The showdown vote is coming Thursday: http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/20/politics/r...index.html

Be careful not to gloss over the biggest change: They want to set aside $75 billion dollars with no description of what it will be used for.

Something every member of the Liberty Caucus will be totally thrilled with!

The art of the deal...With the devil.
No turning back now.

(03-10-2017 12:12 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(03-08-2017 03:41 PM)Redwingtom Wrote:  

(03-08-2017 01:27 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(03-08-2017 12:58 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(03-08-2017 01:09 AM)Hood-rich Wrote:  we've havent had a true free market healthcare system in a long time.

Good!

Actually, it was good, until we abandoned the free market.

I'm sure it was "good" for you (and me) because we had means and insurance.

The last time we had anything remotely approaching free market health care, I was maybe six years old and had neither means nor insurance, and I doubt you were born yet.

So at the age of six, you knew that good health care was?

https://www.cato.org/publications/commen...h-care-act

(03-21-2017 02:42 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  https://www.cato.org/publications/commen...h-care-act

Some logic flaws in here.

Quote:But the mandate that contributes in the greatest way to making premiums unaffordable is called “guaranteed issue/community rating.” This is the requirement that insurance providers accept people who are currently sick or have preexisting conditions, yet providers are not allowed to charge such people any differently than those who are not sick and don’t have preexisting conditions.

They're good at identifying a problem but where's the solution? Next quote the ACHA tries to solve it with a stick.

Quote:The American Health Care Act effectively leaves all of the Obamacare mandates in place. It does remove the individual mandate, but in its place is the threat of a 30 percent premium surcharge for one full year for anyone who goes without continuous coverage for more than 63 days (which sounds a lot like a Republican version of an individual mandate).

Penalties for coverage lapses have existed long before ACA or ACHA. I almost got nailed with them a time or two. This was nearly 20 years ago.

(03-21-2017 03:03 PM)Hood-rich Wrote:  

(03-21-2017 02:42 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  https://www.cato.org/publications/commen...h-care-act

Some logic flaws in here.

Quote:But the mandate that contributes in the greatest way to making premiums unaffordable is called “guaranteed issue/community rating.” This is the requirement that insurance providers accept people who are currently sick or have preexisting conditions, yet providers are not allowed to charge such people any differently than those who are not sick and don’t have preexisting conditions.

They're good at identifying a problem but where's the solution? Next quote the ACHA tries to solve it with a stick.

Quote:The American Health Care Act effectively leaves all of the Obamacare mandates in place. It does remove the individual mandate, but in its place is the threat of a 30 percent premium surcharge for one full year for anyone who goes without continuous coverage for more than 63 days (which sounds a lot like a Republican version of an individual mandate).

Penalties for coverage lapses have existed long before ACA or ACHA. I almost got nailed with them a time or two. This was nearly 20 years ago.

No logic flaws at all. The author is against no pre-existing conditions. As am I. No pre-existing conditions is antithetical to having health insurance. So to deal with this, ObamaCare (and now Obamacare-Lite) place mandates to require people to buy insurance. And not just any insurance ... insurance with a lengthy list of federal mandates in coverage. So the care is wildly excessive. This drives prices up. Which drives healthy people out. Which drives price up again as the remaining people drain more than they pay into the insurance pool. And on and on until total collapse. The insurers helped write this bill just as they helped write ObamaCare ... and you can see that particularly in that:

- It still doesn't allow for catastrophic only coverage
- It requires expensive and sometimes unnecessary coverage
- Now if you buy health insurance when you're sick, instead of the penalty money going to the IRS it goes directly to the insurer. And, oh yeah, the penalty is still small enough, especially considering skyrocketing premiums (which this bill will make worse) to not really motivate people to keep insurance. A 30% premium penalty for a year? Well **** that's still nothing if I save $6,000 a year just by being healthy and ducking the system entirely. Do without ... go to cash only doctors ... buy coverage when you get cancer and make out like a bandit.

Current Whip List has the bill DOA in the Senate and just two more confirmed Nos from DOA in the House.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/322903...epeal-plan

(03-21-2017 03:10 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  No logic flaws at all. The author is against no pre-existing conditions. As am I.

OK. I am not. There are a lot of people who have health problems that are completely out of their control. They need to be protected.

(03-21-2017 03:47 PM)Hood-rich Wrote:  

(03-21-2017 03:10 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  No logic flaws at all. The author is against no pre-existing conditions. As am I.

OK. I am not. There are a lot of people who have health problems that are completely out of their control. They need to be protected.

I have health problems that are out of my control when I was born with it. If it was not for Obamacare? I could have gone paralyzed or even death. Had surgery to remove bone spur in my neck. Because my spinal column is narrowing onto my spinal cord. The bone spurs could make be paralyzed and in some cases death at the neck level. Spinal cord disease is nothing to sneeze at. Christopher Reeve died from a spinal cord infection.

(03-21-2017 04:35 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  

(03-21-2017 03:47 PM)Hood-rich Wrote:  

(03-21-2017 03:10 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  No logic flaws at all. The author is against no pre-existing conditions. As am I.

OK. I am not. There are a lot of people who have health problems that are completely out of their control. They need to be protected.

I have health problems that are out of my control when I was born with it. If it was not for Obamacare? I could have gone paralyzed or even death. Had surgery to remove bone spur in my neck. Because my spinal column is narrowing onto my spinal cord. The bone spurs could make be paralyzed and in some cases death at the neck level. Spinal cord disease is nothing to sneeze at. Christopher Reeve died from a spinal cord infection.

Then you both do not understand comprehensive health insurance. If you allow people to not buy when they're healthy ... then you don't have an insurance system. What if people could simply not buy car insurance until they have a wreck? How expensive would car insurance be then? The issues with gaps in coverage can be addressed in the following ways:

- COBRA
- Medicaid (poor)
- Medicare (old)
- Allowing people to buy into medicaid/medicare if they are neither poor nor old

We already have government welfare health insurance safety nets. I could see a one time exemption if your parents were irresponsible when you turn 21. But beyond that ... you simply CANNOT allow people to lapse their coverage and simply pick it back up again when they get sick. That's a recipe for insurance death spirals ... not practical and reasonably priced care. And then we compound this problem with ObamaCare (and Obamacare-Lite) by forcing people to buy plans that cover a huge range of crap they may not want or need. And then we don't allow them to buy across state lines. And then we motivate doctors to do CYA procedures to avoid malpractice. And then we outright make catastrophic only plans illegal. This is mass madness. It is the exact OPPOSITE of a free market. It is the exact OPPOSITE of competition. It is the exact OPPOSITE of insurance.

And so long as you continue to push for it ... you're continuing to push for a total collapse of the health insurance industry. At my very real, very direct, and very infuriating detriment. Because as a sole proprietor business buying for just myself (and outright forbidden from pooling together with others or buying across state lines) I'm at the very tip of the spear of F*CKED by these policies. And I'm getting just a wee bit *** **** tired of being asked to shoulder the financial burden more and more of very very sick people lining up for their free health care ride while all the healthy people duck the system thanks to no more pre-existing conditions.

(03-21-2017 10:52 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  And then we motivate doctors to do CYA procedures to avoid malpractice.

I had to really push to get a colonoscopy because I'm still 10 years too young for the national guidelines. I had a feeling something was off but I have no family history.

I have a great doc, so even though he has been pushed to cut costs he gave me a referral and I had to have three Adenomatous polyps removed. Those types have a 1/10 chance of turning to cancer within ten years.

Basically if I had waited until the federal guidelines said I should have waited I had a better than 1/4 chance of developing cancer before I was ever screened.

(03-21-2017 02:13 PM)cb4029 Wrote:  

(03-10-2017 12:12 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(03-08-2017 03:41 PM)Redwingtom Wrote:  

(03-08-2017 01:27 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(03-08-2017 12:58 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  Good!

Actually, it was good, until we abandoned the free market.

I'm sure it was "good" for you (and me) because we had means and insurance.

The last time we had anything remotely approaching free market health care, I was maybe six years old and had neither means nor insurance, and I doubt you were born yet.

So at the age of six, you knew that good health care was?

Where did I say that I did? Try to read what I actually wrote.

(03-21-2017 10:52 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  while all the healthy people duck the system thanks to no more pre-existing conditions.

The solution is clearly to allow all healthy/young people/families to pay the minimal amount into the system as humanly possible, with these BS rip-off plans that don't really cover anything, so that they effectively don't have any coverage at all.

http://reason.com/blog/2017/03/22/republ...ng-to-defe

Quote:It is no wonder, then, that the bulk of the Freedom Caucus is, at least for the moment, still holding out. They are being told they must vote for the bill, but they are being given no good policy reason to do so.

They better not cave GTS!

(03-22-2017 02:24 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  http://reason.com/blog/2017/03/22/republ...ng-to-defe

Quote:It is no wonder, then, that the bulk of the Freedom Caucus is, at least for the moment, still holding out. They are being told they must vote for the bill, but they are being given no good policy reason to do so.

What do YOU want them to do?

(03-22-2017 02:31 PM)Hood-rich Wrote:  

(03-22-2017 02:24 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  http://reason.com/blog/2017/03/22/republ...ng-to-defe

Quote:It is no wonder, then, that the bulk of the Freedom Caucus is, at least for the moment, still holding out. They are being told they must vote for the bill, but they are being given no good policy reason to do so.

What do YOU want them to do?

Pass a bill containing the following, worded so that these changes do not go into effect until ObamaCare is repealed:

- Malpractice reform
- Allow individuals and small businesses (at a minimum) to pool together into any arbitrary group and collectively bargain for insurance
- Allow any insurance buyer to buy from any state in the union and select international markets (Canada, UK, etc)
- Remove FDA clinical red tape for off patent drugs
- "Right to try" laws for the seriously ill that skirt FDA red tape entirely
- Remove regulatory red tape which slows down or prevents entry into the market entirely of cheap generic drugs
- Legalize catastrophic only coverage for any age
- Remove federal insurance mandates for types of coverage ... allow people to add what they need a la carte
- Return to no coverage for pre-existing conditions to motivate people to maintain coverage throughout their entire life. I can go with a single one time exemption at the age of 21 for people who had sh*tty parents.
- Allow healthy people to buy into medicaid/medicare at cost, so that everybody regardless of age/income has an insurer of last resort to mitigate pre-existing conditions
- Remove all the tax structural incentives for health care to be provided by your employer. Make healthcare be purchased by and stay with the consumer. STOP THIS WWII HEALTH CARE EMPLOYER MADNESS.
- Require Congress and all Congressional staff to buy insurance from the individual market in their home district without any subsidy what so ever.

I should denote now that RyanCare/Obamacare-Lite/Trumpcare contains NONE OF THE ABOVE PROVISIONS WHAT SO EVER. NOT A SINGLE *** **** ONE.

Then as the very next piece of legislation, a full repeal of ObamaCare, passed by whatever means necessary (reconciliation, nuclear option, IDGAF). Make the bill literally one sentence: The Affordable Care Act is now repealed effective immediately.

I should denote now that RyanCare/Obamacare-Lite/Trumpcare doesn't do this either. It just removes the taxes from ObamaCare, changes how the mandate is penalized (tax penalty that goes to the IRS changed to 30% premium surcharge for 12 months that goes to the insurer), and keeps pretty much everything else in place.

Interesting that of 11 items, several are actually very minor things that affect very few people and are practically tangential to the present discussion.

Then other items are giant bombs, that will take decades to hash out and rectify.

(03-22-2017 02:54 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  

(03-22-2017 02:31 PM)Hood-rich Wrote:  

(03-22-2017 02:24 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  http://reason.com/blog/2017/03/22/republ...ng-to-defe

Quote:It is no wonder, then, that the bulk of the Freedom Caucus is, at least for the moment, still holding out. They are being told they must vote for the bill, but they are being given no good policy reason to do so.

What do YOU want them to do?

Pass a bill containing the following, worded so that these changes do not go into effect until ObamaCare is repealed:

- Malpractice reform
- Allow individuals and small businesses (at a minimum) to pool together into any arbitrary group and collectively bargain for insurance
- Allow any insurance buyer to buy from any state in the union and select international markets (Canada, UK, etc)
- Remove FDA clinical red tape for off patent drugs
- "Right to try" laws for the seriously ill that skirt FDA red tape entirely
- Remove regulatory red tape which slows down or prevents entry into the market entirely of cheap generic drugs
- Legalize catastrophic only coverage for any age
- Remove federal insurance mandates for types of coverage ... allow people to add what they need a la carte
- Return to no coverage for pre-existing conditions to motivate people to maintain coverage throughout their entire life. I can go with a single one time exemption at the age of 21 for people who had sh*tty parents.
- Allow healthy people to buy into medicaid/medicare at cost, so that everybody regardless of age/income has an insurer of last resort to mitigate pre-existing conditions
- Remove all the tax structural incentives for health care to be provided by your employer. Make healthcare be purchased by and stay with the consumer. STOP THIS WWII HEALTH CARE EMPLOYER MADNESS.

I should denote now that RyanCare/Obamacare-Lite/Trumpcare contains NONE OF THE ABOVE PROVISIONS WHAT SO EVER. NOT A SINGLE *** **** ONE.

Then as the very next piece of legislation, a full repeal of ObamaCare, passed by whatever means necessary (reconciliation, nuclear option, IDGAF). Make the bill literally one sentence: The Affordable Care Act is now repealed effective immediately.

I should denote now that RyanCare/Obamacare-Lite/Trumpcare doesn't do this either. It just removes the taxes from ObamaCare, changes how the mandate is penalized (tax penalty that goes to the IRS changed to 30% premium surcharge for 12 months that goes to the insurer), and keeps pretty much everything else in place.

Unfortunately that bill would die in the Senate