What is the republican health care plan?

[Political Junky]

Roy Blunt said they're keeping it a secret to avoid confusing people.
Roy Blunt's health care solution: Snipe and sit | Midwest Voices

Roy Blunt's health care solution: Snipe and sit
By Barb Shelly, Kansas City Star editorial page columnist

U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri chairs something called the "House GOP Health Care Solutions Group."

Today, he's in the crosshairs for declaring that the, uh, solutions group wasn't planning on putting forth any solutions. In the form of a bill, that is.

"Our bill is never going to get to the floor, so why confuse the focus?" Blunt said yesterday. "We clearly have principles; we could have language, but why start diverting attention from this really bad piece of work (the Democrats have) got to whatever we’re offering right now?"

So the "solution" is purely political. Fire away at the Democrats' plan and offer nothing of your own.

By this morning, team Blunt had put out a clarification.

“Our reform plan to lower costs, increase access, and improve quality was released weeks ago and it is well-known.," Blunt's office said in a statement, posted on The Plum Line blog.

Also from Blunt: "There’s a variety of tactics that could be employed during the debate on the House floor and the leadership won’t make a final decision next week until the Democrats announce how they will proceed.”

When it comes to health care and other matters, Blunt and other GOP House members are quick to assert that the emperor has no clothes. But they're laughably chicken about suggesting what the emperor should put on.

The Health Care Solutions Group last month did release a list of principles for health care reform.

But it contains no cost estimates and no real estimates of how many people would gain insurance through the plan.

Look, if Republican ideas for health care are any good, put them into a bill, release cost estimates, and let them be subjected to the same analysis as the Democratic proposals.

I suspect Blunt and the GOP don't want to do that, because they know, in their heart of hearts, that their wardrobe is the most threadbare of all.

It looks increasingly like the House GOP health care plan is the status quo. If that's the case, Blunt and company should say so.

Follow Barb Shelly on Twitter

 

[Oddball]

Oh boy, more use of cartoons instead of thinking for oneself.
Good thing you have cartoons to think for you, otherwise you might be lost.

^^^^^^^^^

And when a con can't come up with a good response to a posted cartoon it looks kind of like that.

Political cartoons have been and always will be snippets of hyperbole, invective, and gross deletions, distortions, and over generalizations.

What do you want in response, a master's thesis??

 

[EriktheRed]

Roy Blunt said they're keeping it a secret to avoid confusing people.
Roy Blunt's health care solution: Snipe and sit | Midwest Voices

Roy Blunt's health care solution: Snipe and sit
By Barb Shelly, Kansas City Star editorial page columnist

U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri chairs something called the "House GOP Health Care Solutions Group."

Today, he's in the crosshairs for declaring that the, uh, solutions group wasn't planning on putting forth any solutions. In the form of a bill, that is.

"Our bill is never going to get to the floor, so why confuse the focus?" Blunt said yesterday. "We clearly have principles; we could have language, but why start diverting attention from this really bad piece of work (the Democrats have) got to whatever we’re offering right now?"

So the "solution" is purely political. Fire away at the Democrats' plan and offer nothing of your own.

By this morning, team Blunt had put out a clarification.

“Our reform plan to lower costs, increase access, and improve quality was released weeks ago and it is well-known.," Blunt's office said in a statement, posted on The Plum Line blog.

Also from Blunt: "There’s a variety of tactics that could be employed during the debate on the House floor and the leadership won’t make a final decision next week until the Democrats announce how they will proceed.”

When it comes to health care and other matters, Blunt and other GOP House members are quick to assert that the emperor has no clothes. But they're laughably chicken about suggesting what the emperor should put on.

The Health Care Solutions Group last month did release a list of principles for health care reform.

But it contains no cost estimates and no real estimates of how many people would gain insurance through the plan.

Look, if Republican ideas for health care are any good, put them into a bill, release cost estimates, and let them be subjected to the same analysis as the Democratic proposals.

I suspect Blunt and the GOP don't want to do that, because they know, in their heart of hearts, that their wardrobe is the most threadbare of all.

It looks increasingly like the House GOP health care plan is the status quo. If that's the case, Blunt and company should say so.

Dayum!

 

[American Horse]

What is the Republican Health Care Plan?

Derek, since you are determined to not inform yourself, and reject reality, here is a link in which I posted the entire plan the Republicans have put up. It's an old ploy to say the Rs are against something and have no ideas, but the Ds can get away with that with the help of some like you because of a derelict media.

http://www.usmessageboard.com/healt...-gop-whacko-on-health-care-2.html#post1354244

 

[PoliticalChic]

Oh boy, more use of cartoons instead of thinking for oneself.
Good thing you have cartoons to think for you, otherwise you might be lost.

^^^^^^^^^

And when a con can't come up with a good response to a posted cartoon it looks kind of like that.

Political cartoons have been and always will be snippets of hyperbole, invective, and gross deletions, distortions, and over generalizations.

What do you want in response, a master's thesis??

Although not a thesis, nor intended to be one, here are a couple of suggestions based on free market solutions.

1) Food debit cards help 27 million people buy food, similar to the number who need help buying health coverage. In all fifty states, debit card technology has transformed the federal food stamp program, which used to be notorious for fraud and abuse. (Only 2 percent of card users are found to be ineligible, according to the General Accounting Office.) Cards are loaded with a specific dollar amount monthly, depending on family size and income, and allow cardholders to shop anywhere. The same strategy could be adapted to provide purchasing power to families who need help buying high-deductible health coverage. It's what all Americans used to buy (see chart 5), and it's all that's needed for families with moderate incomes, who can afford a routine doctor visit.
Downgrading Health Care

2) Allow consumers to build into their healthcare policies the aspects they wish:

"But politicians are more interested in pleasing lobbyists for acupuncturists, midwives and marriage counselors than they are in pleasing recent college graduates who only want to insure against the possibility that they'll be hit by a truck. So politicians at both the state and federal level keep passing boatloads of insurance mandates requiring that all insurance plans cover a raft of non-emergency conditions that are expensive to treat -- but whose practitioners have high-priced lobbyists."
Ann Coulter

"Take two very different states: Wisconsin and New York. In Wisconsin, a family can buy a health-insurance plan for as little as $3,000 a year. The price for a basic family plan in the Empire State: $12,000. The stark difference has nothing to do with each state’s health sector as a share of its economy (14.8 percent in Wisconsin as of 2004, the most recent year for which data are available, and 13.9 percent in New York). Rather, the difference has to do with how each state’s insurance pools are regulated. In New York State, politicians have tried to run the health-insurance system from Albany, forcing insurers to deliver complex Cadillac plans to every subscriber for political reasons, driving up costs. Wisconsin’s insurers are far freer to sell plans at prices consumers want.
The gulf in insurance-premium prices among American states is a sign that too much government intervention—not too little—is what’s distorting prices from one market to the next. The key to reducing health-care costs for patients, then, is to promote competition, not to dictate insurance requirements from on high. Unfortunately, a government-run insurance plan is the core of ObamaCare.
Bigger Is Healthier by David Gratzer, City Journal 22 July 2009

3)Doctors currently have no ability to re-price or re-package their services that way every other professional does. Medicare dictates what it pays for and what it won’t pay for, and the final price. Because of this there are no telephone consultations paid for, and the same for e-mails, normal in every other profession.
Most doctors don’t digitize records, thus they cannot use software that allows electronic prescription, and make it easier to detect drug interactions or dosage mistakes. Again, Medicare doesn’t pay for it.
Another free market idea aimed at better quality is have warranties for surgery as we do for cars. 17% of Medicare patients who enter a hospital re-enter within 30 days because of a problem connected to the original surgery. The result is that a hospital makes money on its mistakes!
John C. Goodman, President Center for Policy Analysis
Ph.D, Columbia University

 

[Oddball]

4) Declare all the state laws which prevent shopping out of state for coverage null and void, under the interstate commerce clause. Then the medical insurance biz becomes a true free market.

 

[Midnight Marauder]

Last time tables were turned, it went something like this:

Healthcare and Medicare reform was the topic on March 17 2005.

"Why should we put a plan out? Our plan is to stop him.(Bush) He must be stopped." -- Nancy Pelosi

And they DID stop Medicare and health care reform.

But that was okay. Right?

 

[concept]

Beats a 1 trillion dollar red hot poker up my ass.

Exactly.

 

[Modbert]

Last time tables were turned, it went something like this:

Healthcare and Medicare reform was the topic on March 17 2005.

"Why should we put a plan out? Our plan is to stop him.(Bush) He must be stopped." -- Nancy Pelosi

And they DID stop Medicare and health care reform.

But that was okay. Right?

*Best Midnight Imitation* BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHH

Don't you remember the last time the Bush Administration attempted to do anything with Medicare before that?

Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act (Pub.L. 108-173, 117 Stat. 2066, also called Medicare Modernization Act or MMA) is a law of the United States which was enacted in 2003.[1] It produced the largest overhaul of Medicare in the public health program's 38-year history.
The MMA was signed by President George W. Bush on December 8, 2003, after passing in Congress by a close margin.
One month later, the ten-year cost estimate was boosted to $534 billion, up more than $100 billion over the figure presented by the Bush administration during Congressional debate. The inaccurate figure helped secure support from fiscally conservative Republicans who had promised to vote against the bill if it cost more than $400 billion. It was reported that an administration official, Thomas A. Scully, had concealed the higher estimate and threatened to fire Medicare Chief Actuary Richard Foster if he revealed it.[2] By early 2005, the White House Budget had increased the 10-year estimate to $1.2 trillion.[3]
Former US Comptroller General David M. Walker has called this "...probably the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960s... because we promise way more than we can afford to keep." [4]

 

[Oddball]

Hell of that chunk of shit is that it was stolen, almost entirely, from dems who had been bitching about a Medicare prescription benefit for no less than a decade.

Between that legislative abortion, NCLB (authored by none other than Ted Kennedy), and a multitude of other appeasements of the dems, what is abundantly clear that, no matter what you give them, nothing is ever good enough for the whiny spoiled brats with the (D)s by their names.

 

[Modbert]

Hell of that chunk of shit is that it was stolen, almost entirely, from dems who had been bitching about a Medicare prescription benefit for no less than a decade.

Between that legislative abortion, NCLB (authored by none other than Ted Kennedy), and a multitude of other appeasements of the dems, what is abundantly clear that, no matter what you give them, nothing is ever good enough for the whiny spoiled brats with the (D)s by their names.

Don't even get me started on NCLB. I went through that shit from middle school to high school. So I have first hand experience with it, and I can tell you straight out that it sucks.

Do remember though it was co-authored by Republicans John Boehner and Judd Gregg.

One of the biggest reasons it failed though is that GWB kept taking away funding for it from the very beginning. That's also one of the biggest complaints about it, is the lack of funding. The other main complaint is the gaming of the system that goes on. There were several other problems that doomed it from the beginning as well.

 

[concept]

So lets me see if I have this straight.

We already have the best healthcare in the world. The envy of the world actually.

Liberals have decided that they want to completely destroy this and break the bank in the process. And now this moronic op actually wants to see the republican plan to also destroy our healthcare?


I for one, hope repubs don't have a plan for this. We can improve upon the current healthcare but we can do this without bankrupting us in the process.

Liberals don't care about that obviously as ling as it gets people to vote for them.

Scum.

 

[Oddball]

Hell of that chunk of shit is that it was stolen, almost entirely, from dems who had been bitching about a Medicare prescription benefit for no less than a decade.

Between that legislative abortion, NCLB (authored by none other than Ted Kennedy), and a multitude of other appeasements of the dems, what is abundantly clear that, no matter what you give them, nothing is ever good enough for the whiny spoiled brats with the (D)s by their names.

Don't even get me started on NCLB. I went through that shit from middle school to high school. So I have first hand experience with it, and I can tell you straight out that it sucks.

Do remember though it was co-authored by Republicans John Boehner and Judd Gregg.

One of the biggest reasons it failed though is that GWB kept taking away funding for it from the very beginning. That's also one of the biggest complaints about it, is the lack of funding. The other main complaint is the gaming of the system that goes on. There were several other problems that doomed it from the beginning as well.

Too bad.

Let that be a lesson to you in the complete ineffectiveness of federal programs.

 

[Modbert]

So lets me see if I have this straight.

We already have the best healthcare in the world. The envy of the world actually.

Liberals have decided that they want to completely destroy this and break the bank in the process. And now this moronic op actually wants to see the republican plan to also destroy our healthcare?


I for one, hope repubs don't have a plan for this. We can improve upon the current healthcare but we can do this without bankrupting us in the process.

Liberals don't care about that obviously as ling as it gets people to vote for them.

Scum.

Fuck you and your lies. We DO NOT have the best health care in the world, not by a long shot. The best health care in the world is one that is not only good viable but affordable. It's no use being healthy if you're paying off a mountain of debt that will be there long after you're dead.

You call Liberals scum but this isn't even the Liberal option being put on the table. Shows how much you know you ignorant fuck.

 

[Modbert]

Too bad.

Let that be a lesson to you in the complete ineffectiveness of federal programs.

Actually, let this be a lesson in what happens when you pass something but don't give the funding for it. That, and the simple fact that they weren't fixing the flaws in it after it passed.

Federal programs in general are not "completely ineffective" by any means.

 

[editec]

What is the republican health care plan?

A little dittie for the art history buffs.​

 

[Oddball]

Too bad.

Let that be a lesson to you in the complete ineffectiveness of federal programs.

Actually, let this be a lesson in what happens when you pass something but don't give the funding for it. That, and the simple fact that they weren't fixing the flaws in it after it passed.

Federal programs in general are not "completely ineffective" by any means.

Oh, don't even start up with that stale old crap about "they don' never give us enough monnnneeeeeyyyyyy".

And feel free to list all the federal programs that have delivered what they promised and ended up coming in on budget.

 

[DiveCon]

not hard to believe that derek the moron would start a thread with nothing but an image

 

[Soaring]

Why would I want the Gubamint providing my healthcare? I'm a Vet but I've never used a VA hospital, never will. I have Blue Cross/Blue Shield and AFLAC.

Oh I get it. You Libs want other people to pay for your medical. Typical.

I'm a vet too, and I don't use the Vet hospital. I use my own private insurance company because I am not a lazy welfare recipient who depends on the government to support me. I will support myself like everybody else should, thank you.

 

[Derek_Plumber]

not hard to believe that derek the moron would start a thread with nothing but an image

DiveCon,
Got any new lines? Is "moron" the only word you know? "Pathetic" is the word for you. You continually embarrass yourself.

No one has shown us a Republican Health Care Plan yet. Do you have something constructive to offer, or are you just going to run your ignorant, bigoted mouth? You are wasting everyone's time. Deliver the Republican plan or get out of the thread.