Posted on 01/27/2014 10:27:09 AM PST by Solson
2017 Project executive director (and frequent TWS contributor) Jeff Anderson has an important memo outlining the new health care reform proposal from three senior Republican senators that would repeal Obamacare and replace it with legislation that "beats Obamacare in every particular" and would also "address many of the most serious shortcomings of the pre-Obamacare status quo." You can read Anderson's memo in full, below. There's been a lot of talk in magazines and from think tanks about a "conservative reform agenda"—and some laments as to the slowness of GOP elected officials to champion such an agenda. This proposal could mark an important moment in the dam of timidity and resistance breaking, and could prove to be an important inflection point in the GOP's effort to become by 2016 a national governing party.
And a Republican “alternative” that looks like a typical Republican response - just a little better than the Dems but STILL, a complete slow walk into hell...and away from the Constitution.
I haven’t read it, so I will be able to critique the proposal once I do. The problem is that the federal government is already massively intertwined with medical service and insurance. Medicare and Medicaid are a primary driver of the problems we have. Those problems need to be identified and fixed. We can’t act like the government should not act at all because there is no stomach among any group, including the vast majority of our own conservative base who want Medicare to be gone. The government is already knee deep before Obamacare. That isn’t going to change even if Obamacare is eliminated tomorrow. There is a place...and a necessity to fix this situation. More government is most definitely not the solution, but that doesn’t mean doing nothing.
Plus, this would introduce millions to shopping for their own insurance (previously covered by employers) which will lower costs thru competition. This idea has been in the works for a long time and it's a good one.
It was sort of inevitable that after January 1 when some Americans got insured by it that the GOP would stop talking about repeal.
That is because a repeal would be seen as ‘taking away Americans health care’ which is what got so many mad at Obamacare.
How well they will fare with the battle of the national health care plans remains to be seen.
Obama will just reject the GOP ideas.
What the heck does Orrin Hatch need his two-cents involved in this, unless he wants this to be his legacy legislation!
I don't like the phrase tax credits.
I think that if they really “cared”, for starters we should all be able to deduct every penny spent on medical/dental, vision instead of complying with the convoluted formulas and spending/income caps that is in the tax code.
Once again, the feds tell us what we owe them in taxes, what they are going to spend (though they mostly hide individual items so as not to inflame our senses and demand they not squander our money on their funding, say "artists" who dangle crucifixes in jars of urine) and now our GOP weenies want to tell us just how much of our own tax money they can "afford" to allow us to claim, based upon our ages, etc!
All of this just infuriates me, how dare they enter in to my health care needs and expenses!!!
What this replacement does is allow people to privately get insurance and have a tax credit to help if they buy it - that is an incentive to get it - not be forced to get it.
It allows people who have had insurance for a time to change to another policy even if they have a preexisting condition. If a person loses his/her job and loses employer insurance, they can get a private policy even though they have a preexisting condition and that is a good thing.
It has a mandate but that mandate is not like the “you have to buy it or get whacked” mandate. This mandate has states automatically enroll their citizens in a healthcare plan. Then, IF THE CITIZEN DOESN'T WANT IT, they opt out. They are not forced to keep it.
It also gets rid of taking billions from Medicare and Medicaid. Medicare/Medicaid are not in this bill. If the bill replaces Obamacare, then Medicare/Medicaid are not included to be raided.
If reform of Medicare/Medicaid needs to be done without leaving the elderly with no care, that can be done outside of this bill.
Something has to happen to get rid of Obamacare and this bill does it and replaces it with something that will work. Those of you who want Obamacare repealed and nothing more done are not thinking. There will be chaos nationwide in healthcare if it is just repealed.
For what it’s worth, this proposal falls short in one crucial area. The Federal Government has absolutely NO BUSINESS at all in being involved in our healthcare.
I do not want, need or desire a “Republican Alternative” to OBAMACIDE.
What part of this is so hard to understand?
Plain stupid !
What you are NOT seeing is that the top legislators in the US have decided to follow the commands of their corporate sponsors and usher in the New World Order. It is just over the horizon and corporate America is demanding that the legislators bring it forth.
Have you ever seen the chart that shows how many International corporations own all the other smaller national corporations?
Tax credits apply to those who pay no taxes, tax deductions cut taxes of only those who pay taxes.
Neither party cares about the individual, but they must make believe that they do. He who fakes caring the best and most gets the votes.
Why would people who pay no taxes now, want tax credits??
“Why would people who pay no taxes now, want tax credits??”
The law would give a tax credit to those who pay taxes and buy insurance. The people who don’t have to pay any taxes usually don’t have much money and are usually on Medicaid so the tax credit would not apply to them.
Because the “tax credits” are refundable. Yeah, makes no sense to me, either, and I practiced as a CPA in taxation for about a dozen years. The term is just a means of sugar-coating the real event, which is welfare.
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