- Jun 6, 2007
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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer puts party over country and this is evident by his feigning a bipartisan effort on health care reform he gives no specifics on what bipartisan issues his caucus will agree to and even his broad overture to such a negotiation lacks good faith he says he has two preconditions to a bipartisan healthcare negotiation Republicans take off the table tax repeals and cutting the Federal government's portion of the Medicaid bill which they are obligated to pay, all reasonable, but he doesn't commit to the obvious preconditions the Republican Party would and should demand which are Democrats take off the table any tax increases and creating a government sponsored healthcare option for the exchanges. Senator Schumer acts like his predecessor Harry Reid and former President Barack Obama on bipartisan cooperation, it's all a ploy to get advantage, they proclaim loudly they are for a bi-partisan effort but the details of their effort require the Republicans to give a mile and the Democrats only inches. Senator Schumer's playing of his power games and not offering the many centrist Republicans a serious bi-partisan option they can grab is going to have catastrophic consequences for the nation because Senate Majority Leader McConnell will navigate the current circumstances and bring about passage of this bill through the Senate and the common political assessment is spot on if he gets the bill through his chamber there will be no conference committee it is close enough to the already passed House bill and the House will take it up and pass it because the political stakes are so huge for the Republican Party. Senator McConnell has a reputation and a track record of being an outstanding legislator and contrary to all the provocative analysis what he'll do is he'll pull a Speaker Paul Ryan he won't bring up the bill for debate and a vote until he has agreements that will result in passage and if it takes until 2018 to secure those deals so be it and only a fool would think someone of McConnell's caliber cannot pull off the needed deals, Senator McConnell knows he is deep into the opposing teams part of the field he is not going to squander this super chance for a touchdown! There is basically two groups of Republican Senators Senator McConnell has to bring aboard the Freedom Caucus types (Cruz, Lee, etc.) and centrist Republicans that care about all the people that will be really hurt by this Republican bill and want to see the Republican party avoid this; the Freedom Caucus types can be brought along just like their brothers in the House were brought along making them realize that this bill is much closer to their goal than the current state of things plus I am surprised that they don't already support it because this Republican law is a defacto repeal of the ACA because it does away with the individual mandate and maintains the mandate that that people with pre-existing conditions be offered insurance at no higher premiums which will narrow the pool of enrollees for insurance companies which will accelerate the financial death spiral of the insurance exchanges it's a defacto repeal because it will result in insurance companies not participating in the exchanges. The centrist Republicans are a much bigger challenge for Senator McConnell but at the end of the day the fact that the Republican electorate passionately wants the current Healthcare system fixed and the Senate bill is the best deal that could be cut and that if the Republcans don't change the ACA the American people will turn to the Democrats which will make a dramatically worse law than the current one will facilitate him getting deals from these Senators for their votes; although despite what Republican cheerleaders like KellyAnne Conway rant about like that the President will have this bill on his desk this summer this process will take at least until the Fall to play out it will take this time for these Senators to fully appreciate the realities here!
The only real hope that the country has in not seeing this catastrophic Republican bill become law is if Senator Schumer and/or a group of like twelve Democrat Senators put a good major bipartisan deal on the table at this juncture the framework of such a deal bill will suffice. These Democrats hold the power to save the country from this diabolical bill because it gives the good centrist Republicans that are holding out to block the great harm from this bill a "viable" option to fix the current law for the American people these Republican Senators aren't naive they will know if they push for this bi-partisan effort it may not get the needed number of votes to pass but they will have achieved in cutting a path for the American people to know how the law can be fixed. These good Republicans will then have at their back the helpful developments that for the last seven years the Republican Party has been promising that they will repeal and replace the ACA with a "better" and a "good" law and 2017 will have proven to the American people the Republican Party has no "better" replacement law so come 2018 not for the entirety of the party but for enough of the Republican party to begin the Party's transition the Republican party platform will be not to "repeal and replace" but to "fix" the ACA which is the silver bullet to solving America's healthcare problem, the ACA has an optimally good core it is a market based solution (a conservative values solution) to the central problem of how to provide insurance to people with pre-existing conditions that being large insurance pools that spread the costs; the key fix needed for this core is cost controls for this insurance and the Federal Government coming in in a big way financially to pick-up the onerous claim costs on insurance providers these people with serious health problems cause. These developments will help build and if need be elect a coalition of Republican and Democrat congress people that will enact into law this fix. Again the key to changing America's course from a catastrophic Republican healthcare system to a great healthcare system is Democrats putting a good major bi-partisan healthcare bill on the table a bill that in a major way cuts costs, curtails healthcare utilization so that very responsible behavior in this area rules and redirects a large amount of federal money in the system to reimburse health insurers on the exchanges for the killing costs of paying claims for people with pre-existing conditions; the following is a healthcare reform bill that good Democrats should be able to support it doesn't betray their values to protect middle and low income families, the disabled, seniors, etc..
The bill should allow states to waive specific ACA "essential health benefit" requirements this will allow insurers to lower their cost which they will pass on to American consumers in the form of lower premiums and lower deductibles. The bill should include some general restriction on this waiver like states cannot waive regulations that ensure enrollees receive the standard of care for major serious illnesses like cancer, blockage of a cardiac artery, etc.. The bill should also try to establish unwaverable essential health benefit standards that are good that strike the right balance between necessary treatment needs and the need to hold down costs as much as possible and should do this by establishing a nine person panel with nine alternative members and the panel be given subpoena power and investigate and research and come up with list of essential benefit standards that they believe good government policy calls for and submit this to Congress and each chamber of Congress is required to vote on each of these item within six months, no filibusters allowed, if a majority approves an item it becomes law and if a chamber doesn't vote on the item in the specified time frame it becomes law. The Essential Health Benefit standard today is too generous examples are numerous here is a couple. Take for instance this writers hometown area of Philadelphia irrefutable media reports establish that numerous organizations that provide group therapy services for people with addiction problems give kickbacks to the group homes where people live that utilize these services and the group homes force these people to utilize the services some of the attendees don't even have addiction problems, the essential health benefits facilitate this waste. In another vein and don't misinterpret the following statement as the writer being unsympathetic to the people with the problems here but the system has a lot of people with things like non debilitating depression, victims of sexual abuse and other mental issues that don't fall into the really serious category and the system gives them individual and group therapy "indefinitely" a responsible person should be asking themselves where the hell is social responsibility among mental health care professionals you should be teaching these people the skill sets so that they don't need to depend on your services indefinitely.
The bill should stop the ACA's mandate of free preventive care, immunization etc. these services are not free to insurance providers by all means mandate they be excluded from the deductible. Remember there is a lot of reputable studies that call into question the efficacy and goodness of this preventive care testing, for instance, the reality is that there is an abundance of men that have had prostate cancer treatment initiated by prostate cancer testing where they were left with a significant loss of quality of life and would never had died from prostate cancer. The bill should roll back some the ACA's mandate on unlimited yearly claims limit it to like $300,000 raised by the medical inflation rate and require the insurance companies to offer riders to increase the limit; the advantages of this is that some of the people in the insurance exchanges due to a health development in their life have exhorbitant yearly health care costs which really hurt health care insurers it would be better for the system as a whole some of these really bad cases could be moved to the medicaid system many of these people economically would qualify and those that don't could protect themselves by buying a rider. The bill should loosen up the ACA mandate on the co-pay out of pocket limit on some Americans many Americans can afford to pay more it should be income and asset based and require the company to offer riders so Americans with more means can protect themselves.
The bill should allow states to put a work requirement on eligibility for medicaid. America has serious financial challenges we cannot afford to be giving free healthcare to able bodied Americans make an exception for people that cannot find a job mandate volunteering fourteen hours a week and continuing to look for a job will be sufficient to maintain eligibilty. The bill should allow states to mandate a $5 to $10 co-pay on Medicaid enrollees on treatments not related to treatment for a serious illness; America cannot afford to have this open ended healthcare program the country has to try to cut down on the expense of this Medicaid program this type of initiative has been helpful in the past to states that have pursued it I believe the state of Indiana was one of them.
The bill should do the other side of the good for the system. All the above changes will generate a pile of revenue for the Federal government from lower premium expenses for people that get federal help on the exchanges and lower Medicaid costs. The bill should mandate that Federal government continue to reimburse insurance providers for their enrollees that have expensive health problems and most importantly dramatically increase the reimbursement. This will result in lower premiums and lower deductibles and more choice for insurance plan offerings on the exchanges. The bill should mandate that the Federal government reimburse insurance providers on the exchanges for the co-pays and deductible breaks the providers give low income enrollees. If there is money left over it should be used for premium help for young people to buy insurance because they are just beginning their working career and their income is often low which makes it really hard for them to be able to afford to buy health insurance.
The only real hope that the country has in not seeing this catastrophic Republican bill become law is if Senator Schumer and/or a group of like twelve Democrat Senators put a good major bipartisan deal on the table at this juncture the framework of such a deal bill will suffice. These Democrats hold the power to save the country from this diabolical bill because it gives the good centrist Republicans that are holding out to block the great harm from this bill a "viable" option to fix the current law for the American people these Republican Senators aren't naive they will know if they push for this bi-partisan effort it may not get the needed number of votes to pass but they will have achieved in cutting a path for the American people to know how the law can be fixed. These good Republicans will then have at their back the helpful developments that for the last seven years the Republican Party has been promising that they will repeal and replace the ACA with a "better" and a "good" law and 2017 will have proven to the American people the Republican Party has no "better" replacement law so come 2018 not for the entirety of the party but for enough of the Republican party to begin the Party's transition the Republican party platform will be not to "repeal and replace" but to "fix" the ACA which is the silver bullet to solving America's healthcare problem, the ACA has an optimally good core it is a market based solution (a conservative values solution) to the central problem of how to provide insurance to people with pre-existing conditions that being large insurance pools that spread the costs; the key fix needed for this core is cost controls for this insurance and the Federal Government coming in in a big way financially to pick-up the onerous claim costs on insurance providers these people with serious health problems cause. These developments will help build and if need be elect a coalition of Republican and Democrat congress people that will enact into law this fix. Again the key to changing America's course from a catastrophic Republican healthcare system to a great healthcare system is Democrats putting a good major bi-partisan healthcare bill on the table a bill that in a major way cuts costs, curtails healthcare utilization so that very responsible behavior in this area rules and redirects a large amount of federal money in the system to reimburse health insurers on the exchanges for the killing costs of paying claims for people with pre-existing conditions; the following is a healthcare reform bill that good Democrats should be able to support it doesn't betray their values to protect middle and low income families, the disabled, seniors, etc..
The bill should allow states to waive specific ACA "essential health benefit" requirements this will allow insurers to lower their cost which they will pass on to American consumers in the form of lower premiums and lower deductibles. The bill should include some general restriction on this waiver like states cannot waive regulations that ensure enrollees receive the standard of care for major serious illnesses like cancer, blockage of a cardiac artery, etc.. The bill should also try to establish unwaverable essential health benefit standards that are good that strike the right balance between necessary treatment needs and the need to hold down costs as much as possible and should do this by establishing a nine person panel with nine alternative members and the panel be given subpoena power and investigate and research and come up with list of essential benefit standards that they believe good government policy calls for and submit this to Congress and each chamber of Congress is required to vote on each of these item within six months, no filibusters allowed, if a majority approves an item it becomes law and if a chamber doesn't vote on the item in the specified time frame it becomes law. The Essential Health Benefit standard today is too generous examples are numerous here is a couple. Take for instance this writers hometown area of Philadelphia irrefutable media reports establish that numerous organizations that provide group therapy services for people with addiction problems give kickbacks to the group homes where people live that utilize these services and the group homes force these people to utilize the services some of the attendees don't even have addiction problems, the essential health benefits facilitate this waste. In another vein and don't misinterpret the following statement as the writer being unsympathetic to the people with the problems here but the system has a lot of people with things like non debilitating depression, victims of sexual abuse and other mental issues that don't fall into the really serious category and the system gives them individual and group therapy "indefinitely" a responsible person should be asking themselves where the hell is social responsibility among mental health care professionals you should be teaching these people the skill sets so that they don't need to depend on your services indefinitely.
The bill should stop the ACA's mandate of free preventive care, immunization etc. these services are not free to insurance providers by all means mandate they be excluded from the deductible. Remember there is a lot of reputable studies that call into question the efficacy and goodness of this preventive care testing, for instance, the reality is that there is an abundance of men that have had prostate cancer treatment initiated by prostate cancer testing where they were left with a significant loss of quality of life and would never had died from prostate cancer. The bill should roll back some the ACA's mandate on unlimited yearly claims limit it to like $300,000 raised by the medical inflation rate and require the insurance companies to offer riders to increase the limit; the advantages of this is that some of the people in the insurance exchanges due to a health development in their life have exhorbitant yearly health care costs which really hurt health care insurers it would be better for the system as a whole some of these really bad cases could be moved to the medicaid system many of these people economically would qualify and those that don't could protect themselves by buying a rider. The bill should loosen up the ACA mandate on the co-pay out of pocket limit on some Americans many Americans can afford to pay more it should be income and asset based and require the company to offer riders so Americans with more means can protect themselves.
The bill should allow states to put a work requirement on eligibility for medicaid. America has serious financial challenges we cannot afford to be giving free healthcare to able bodied Americans make an exception for people that cannot find a job mandate volunteering fourteen hours a week and continuing to look for a job will be sufficient to maintain eligibilty. The bill should allow states to mandate a $5 to $10 co-pay on Medicaid enrollees on treatments not related to treatment for a serious illness; America cannot afford to have this open ended healthcare program the country has to try to cut down on the expense of this Medicaid program this type of initiative has been helpful in the past to states that have pursued it I believe the state of Indiana was one of them.
The bill should do the other side of the good for the system. All the above changes will generate a pile of revenue for the Federal government from lower premium expenses for people that get federal help on the exchanges and lower Medicaid costs. The bill should mandate that Federal government continue to reimburse insurance providers for their enrollees that have expensive health problems and most importantly dramatically increase the reimbursement. This will result in lower premiums and lower deductibles and more choice for insurance plan offerings on the exchanges. The bill should mandate that the Federal government reimburse insurance providers on the exchanges for the co-pays and deductible breaks the providers give low income enrollees. If there is money left over it should be used for premium help for young people to buy insurance because they are just beginning their working career and their income is often low which makes it really hard for them to be able to afford to buy health insurance.
