the law look bad. Says Sally McCarty, the former Indiana state insurance commissioner, now at the Georgetown Center on Health Insurance Reforms: “States that are in earnest about implementing the law will likely see lower increases, and states not so concerned about seeing the law succeed will see higher increases.”

Yes, it’s too early for firm conclusions. But certainly the preponderance of the evidence so far is that the apocalyptic predictions just aren’t coming true at all. Granted, there’s a lot of other news going on lately, but this is the real reason why Obamacare has kind of dropped out of the news cycle: Republicans aren’t bashing it quite so much anymore, because even they see it’s kind of working.

[jerome2]

Republican congressmen are like you and me ...they love their children and grandmother.... the difference between you and them is that they dont like YOUR grandmother ans will do everything they can to have her die in the street if you cant pay