Republican push to end Obamacare collapses in U.S. Senate

[tonray]

You know I finally figured it out. I keep wondering, with Trump just being more and more of an impediment to implementing conservative policy, why the Republicans don't start impeachment and get Pence in there as President. 

 

I think we may be seeing glimpses of a Pence that they knew in Congress, a complete nutjob, religious right wacko, and perhaps he is seen as even more unhinged than Trump ? Cannot think of any other reason they keep letting Trump dump on them and then blame them for the failure.

[ilostmypassword]

3 hours ago, tomwct said:

It will throw off tens of millions of able non-working Americans off their Free ObamaCare aka MediCare, which they can't use because of $15,000 deductibles. When these people get a job, they will get insurance. ObamaCare is a failure in Socialized Medicine. Anything about Socialism will fail and history proves it. Look at Venezuela. A Socialist is running the country into the ground. He is a trained bus driver, but they now say he is the Richest Person in Venezuela. How did that happen? This Socialist has the luck of a Bangkok Taxi Driver. No, ObamaCare will be gone, if not now, in two years max.

 

Wow. That's a lot of errors to pack into such a small space. You've got a gift. Let's start with your nonsensical assertion about "Free Obamacare aka Medicare". I'm going to assume you meant Medicaid since Medicare predates Obama and is mainly for people 65 and older. Medicaid is free to those eligible for it. There are no deductibles.

 

As for your remark about Socialism, most of the industrialized world has some form of governmental authorized system, either single payer or something that resembles Obamacare.  So the comparison to Venezuela is massively ridiculous.

 

 

[partington]

Just as a very nice illustration to this, comparing medical costs and quality of health care in different countries over a 10 -15 year period from around 2000 to 2015, here is a graph.

 

It shows medical costs along the bottom versus number of preventable deaths (that is deaths that occurred from conditions that health care could prevent.)

 

The countries compared were Austria, France, Germany, Netherlands, Canada, the UK and the US.

 

Notice here two things: all the countries with "socialized" medicine are grouped together with health care costs around half those of the US, which is all on its own on the right hand side (high cost) side of the graph.

 

Secondly, though costs go up with time in all countries, all the "socialized" medicine countries have reduced preventable deaths from around 120-130 per 100,000 of the population to around 50 -70 in that 10-15 year period, ie they have improved their populations' health by cutting preventable deaths by 50%.  

 

But look at the curve for the US  - preventable deaths have only been reduced from around 150 per 100,000 of the population per year to around 120, that is by only by 20%, even though twice as much money as every other country has been spent!

 

All developed countries have a better solution to healthcare than the US!

 

Edited July 19, 2017 by partington

[dunroaming]

And still Trump stumbles on from one disaster to the next.....  And still the Trumpsters clutching at straws trying to defend him.

[Roadman]

37 minutes ago, dunroaming said:

And still Trump stumbles on from one disaster to the next.....  And still the Trumpsters clutching at straws trying to defend him.

Don't worry...eventually he will get something very bigly done

[Berkshire]

9 hours ago, tomwct said:

What the Senate is proposing is keeping the failed ObamaCare Program.  Now that they do not have the votes to pass, it's time to do two things: First, vote on the 2015 Repeal ObamaCare Law and see who backs down and target them for re-election and if that fails, then have a Vote On Repealing ObamaCare Law and let the Law implode over the next two years. President Trump is endorsing these steps as we speak.

Funny that you're bringing Trump into this.  But let's be clear: Firstly, Trump has no idea what's even in these bills.  He's pretty clueless as to how healthcare works in America.  Secondly, Trump has demonstrated quite clearly that he doesn't care about healthcare and the impact it has on millions of Americans.  "Repeal without replacement and kick 30 million+ off the healthcare system?"  FINE!  Or...."Let the ACA die on its own"...which of course, means that he will sabotage it so that it does fail with millions losing health insurance and premiums skyrocketing.  FINE! 

 

Trump just wants to win.  He doesn't mean America wins, he means Trump wins.  That's all this guy cares about.

[Thakkar]

 

 

Couldn't even just repeal. When they knew Obama was going to veto it, they voted to repeal 60 times. SIXTY TIMES. Now that they have a president who would sign it, they didn't have the balls to do it.

 

T

Edited July 19, 2017 by Thakkar

[boomerangutang]

Trump took an oath to uphold the laws of the land.  By doing all he can to nix at least one of those laws (ACA or Obamacare) he is breaking that oath.  Trump has as much respect for the oath of office as he had for his first two marriage oaths.  For all three (2 prior marriages and one current presidency), it's; 'get as much shafting as possible, and the heck with any silly oaths. When the fun is gone, I'm outta here.'

[Thakkar]

9 hours ago, tonray said:

The Health Care revamp was all about 2018 and election promises than providing solutions. If the boobs would have just worked with the other side, all they need is less than 60% of each side of the aisle, leaving the extremists on both parties in the cold, where they should be. Centrist policy for all of America not just 50% of it is the way forward.

That makes sense.

sadly, this wasn't really about healthcare at all, despite the name and despite the collateral damage to healthcare. It was about funding even more tax cuts with money saved from slashing Medicaid and dressing it all up as repeal and replace.

 

T

[Thakkar]

7 hours ago, tonray said:

Trumpsters advocate destruction because they have no real plans or ideas on how to properly govern. Destroying what exists is a whole lot easier than architecting a future all can prosper in.

 

Trumpcare collapsed because Republicans cannot govern, and the reason they cannot govern is because they are purely ideological and their ideology is incompatible with how things work in the real world.

 

This is a good piece: 

 

In truth, it was never possible to reconcile public standards for a humane health-care system with conservative ideology. In a pure market system, access to medical care will be unaffordable for a huge share of the public. Giving them access to quality care means mobilizing government power to redistribute resources, either through direct tax and transfers or through regulations that raise costs for the healthy and lower them for the sick. Obamacare uses both methods, and both are utterly repugnant and unacceptable to movement conservatives. That commitment to abstract anti-government dogma, without any concern for the practical impact, is the quality that makes the Republican Party unlike right-of-center governing parties in any other democracy. In no other country would a conservative party develop a plan for health care that every major industry stakeholder calls completely unworkable.

 

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/trumpcare-collapsed-because-republicans-cannot-govern.html

 

 

The Republicans control the House, Senate, and White House, and cannot pass health insurance legislation. One can argue about why this is so, but I think Jonathan Chait above nails it: they can’t square their anti-government dogma with the need for the government to play a role in any humane health care system

 

T

 

[Jingthing]

12 minutes ago, Thakkar said:

That makes sense.

sadly, this wasn't really about healthcare at all, despite the name and despite the collateral damage to healthcare. It was about funding even more tax cuts with money saved from slashing Medicaid and dressing it all up as repeal and replace.

 

T

Yes, that's why Paul Ryan was so into trumpcare. He gets hard at the thought of gutting Medicaid so it was a lifelong dream come true. You can tell like most not insane people that he finds trump himself personally despicable, but you know, that's politics. Ryan wants to gut Medicare too.

Edited July 19, 2017 by Jingthing

[Jingthing]

Regarding trump's recent statement about the ACA law in the wake of the big senate loss, I'm not gonna own it, I find that massively outrageous even downright OBSCENE for any president to say about an existing law that millions of people rely on for often life saving health care.

He got elected, yes.

That was amazing and shocking.

But he's never taken the role of president of all Americans, even the ones that didn't vote for him.

His not gonna own it statement illustrates that perfectly. 

There are pros and cons of parliamentary systems over the USA system, but this is a case when it would be wonderful to have the opportunity for a NO CONFIDENCE vote about a horribly failed, horribly incompetent, horribly unfit, indeed an IMMORAL leader.

trump as president is making so many people sick. Literally and figuratively.

trumpists -- I don't get it. How can anyone still support this con man CLOWN? 

Edited July 19, 2017 by Jingthing

[Jingthing]

The way forward. But somehow Americans are too stupid collectively to ever make it happen.

 

 

"So why does the US, the only industrialized nation without universal health coverage, also have not only the highest health-care spending in the world—both in absolute terms and as a share of GDP—but also one of the highest levels of government spending on health care per person? And how did it come to be this way?"

 

https://qz.com/1022831/why-doesnt-the-united-states-have-universal-health-care

 

Sad.

 

 

 

 

[boomerangutang]

1 hour ago, Jingthing said:

The way forward. But somehow Americans are too stupid collectively to ever make it happen.

"So why does the US, the only industrialized nation without universal health coverage, also have not only the highest health-care spending in the world—both in absolute terms and as a share of GDP—but also one of the highest levels of government spending on health care per person? And how did it come to be this way?"

https://qz.com/1022831/why-doesnt-the-united-states-have-universal-health-care    Sad.

I didn't go to the link, but I'll take a stab at answering the questions.

 

In general, Americans.....

>>>  feel entitled to hand-outs. They don't want hand-outs for others, but they want hand outs for themselves.

>>>  think it's fine to borrow, borrow, and borrow some more.  Trump is the poster boy for borrowing as much as possible.  Heck, when US banks said, 'no more' he went to Russia and hit the jackpot.

>>>  are overweight, eat processed food, lots of red meat, lots of sugary crap, trans fats, fast food

>>>  don't exercise much

>>>  say they hate big government, but concurrently, expect big government to take care of them.

>>>  are good at avoiding taxes - another thing that Trump is a poster-boy for.

>>>  dislike the word 'socialism' but are socialists in many ways.  There are scores of Fed and State programs which fit the definition of 'socialist.'

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

The scariest part is...they came close... very close.... just missed gutting the current U.S. health care system by a few votes in the Senate. The House was fine with it. Trump would have signed anything in a heartbeat.

 

Absolutely no problem kicking tens of millions of people off the U.S. health insurance rolls and significantly raising health insurance premiums for the elderly and low-income populations.

 

Every American who voted for these maniacs deserves a share of the blame. Those voters almost got what they unwittingly wanted.

 

The NY Mag piece Thakkar quoted above raised a good point. A lot of the representatives who voted to repeal/end ACA are simply idealogues. They have their philosophy of little or limited government, and don't seem to care who gets run over in the process as they try to implement their version of ideological purity.

 

 

Edited July 19, 2017 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[Trouble]

13 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Everything the Republicans in Congress have been talking about re health care reform was going to be WORSE for the average American than anything that's part of the current ACA system.

 

What's sad and amazing at the same time is that so many Republicans in the House, and almost half of the U.S. Senate, were very willing to boot tens of millions of Americans out of their current health insurance, and substantially raise premiums on the elderly and those with lower incomes.

 

It's because of the crazed anti-Obama propaganda from Fox News over the years and Trump and Co. more recently, perhaps with the help of the Russians, that so many Americans at least used to believe ACA was bad for the country. But now that things have gotten real, it's 2-to-1 in favor of ACA over what the Republicans were planning.

 

Wake up America, and start paying attention to what these proposed laws and regulations would actually do -- not what Trump and Co. and Fox are telling you they'll do. A wonderful health care plan with coverage for everyone????? Just another in the unending stream of B.S.

 

First off, the ACA was a fraud perpetrated on the American taxpayer to begin with.  What the ACA really was about was expanding coverage not reducing costs. Two of the law's provisions were expanding Medicaid eligibility and creating new government-run exchanges offering subsidizing health plans. Obamacare accomplished that for some 20 million Americans. Keep your doctor, lower premiums as promised to the majority of Americans, it did not. To fund these 20 million Americans Obamacare's effect was to increase insurance premiums for the middle class and shift the burden of health care cost to them.  What Obamacare really did was get millions more on Medicaid. Insurance companies have pulled out right and left as they are taking losses.  Like it or not the health care industry is a business, hospitals are a business, doctoring is a business.  Basically a bunch of politicians started tinkering with a business model and screwed it up.  While there was some increase in people covered by individual-market plans, there was also a drop in employment-based coverage. The Democrats forced a bad plan down everyones throats and now have a health insurance industry in turmoil.  The Republicans are no better in trying to pass their poor plan to somehow claim a victory and are having a hard time of it.  

 

I guess one has to first consider whether "complete" health care is a right of birth in any country.  I personally don't think it is.  Seems to me far too many people want things from the government and are not willing to take care of themselves to some degree. There is room for lots of debate on that.  I am more than willing to discuss what level of coverage should be considered and what level of coverage the people, as a whole, can afford.  The Democrats tried to throw everything possible into the 2,000 pages of the ACA rather than what was practical and affordable as a first step. It was nothing more than buying votes and another attempt at social engineering, something politicians get wrong quite often. What might be a better approach is to first determine what basic needs should be funded by the Taxpayer and what should be individual responsibility.  With a trillion dollar deficit each year, where does the money come from?  Maybe a national sales tax or other funding measures should be considered but the Obamacare model failed miserably and everyone knows it. It tried to model a one size fits all plan which does not work and which gave away the farm.  The Democrats only solution is to throw more money at the ACA which is not treating the problem with the model.  They will not admit it did not work the way it was planned. The Republicans on the other hand have been pretty deficient in bringing about open debate on the subject, discussing what the country can afford at this juncture, and how encompassing the plan should be.  Sorry but it is not the responsibility of the government to do everything for everyone.  Next we will be making rent payments for the underprivileged, subsidizing food for the poor, utilities for the poor, and phones for the poor.  Oops, we already subsidize all those things.  The problem with all this is that as good as the intentions are, that sector of society seems to be growing not diminishing.  The worst part about all these programs is that a whole segment of the population now demands these things and has to contribute nothing in return. It is nothing but a downward spiral to bankruptcy.  When the interest on borrowing money becomes a larger part of the budget, it is likely to cause a depression and the house of cards will collapse.  Like it or not there is no way to tax that 1% everyone wants to do and pay for it all.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

12 minutes ago, Trouble said:

  Like it or not there is no way to tax that 1% everyone wants to do and pay for it all.

 

I happen to believe essential health care ought to be a right of all citizens, and the government should levy taxes to fund the system in a responsible way. And yes, that means the wealthy are going to pay a larger share and the poor and elderly aren't going to pay as much.

 

No one ever argued ACA was the perfect solution, but the Republicans had absolutely no interest in doing anything to improve it or fix its problems. All they wanted to do was gut it, and have tens of millions of Americans lose their existing health coverage. Because at heart, the Republican conservative ideologues don't want the government involved in ensuring health care for its citizens. In their ideal world, it's every man for himself, and no safety net from the government.

 

Given the choice between that vision or the current ACA system, I'd take the current ACA system every day of the year.

 

Edited July 19, 2017 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[Jingthing]

trump's most recent tweet. 

The argument that trump is actually INSANE and removed under Section 25 needs to be revived.

 

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump  2h2 hours ago

More

The Republicans never discuss how good their healthcare bill is, & it will get even better at lunchtime.The Dems scream death as OCare dies!

 

https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump

Edited July 19, 2017 by Jingthing

[heybruce]

1 hour ago, Trouble said:

First off, the ACA was a fraud perpetrated on the American taxpayer to begin with.  What the ACA really was about was expanding coverage not reducing costs. Two of the law's provisions were expanding Medicaid eligibility and creating new government-run exchanges offering subsidizing health plans. Obamacare accomplished that for some 20 million Americans. Keep your doctor, lower premiums as promised to the majority of Americans, it did not. To fund these 20 million Americans Obamacare's effect was to increase insurance premiums for the middle class and shift the burden of health care cost to them.  What Obamacare really did was get millions more on Medicaid. Insurance companies have pulled out right and left as they are taking losses.  Like it or not the health care industry is a business, hospitals are a business, doctoring is a business.  Basically a bunch of politicians started tinkering with a business model and screwed it up.  While there was some increase in people covered by individual-market plans, there was also a drop in employment-based coverage. The Democrats forced a bad plan down everyones throats and now have a health insurance industry in turmoil.  The Republicans are no better in trying to pass their poor plan to somehow claim a victory and are having a hard time of it.  

 

I guess one has to first consider whether "complete" health care is a right of birth in any country.  I personally don't think it is.  Seems to me far too many people want things from the government and are not willing to take care of themselves to some degree. There is room for lots of debate on that.  I am more than willing to discuss what level of coverage should be considered and what level of coverage the people, as a whole, can afford.  The Democrats tried to throw everything possible into the 2,000 pages of the ACA rather than what was practical and affordable as a first step. It was nothing more than buying votes and another attempt at social engineering, something politicians get wrong quite often. What might be a better approach is to first determine what basic needs should be funded by the Taxpayer and what should be individual responsibility.  With a trillion dollar deficit each year, where does the money come from?  Maybe a national sales tax or other funding measures should be considered but the Obamacare model failed miserably and everyone knows it. It tried to model a one size fits all plan which does not work and which gave away the farm.  The Democrats only solution is to throw more money at the ACA which is not treating the problem with the model.  They will not admit it did not work the way it was planned. The Republicans on the other hand have been pretty deficient in bringing about open debate on the subject, discussing what the country can afford at this juncture, and how encompassing the plan should be.  Sorry but it is not the responsibility of the government to do everything for everyone.  Next we will be making rent payments for the underprivileged, subsidizing food for the poor, utilities for the poor, and phones for the poor.  Oops, we already subsidize all those things.  The problem with all this is that as good as the intentions are, that sector of society seems to be growing not diminishing.  The worst part about all these programs is that a whole segment of the population now demands these things and has to contribute nothing in return. It is nothing but a downward spiral to bankruptcy.  When the interest on borrowing money becomes a larger part of the budget, it is likely to cause a depression and the house of cards will collapse.  Like it or not there is no way to tax that 1% everyone wants to do and pay for it all.

I'll reply to your long post with a short one:  Healthcare in the US is 17.6% of the economy, about 3.25 trillion dollars. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/health-costs-how-the-us-compares-with-other-countries/  

 

If we could get healthcare expenditures down to 9.5% of GDP, the OECD average, it would save US consumers, and the US economy, about 1.5 trillion dollars a year.  The savings would be more than all US government discretionary spending, and yes, that's including military spending.  https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/112th-congress-2011-2012/graphic/budgetinfographic0.pdf  

 

Is it fair that healthy taxpayers subsidize healthcare for the unhealthy?  Arguably not.  Is it fair that childless taxpayers subsidize the education of other people's children?  Arguably not.  However we need to focus less on what's fair, or satisfies some people's philosophical ideals, and more on what works. 

 

The single payer system that most of the rich world uses works much better than what the US uses; it delivers better results for far less money.  Let's stop stupidly arguing about fairness or socialism vs free market and go with what has been shown to work.

[Thakkar]

11 minutes ago, heybruce said:

I'll reply to your long post with a short one:  Healthcare in the US is 17.6% of the economy, about 3.25 trillion dollars. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/health-costs-how-the-us-compares-with-other-countries/  

 

If we could get healthcare expenditures down to 9.5% of GDP, the OECD average, it would save US consumers, and the US economy, about 1.5 trillion dollars a year.  The savings would be more than all US government discretionary spending, and yes, that's including military spending.  https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/112th-congress-2011-2012/graphic/budgetinfographic0.pdf  

 

Is it fair that healthy taxpayers subsidize healthcare for the unhealthy?  Arguably not.  Is it fair that childless taxpayers subsidize the education of other people's children?  Arguably not.  However we need to focus less on what's fair, or satisfies some people's philosophical ideals, and more on what works. 

 

The single payer system that most of the rich world uses works much better than what the US uses; it delivers better results for far less money.  Let's stop stupidly arguing about fairness or socialism vs free market and go with what has been shown to work.

??

 

I would further state that an entire population relieved of anxiety about their healthcare becomes immediately more productive, which is good for the entire economy. People will not wait for catastrophic illness before seeing a doctor also means a generally less sickly population—another plus for productiveity, not to mention general well-being. Less anxiety about keeping a hated job just for the healthcare. Greater job mobility and geographic mobility (because healthcare will be national) also means a more efficient economy.

[Jingthing]

Back to reality. No chance of universal before some kind of wave election with that as the top issue, and even then, it would be very hard to ever pass in the USA. 

 

So where are we at now?

With a CRUEL, irresponsible president.

 

He wanted to pass a bill that he knew was mean just to have a political victory.

Not that he lost, he's in SPITE mode.

 

A real leader, or even any mature ADULT other than the twisted mentally bizarre MAN BABY we have as president would say now -- OK, we tried really hard. We failed. But the new reality is ACA will STAY the law of the land and I call on people of BOTH PARTIES to get together and support what is good about the law and reform what is not so good, together, as Americans, for the sake of the HEALTH of ALL the people of the nation.

 

Would that be so hard? 

 

He is doing the exact OPPOSITE. I'm sorry, I think the man embodies EVIL. He's as much a DANGER to the people of the USA as a hostile foreign power. 

 

"Health plan’s fall brings dread for ‘Obamacare’ recipients

‘A REALLY HORRIFYING LOTTERY’

Alexandra Flores, 29, a library assistant at the University of South Florida in St. Petersburg, was astonished with Trump’s “Let Obamacare fail” declaration and his further insistence that “I’m not going to own it.”

“To say that he ‘won’t own it’ now when his party owns the House, Senate and White House is preposterous,” Flores said. “The president of the United States should not be treating health care this way.”"

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/health-plan-failure-brings-dread-for-obamacare-beneficiaries/2017/07/19/c64b4c4a-6c57-11e7-abbc-a53480672286_story.html

Edited July 19, 2017 by Jingthing

[Jingthing]

DETAILS about the damaging power that trump actually has to carry out his SPITE threats on health care.

 

Quote

 

Trump is threatening to harm millions out of pure spite. Here’s what to watch for now.

...

Central to this question is the fact that President Trump is now threatening to sabotage those markets himself.

...

But how seriously should we take this threat? Very seriously, until we have proof that he doesn’t really mean it, or until Republicans take active steps to defuse it, which they can do if they choose to.

 

 

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/07/19/trump-is-threatening-to-harm-millions-out-of-pure-spite-heres-what-to-watch-for-now/

 

Insane clown president on the loose. How long will the country have to put up with this destructive madness?

Edited July 19, 2017 by Jingthing

[bendejo]

I have the solution: rename the program.  For the past eight years the GOP has been drumming in this hatred of anything Obama into the feeble minds of their rabid base.  A few months ago one pollster asked people how they felt about the Affordable Care Act and found a fair amount of support among Republican voters, whereas Obamacare was perceived as a Great Evil.

Go figure...

 

Rename it The Very Good Health Care Act of 2017 with the nickname of Trumpcare: it will make the Great Orange Leader happy and when he tells his followers how he has freed them from the Great Evil they of course will fall in line.  The vermin and ideologues in Congress would be another story.

 

 

Edited July 19, 2017 by bendejo

[jerojero]

Wonder if Trump is tired of winning, yet.

[jerojero]

Everything the Republicans in Congress have been talking about re health care reform was going to be WORSE for the average American than anything that's part of the current ACA system.
 
What's sad and amazing at the same time is that so many Republicans in the House, and almost half of the U.S. Senate, were very willing to boot tens of millions of Americans out of their current health insurance, and substantially raise premiums on the elderly and those with lower incomes.
 
It's because of the crazed anti-Obama propaganda from Fox News over the years and Trump and Co. more recently, perhaps with the help of the Russians, that so many Americans at least used to believe ACA was bad for the country. But now that things have gotten real, it's 2-to-1 in favor of ACA over what the Republicans were planning.
 
Wake up America, and start paying attention to what these proposed laws and regulations would actually do -- not what Trump and Co. and Fox are telling you they'll do. A wonderful health care plan with coverage for everyone????? Just another in the unending stream of B.S.
 

Bill Maher nailed it, saying "Americans are stupid"as it relates to the millions who believe every single word on Fox news and out of Trump's mouth.

[jerojero]

Time line

Better and cheaper healthcare for everyone and the government will fund it.

Repeal and replace in week one.

It's easy.

Nobody knew healthcare was complicated.

The house has passed a wonderful bill.

The house bill is mean.

Let Obamacare fail and the Dems will have to pass our bill.

You are right on, my friend.

[ilostmypassword]

9 hours ago, Trouble said:

First off, the ACA was a fraud perpetrated on the American taxpayer to begin with.  What the ACA really was about was expanding coverage not reducing costs. Two of the law's provisions were expanding Medicaid eligibility and creating new government-run exchanges offering subsidizing health plans. Obamacare accomplished that for some 20 million Americans. Keep your doctor, lower premiums as promised to the majority of Americans, it did not. To fund these 20 million Americans Obamacare's effect was to increase insurance premiums for the middle class and shift the burden of health care cost to them.  What Obamacare really did was get millions more on Medicaid. Insurance companies have pulled out right and left as they are taking losses.  Like it or not the health care industry is a business, hospitals are a business, doctoring is a business.  Basically a bunch of politicians started tinkering with a business model and screwed it up.  While there was some increase in people covered by individual-market plans, there was also a drop in employment-based coverage. The Democrats forced a bad plan down everyones throats and now have a health insurance industry in turmoil.  The Republicans are no better in trying to pass their poor plan to somehow claim a victory and are having a hard time of it.  

 

I guess one has to first consider whether "complete" health care is a right of birth in any country.  I personally don't think it is.  Seems to me far too many people want things from the government and are not willing to take care of themselves to some degree. There is room for lots of debate on that.  I am more than willing to discuss what level of coverage should be considered and what level of coverage the people, as a whole, can afford.  The Democrats tried to throw everything possible into the 2,000 pages of the ACA rather than what was practical and affordable as a first step. It was nothing more than buying votes and another attempt at social engineering, something politicians get wrong quite often. What might be a better approach is to first determine what basic needs should be funded by the Taxpayer and what should be individual responsibility.  With a trillion dollar deficit each year, where does the money come from?  Maybe a national sales tax or other funding measures should be considered but the Obamacare model failed miserably and everyone knows it. It tried to model a one size fits all plan which does not work and which gave away the farm.  The Democrats only solution is to throw more money at the ACA which is not treating the problem with the model.  They will not admit it did not work the way it was planned. The Republicans on the other hand have been pretty deficient in bringing about open debate on the subject, discussing what the country can afford at this juncture, and how encompassing the plan should be.  Sorry but it is not the responsibility of the government to do everything for everyone.  Next we will be making rent payments for the underprivileged, subsidizing food for the poor, utilities for the poor, and phones for the poor.  Oops, we already subsidize all those things.  The problem with all this is that as good as the intentions are, that sector of society seems to be growing not diminishing.  The worst part about all these programs is that a whole segment of the population now demands these things and has to contribute nothing in return. It is nothing but a downward spiral to bankruptcy.  When the interest on borrowing money becomes a larger part of the budget, it is likely to cause a depression and the house of cards will collapse.  Like it or not there is no way to tax that 1% everyone wants to do and pay for it all.

There is so much misleading and false information here that I don't have the time to correct it all. But let's just examine one  misleading assertion that you made:

"While there was some increase in people covered by individual-market plans, there was also a drop in employment-based coverage."

The drop in employment based coverage was miniscule. In fact, conservatives often attack the CBO because it overpredicted how many uninsured people would seek coverage via the exchanges. But what they don't say is that the main reason for that is that the CBO agreed with conservatives and massively overestimated how many employers would drop insurance coverage of their employees.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/05/business/employers-keep-health-insurance-despite-affordable-care-act.html

[Skywalker69]

6 hours ago, bendejo said:

I have the solution: rename the program.  For the past eight years the GOP has been drumming in this hatred of anything Obama into the feeble minds of their rabid base.  A few months ago one pollster asked people how they felt about the Affordable Care Act and found a fair amount of support among Republican voters, whereas Obamacare was perceived as a Great Evil.

Go figure...

 

Rename it The Very Good Health Care Act of 2017 with the nickname of Trumpcare: it will make the Great Orange Leader happy and when he tells his followers how he has freed them from the Great Evil they of course will fall in line.  The vermin and ideologues in Congress would be another story.

 

 

It was the republicans whom gave the ACA  the name of "Obamacare"

[boomerangutang]

6 hours ago, jerojero said:

Wonder if Trump is tired of winning, yet.

....Or if his fan-base are so tired of winning, they're emailing/calling the WH to beg him to quit winning so much.

 

                           If American politicians can't get a workable health care bill, why not get Canadians, Aussies, or Scandinavians involved?  I know the answer:  US Republican are a category unto themselves.  When HRC was First Lady, she worked long hours (together with many of the people involved; insurers, doctors, pharma, etc) putting together a workable Health Care system, and Republicans shot it down before they even read one word of her proposal.  

 

                        Republicans represent many of the most selfish millionaires/billionaires in the nation, and those folks don't want to pay a portion of their immense wealth to assisting those at the bottom rungs of the ladder.  They toss out the word 'SOCIALISM' and that still seems to rile up the masses.  Yet it's socialism which bailed out Wall Street, and socialism which enables; schools, military, parks, highways/bridges, and thousands of other programs which benefit Americans. 

[Thakkar]

15 minutes ago, boomerangutang said:

When HRC was First Lady, she worked long hours (together with many of the people involved; insurers, doctors, pharma, etc) putting together a workable Health Care system, and Republicans shot it down before they even read one word of her proposal.  

On a side note, remember how Republicans were aghast, appalled  and apoplectic about an "unelected relative of the president" getting involved in policy?

 

I guess they're ok with it (times two) now that it's one of their own, huh.

 

T