Posted on 12/30/2018 6:38:44 AM PST by a little elbow grease
This is a state issue. Nearly all states have some sort of "Medicaid asset recovery" statute on the books, but few, if any, impliment it WRT expanded Medicaid.....yet. As the Medicaid costs increase for states, they should start enforcing those laws.
A deal is a compromise. Do you know what happens when you compromise? You don’t get what you want.
The odds of POTUS Trump being re-elected are becoming slim. MAGA is now a shell of its inspiration and potential during the campaign.
The GOP is a con...they say we will do this...but they do nothing..
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I hear you.
Here's wishing you and yours a pleasant New Year.
“Here’s wishing you and yours a pleasant New Year.”
And the same to you and yours! Here’s to an “interesting 2019!”
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Yes indeed.
Someone might want to put together a chart of the net worth of Congress goons when they arrived in D.C., and then their net worth today, after their national THEFT.
Thank you for the excellent, concise summation.
"........ what a crowd, what a crowd!" -- R. D.
No flames from me, just a comment that scriptures teaches us that if a nation forsakes Him and His laws, He will raise up fools to rule over that nation. That is certainly what we are seeing now.
"Bountiful" Nancy.... on the right.
;-)
Obamacare killed the 40 hour work week. Ask these same people if they like working two or three 29 hour/week jobs to make up for the one 45 hour/week job they used to have, and see what they say.
-PJ
The situation leads inevitably to nationalization.
The Democrats know what they want, the Republicans do not know what they want - in fact, they are deeply divided over what they want. I will have a longer post about this later today.
Under the circumstances, single payer is inevitable and if you don’t like that, you had better be ready to fight hard for a private option.
Under the final draft of Hillarycare, a doctor would be fined $50 000 or spend five years in prison, or both, for treating a patient for a fee if “the system” had refused treatment. That is going to be the last ditch in the 75 year war over nationalization.
L - R, never Trumpers Paul Ryan, Chuck Schumer, MItch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi
Jailing doctors will inevitably lead to slavery. What happens when doctors abandon the profession because of government-controlled wages and the risk of fines or prison? Will the government force doctors to practice?
As that great constitutional scholar Kanye West pointed out, the thirteenth amendment allows the government to force doctors into "involuntary servitude" if the government can find a crime to convict a doctor of. Unauthorized treatment of patients might be one such crime, given the clash between government edict and the Hippocratic Oath. Instead of "death panels" we will have "star chambers" to find and convict doctors in order to press them into single-payer service.
-PJ
All because the senate is broken. Takes 60 votes to do anything or you have to “deal”. (cave)
Today, the parties dig in as a bloc to obstruct each other. I don't think 60 state-appointed and obligated Senators would behave the same way.
State interests would be more important than party interests in an appointed Senate. Party interests become more important than state interests when parties fund the campaigns of Senators.
-PJ
That could be true. But if you chew out people who gets elected now as a RINO or a wimp you may not like who your state legislators send to Washington. "State interests" may turn out to be the interests of state legislators and the people who contribute to their campaigns.
Agreed. Here is my boilerplate response to this point:
I think the difference is that they are corrupt for their own state interests.It's easier to manage 50 corruptions localized to their individual states, instead of the collusion of corruption at the federal level that is nationalized.
At least with the states, you have the self-interests of the other 49 states to balance the corruption of a runaway state. National corruption ends with weaponizing the arms of government against its people in order to protect the establishment.
At the very least, doing away with the elections will dry up the existing money spigots, such as McConnell's NRSC or Schumer's counterpart. They will have to rebuild new power networks to replace it, since it would be harder for Senate leaders to use national money to influence state appointments.
Also, end 33 of the most expensive elections that occur every two years, and we also stop the flow of money from the donors to the media, laundered through the Senate campaigns.
Kill the MSM beast by repealing the 17th amendment and cutting off the cash flow to the MSM.
-PJ
This was what the House GOP said they wanted in the last Congress:
“Reduce costs, reduce taxes, take away the “individual mandate,” but still ensure people that want healthcare have the ability to purchase it”
The whole problem, succinctly stated, in one clever, incoherent sentence.
The reason the Republicans can’t crack this nut, in fact, the reason their party won’t exist as a single party by 2024, is that they are divided and unable to be reconciled over the contradiction so ably stated above.
“Ensure people that want healthcare have the ability to purchase it”
Let’s break it down.
Nobody “wants” “healthcare” (whatever that is). I suppose the author of the sentence means “health insurance”.
People either need health care (meaning, hospitalization, surgery, medications, doctor visits, Xrays, MRIs, and nursing services), or they don’t. WHEN they need it, they want it (or are too sick to know they do), but when they don’t need it, they most certainly don’t WANT it.
When people NEED hospitalization, surgery, medications, nursing services and all the rest, (and notice how much people don’t want to think about that - they invented the euphemism “healthcare” to describe it) - when they need it, “having the ability to purchase it” is absolutely, totally, 100% completely the last thing on their minds. So is organizing society so that it will be available. What is on patient’s minds at the point of need is death, or life - disability and disfigurement, or recovery. They do not know, or care, who pays, or how.
So, the Democrats have resolved the philosophical question that comes before the practical problem. They want to ensure that “healthcare” (by which they mean services) is given to all by the government without regard for ability to purchase (pay for) it.
Whether this is right or wrong, smart or stupid, practical or akin to skittles from unicorns is not my point. My point is that they have resolved the contradiction embedded in “lower costs, lower taxes, no mandate, ensure ability to purchase (pay for it) for 100% of the population”. The Democrats know what they want, and they are united and determined to have it.
The poor, stupid Republicans, OTOH, are divided about the underlying premise. They really do want health insurance to be cheaper without the lost revenue being made up by taxes, and they want no requirement to have it, BUT they also want “people that want healthcare” (again, whatever that means) to “have the ability to purchase it”.
This is incoherent. If hospitals, surgeons, drug manufacturers and nurses do not get paid for their services, they will no longer be available. Many, many people who NEED (and therefore “want”) those services cannot pay 1% of what they cost.
“Ensuring that people that want healthcare have the ability to purchase it” either means cheap insurance that doesn’t cover anything OR nationalization of the resources to deliver care to those who cannot, or will not, pay.
There is no middle ground. The Democrats know what they want. The Republicans don’t.
As Sun Tzu said, “It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.”
The Republicans do not have a plan because they do not have a philosophy that can support their opposed goals of more freedom for the well and perfect security for the sick.
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