Posted on 02/03/2017 11:39:16 AM PST by re_tail20
We get it—you’re busy. There’s a lot happening on the Hill. So, if you’re wondering, “What happened with Obamacare this week?”—allow us to bring you up to speed.
Legislative Hearings
This week, a few House committees held hearings to discuss fixing our health care system by way of repealing and replacing Obamacare. First up? Energy and Commerce.
Yesterday, the E&C health subcommittee looked at four specific bills designed to rebuild the collapsing health care market (more on that here)—bills that protect taxpayer dollars and give power back to states. As Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) said, “We have to save this individual health care market—it is collapsing.”
On Wednesday, the health subcommittee also took a look at three commonsense bills to strengthen Medicaid—one day after the oversight subcommittee did the same. During Tuesday’s hearing, Chairman Walden highlighted how the program’s increasing costs, fraud, and errors in determining eligibility result “in millions of wasted taxpayer dollars,” weakening Medicaid for those who rely on it.
The Education and the Workforce Committee also held a hearing to examine how Obamacare has hurt small businesses struggling to offer coverage to their employees.
These hearings reiterated just how important Obamacare repeal is. Our step-by-step approach will prioritize accountability, innovation, and quality care for those who need it most.
Even Worse Than We Thought
Rewind to Monday, when the Heritage Foundation released a new report reaffirming our longstanding fear: This year, Obamacare’s health insurance exchanges are going to see even less competition and choice.
Currently, customers in 70 percent of U.S. counties have only one or two insurers to choose from. That’s not the kind of competition we need to keep costs down and quality for patients high.
The whole report—find that here—is an eye-opening omen of what health insurance will look like if we stick with...
(Excerpt) Read more at speaker.gov ...
Ryan sir,
Just repeal. Forget about replace.
Any state that wishes to run a taxpayer-subsidized health system can set one up.
The feds have no business doing this (and would never be able to do it well, anyway...it took someone we know six months to just get a straight answer from medicare how much he has to pay, and it turns out its quite a bit MORE than his excellent private health insurance was...)
Rush was VERY upset today, saying it looks like the Ryan-led House is chickening out, saying they will “repeal and REPAIR Obamacare.” In other words, Obamacare will still be with us. Hopefully, President Trump will have none of this. He promised to repeal and REPLACE it, and that’s exactly what should happen. The GOP better not stab him in the back or everyone who does should be voted out next year.
Repeal. Period. Full stop
Do not replace
Do not repair
They’ve had years to prepare. Why aren’t they ready?
Yeah, the ObamaNationUnCare that, you know, they are exempt from having to endure themselves.
They could afford it more than most of their constituents, but they don’t have to.
OK, repeal. Then what?
I have Obamacare. Now it’s gone. Where do I get insurance? I am guessing the assumption here is with Obamacare gone and things such as selling insurance across state lines and some other things created, insurance companies will be lining up to sell me insurance at a lower cost. But when? A month? 6 months?
If I understand it correctly, the idea behind replace is to have other programs by insurance companies in place so when you do repeal Obamacare, people can purchase insurance quickly so in the event something happens, they will be covered.
Because the damn Republicans are just a lazy bunch if ignorant talking machines. They are as useless as the communists Democrats and do less. Over the years they have proved their incompetence.
“They’ve had years to prepare. Why aren’t they ready?”
That’s an excellent question, and I JUST realized the answer is quite easy: those S.O.Bs never expected they’d have to! They assumed that Hillary would slaughter Donald Trump and/or they wouldn’t have both Houses and the Presidency for the next eight years!
This is going to be lengthy.
Restructuring the healthcare/health insurance market requires recognizing several facts.
First, without a federal law addressing the issue, people with pre-existing conditions will suffer unnecessarily. Either they will be without insurance, or they will face monumental premiums, or they will be trapped in their current employment because it offers the insurance they need and won’t be able to get on their own.
Second, costs of healthcare are out of control due to the existence of employer-provided health insurance which, for decades, covered not only catastrophic incidents, but regular body maintenance, stuff that people should pay for out of pocket, but didn’t. That feature kept customers from caring about costs.
Third, unless you force young people to buy health insurance (as Obamacare intended), premiums in an individual market have to reflect the costs associated with insuring any particular age group.
Taking all these together, and recognizing that employer-provided health insurance already covers millions of people with pre-existing conditions, government’s role should be to:
1. Cause employer-provided health insurance to transition to individual coverage. Doing this will also vastly increase the pool of people in each age group in the individual market.
2. Ensure that people who obtain individual coverage can keep it if they later become sick, or move, or change jobs, so long as they maintain constant coverage. If you don’t do this, it’s not insurance.
3. Mandate that insurance companies price coverage based primarily on age of the individual. If you don’t do this, young people won’t sign up voluntarily for individual coverage.
4. Due to #3, provide tax credits to people based on their age, with the subsidy growing as one ages, so that older people are able to afford the higher prices they will be charged. If you don’t do this, older people will be forced out of the individual market even as their need for insurance steadily increases due to advancing age.
5. And finally, to get the ball rolling, establish a grace period at the enactment of the law that enables everyone to obtain insurance priced for their age group without taking a physical. That is, insurance companies would not be able to consider pre-existing conditions during the grace period.
Implications:
1. The combination of the grace period and the tax credits would encourage nearly everyone without insurance today to sign up for a policy because it could never thereafter be taken away from them unless they quit paying their premiums.
2. Government programs could be re-directed from direct payment for care to maintenance of premiums for those down on their luck or indigent. Even Medicare could eventually be supplanted by people just maintaining their policies until death.
3. Charity could focus on helping people pay their out-of-pocket costs, since insurance companies would be handling the bigger catastrophic costs.
4. Young people would be highly encouraged to sign up during the grace period by their parents and grandparents because the price would be reasonable and they’d have insurance for life.
5. With most people choosing high-deductible policies, healthcare costs would come under pressure as people checked prices of care before receiving it in the vast majority of cases, or at least until pricing became more rational.
The health insurance marketplace was messed up long before Obamacare. This is a chance to start over, and get it right, basing it on individual liberty and market-oriented pricing. If it takes a few months to put together, so be it.
How many hearings do they need? They had eight years to come up with something.
No. Screw "those who need it most." Prioritize on repealing the mandate. Help those who want their freedom back. It can be done by simple majority vote.
FU Paul Ryan.
Buy it from the free market
Absolutely. Reading this does not give me a level of confidence! Meetings for discussions? I think there are think-tanks out there that have the whole process thought out. They should not have to invent the wheel. Just reconcile some differing approaches. I am very concerned that they don't understand the meaning of "free market" very well at all! Maybe they need to do some short term subsidies for people for a year or two to tide people over until companies can gear up. But it doesn't seem like Congress has a sense of urgency! I don't have a good feeling, hopefully I am just over-concerned.
That sounds very logical, Norseman. I hope our legislators can look at it so logically! Why do I have a feeling they will make it a whole lot more complicated!
You got it right. Working our way back from the ACA and also getting on the right path which we weren’t on before is going to take much right effort and a lot of time.
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