Posted on 12/09/2013 10:30:31 AM PST by cornelis
In a visit to NRs New York office, Senator Ron Johnson said the fight against Obamacare is entering a new phase: Weve got to start talking about transitioning. Johnson won his Senate seat in 2010 based in large part on his fierce opposition to Obamacare, which he still adamantly opposes as an assault on Americans liberty and criticizes in the harshest terms (look no further than his recent weekly radio address). But simple repeal is no longer enough, he believes. He says that Republicans have to acknowledge that the law now exists. How do you repeal? he asks. Yeah, you can get rid of the law, but what do you do with whats already there? He continues, Am I opposed to state-based exchanges? No. He thinks it may be that they can be usable. Im all for repeal, he stipulates, but its there. What do you do with whats there? . . . .Weve got to start talking about the reality of the situation. He says that his approach, acknowledging the reality of the new structures put in place by Obamacare and offering a positive alternative, might be summarized as repeal, dismantle, and transition to something better.
FWIW, if Romney were in the WH, he would tweak it a little but there would be mandatory health insurance. That is his legacy for MA, after all.
Great, a “conservative” plan that’s every bit as complicated and unwieldy as the original Obamacare.
The mandate or some form of it is a far more conservative policy than a subsidy, which is pure nanny state welfare socialism. I would support charging people a health care tax which goes solely to reimburse hospitals and doctors for unpaid medical bills. And if you have health insurance or any health care costs you can deduct them 100% off the tax, so you won’t pay the tax if you’re already paying your own medical bills. This simply provides the funding for the unfunded mandate EMTALA created in 1986.
Either that or repeal EMTALA. But giving an order for the private sector to spend money on something and providing no government reimbursement for them to do so is far worse than adding a tax that covers that mandate.
If the insurance companies through the politicians they own had worked to destroy Obamacare instead of working to set up something they thought they could profit from, Obamacare would be gone. Why should I pay any kind of tax that goes to hospitals, insurance providers etc? If the insurance companies fold, new ones will emerge that will have learned the lessons and not try to profit from government schemes.
One sure way for hospitals and other care to not lose money on those who don't pay would be EVerify....any non-citizen pays upfront. Another would be clinics where patients went on a pay-as-you-go basis, with frugal solutions and emphasizing natural healing.
It all depends on what he wants to replace it with.
The health care market was hardly a bastion of freedom and free markets before DeathCare was imposed.
If the goals are to increase the number of folks who can afford health insurance, then the model for health insurance and for payment of health care needs to move toward a consumer-driven model - one where the consumer cares about costs, and has clear choices between health care options as often as possible.
There are a few things that could be done universally to improve the situation. Most folks should know these by heart: tort reform and all the reforms that would go with it; interstate competition between insurance plans and providers; enforcing a bare minimum of minimum benefits.
But other important areas ripe for improvement include: shifting the tax advantages of health insurance to the insured rather than the employer, thus empowering consumers to make their own insurance choices; encouraging REAL INSURANCE, not pre-paid health care, in other words, primarily catastrophic, or what we used to call “major medical,” insurance;” discouraging “first dollar” coverage and discouraging coverage for routine care, which is essentially like paying your auto insurer to pay for your oil changes; highly advantaged Health Savings Accounts to encourage folks to take responsibility for the routine and non-catastrophic health stuff. These things would be done to move as much of health care to direct, cash (or check or credit card) payment for services, cutting the insurance company out of the loop.
Other possible reforms include encouraging health care providers to provide package pricing for non-emergency procedures and surgeries paid in cash; insurance companies using “reference pricing.”
By making folks more directly responsible for the cost of their health care, market forces can be brought to bear, lowering prices, improving quality, and improving access to health care for everyone.
So, yes, if Sen. Johnson is talking about these sorts of reforms that bring the health care market closer to a true, free market, these things would be very good. AND, packaged together, could be presented as the alternative to DeathCare by Obama. It’s easier to beat something with something else than to beat something with nothing.
The main difference in a Romney vs Obama Presidency is that it would be called Romneycare and the token opposition that the GOP leadership shows wouldn’t exist at all. Furthermore, we would have all the “conservative” party shills that blindly support anything with an R behind it, rallying to defend it.
Romney has no back bone, and no principles either. Lets don’t pretend the architect of socialized healthcare, amnesty supporter, father of gay marriage, and supporter of abortion rights is that much different. They stand for the same things. For some reason, a lot of folks are ok when it has an R behind it.
Unprincipled GOP voters who buy the “lesser than two evils” and “moderate” BS gave us Romney...and in turn gave us a second term for Obama.
So many around here lately are basically "I will piss on it before I understand it, and that will show everybody on FR how important my way of thinking is."
Kudos to you today for clarifying what Johnson said.
FReegards!
So now going ahead and getting on board with Obamacare is pragmatic?
Thank YOU. I appreciate that.
One of the destructive elements of having a clown like Obamugabe in the Oval Office is one that strangely effects conservatives...we are being torn apart because we cannot agree on how to defeat the ideology he spews.
Worse than that, we tend to turn on each other...accusing each other of not being “pure” enough.
Don’t get me wrong...there are Chaffees and Crists and Lindseys who NEEDo be challenged and defeated...but so often we taint everyone who isn’t chomping at the bit for a dog fight as a wuss.
I don’t agree with that...
The Obama fascists were patient and waited to get their disdainful agenda in place...we must be, too. Or we risk allowing them to continue their destruction of America.
I must be in an alternative universe. Where did Johnson say he advocates getting on board with Obama care in this report? Show me and I will praise your insight and announce my fail.
Look, Johnson said he intends to repeal Obamacare, right? You object?
Next, he said he wants to see it dismantled, right? You object to that?
Then he wants to transition out of it? You object to that also?
The thing is law and implementation is under way, with deadlines looming for worse to come.
What do we transition to is a reasonable question, and Johnson wants a transition to something better than this cork sandwich we have now.
He now lacks some cred.
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