CDZ OK, I'll Try Again, How Can We Save Obamacare and Make it Actually Work for ALL of Us?

[Olde Europe]

The ACA rested mainly on three pillars, all of which are needed for it to work:

1. The requirement everybody carry coverage.

2. The mandate to cover everyone without discrimination for preexisting conditions.

3. Subsidies for those too poor to afford insurance.

Restore them, and the thing works considerably better. There's more:

- Vote the bums out who prevented and still prevent the Medicaid expansion that was part of the ACA.

- Require major insurers to compete in all ACA-created markets, and go after all who conspire to limit competition.

- Create a public option - Medicare for all who want it - as a last resort to keep ACA markets functioning.

- Restore for all public insurance policies the power to bind together to negotiate prescription drug and medical procedure prices, including an invitation for private insurers to join. Require everyone with a license to practice medicine to contract with Medicare etc. as part of that license agreement.

- Create a CMPB (Consumer Medical Protection Bureau) in analogy to the CFPB to go after usurious and fraudulent pricing by drug manufacturers and hospitals, with the power to extract gargantuan fines that flow back to financing Medicare.

- Allow employers to contract with Medicare to offer tax deductible group policies to employees.

- Cap co-pays so as to end folks having to choose between medicine, food, or rent.

Or, one might look at countries with universal coverage that works for all, with no one going bankrupt because of medical bills, to learn how to get things done. Yeah, I know, fat chance...

 

[Markle]

You are being redirected...

Freudian slip in.

 

[Grumblenuts]

The ACA rested mainly on three pillars, all of which are needed for it to work:

1. The requirement everybody carry coverage.

2. The mandate to cover everyone without discrimination for preexisting conditions.

3. Subsidies for those too poor to afford insurance.

Restore them, and the thing works considerably better. There's more:

- Vote the bums out who prevented and still prevent the Medicaid expansion that was part of the ACA.

- Require major insurers to compete in all ACA-created markets, and go after all who conspire to limit competition.

- Create a public option - Medicare for all who want it - as a last resort to keep ACA markets functioning.

- Restore for all public insurance policies the power to bind together to negotiate prescription drug and medical procedure prices, including an invitation for private insurers to join. Require everyone with a license to practice medicine to contract with Medicare etc. as part of that license agreement.

- Create a CMPB (Consumer Medical Protection Bureau) in analogy to the CFPB to go after usurious and fraudulent pricing by drug manufacturers and hospitals, with the power to extract gargantuan fines that flow back to financing Medicare.

- Allow employers to contract with Medicare to offer tax deductible group policies to employees.

- Cap co-pays so as to end folks having to choose between medicine, food, or rent.

Or, one might look at countries with universal coverage that works for all, with no one going bankrupt because of medical bills, to learn how to get things done. Yeah, I know, fat chance...

A lot of very good ideas in there, but yeah, much of it would result naturally from Medicare For All. Keep It Simple Stupid.

 

[Grumblenuts]

You are being redirected...

Freudian slip in.

Exactly.

 

[Markle]

The ACA rested mainly on three pillars, all of which are needed for it to work:

1. The requirement everybody carry coverage.

2. The mandate to cover everyone without discrimination for preexisting conditions.

3. Subsidies for those too poor to afford insurance.

Restore them, and the thing works considerably better. There's more:

- Vote the bums out who prevented and still prevent the Medicaid expansion that was part of the ACA.

- Require major insurers to compete in all ACA-created markets, and go after all who conspire to limit competition.

- Create a public option - Medicare for all who want it - as a last resort to keep ACA markets functioning.

- Restore for all public insurance policies the power to bind together to negotiate prescription drug and medical procedure prices, including an invitation for private insurers to join. Require everyone with a license to practice medicine to contract with Medicare etc. as part of that license agreement.

- Create a CMPB (Consumer Medical Protection Bureau) in analogy to the CFPB to go after usurious and fraudulent pricing by drug manufacturers and hospitals, with the power to extract gargantuan fines that flow back to financing Medicare.

- Allow employers to contract with Medicare to offer tax deductible group policies to employees.

- Cap co-pays so as to end folks having to choose between medicine, food, or rent.

Or, one might look at countries with universal coverage that works for all, with no one going bankrupt because of medical bills, to learn how to get things done. Yeah, I know, fat chance...

A lot of very good ideas in there, but yeah, much of it would result naturally from Medicare For All. Keep It Simple Stupid.

Where does the money come from?

 

[Votto]

I think having both administer different aspects of healthcare is good.

Nope. Government should never be used to control access to health care. The power will be abused and we will regret it.

And the most chilling aspect of it all, once the government seizes power there is no going back.............

 

[dblack]

I think having both administer different aspects of healthcare is good.

Nope. Government should never be used to control access to health care. The power will be abused and we will regret it.

And the most chilling aspect of it all, once the government seizes power there is no going back.............

I remember as a kid, I'd try to imagine how or why a society would march headlong into totalitarianism. Yet there it was in the history books. Over and over again we fall for it.

 

[Flash]

Health care is too important for a family to have the government to be involved.

You would have to be very confused to think that the government would in any way make health care better for you.

If the government privided for free heatlh care for the indigent it would cover the bills at community hospitals and still allow for private health insurance.

What is wrong with that?

I don't want "free" health care for anybody.

If you get "free" health care then that means somebody else has been forced by the government to pay for it and that it wrong.

Nobody should be entitled to have somebody else pay their bills simply because they are alive.

It is all about the concept of liberty. It is always immoral when the filthy government takes my money and give it away to somebody else.

 

[Dogmaphobe]

since Obama care was mandated into law, I have been forced to spend around 40000 dollars for policies that didn't actually pay for a thing since the deductibles were so high that I ended up paying for the treatment I did need out of pocket.

why would I want to preserve a system like that?

 

[mikegriffith1]

Get rid of the regional insurance monopolies that Obamacare preserved.

Don't require all policies to be Cadillacs. Let people choose from a wife variety of plans, even if liberals think those people should have more comprehensive plans.

Provide free catastrophic illness/injury insurance for all people who earn less than $150K per year. No deductibles. No co-pays. No nothing.

 

[MAGAman]

OK, Trump could take the wind out of a lot of Democrat sails if whe would do two things:
1) Adopt this Personalized Health Care proposal; Personalized Healthcare - Healthcare for You

Putting patients in charge by removing barriers that separate them from their doctors.

• We must remove unnecessary red tape that separates doctors and patients. Under Obamacare’s electronic health record (EHR) regulation, doctors are required to spend about half of their time on paperwork and data entry instead of patient care. Regulations like that have put a literal and figurative screen between doctors and patients.
• Red tape and regulations are driving physicians out of private practice; we need more independent doctors, not fewer. 53 percent of doctors are now payroll physicians employed by hospitals. Those doctors are beholden to the hospital and not their patients.
• The doctor-patient relationship is intimate and personal; no one knows better what kind of treatment a patient needs than that patient’s doctor.

Reform: Eliminate unnecessary government red tape that create hours of unnecessary paperwork and strangle the patient-doctor relationship.

Personal Health Management Accounts to give patients more control over their healthcare dollars.

• Personal Health Management accounts allow patients to purchase insurance plans that are customized to their needs and portable—similar to life and auto insurance—so individuals can take it with them from job to job. This eliminates the fear of losing health insurance when you change jobs or move.
• Employers can opt to contribute directly to these accounts, getting them out of the insurance business which puts healthcare decisions in the hands of their employees, not employers and their third-party administrators.
• This allows employees to use pre-tax dollars to pay for healthcare and gives them the same tax benefits enjoyed by employers.
• Allows patients to only pay for what they need, not a one size fits all government plan like Medicare For All.

Reform: Change current rules around Health Savings Accounts by a) increasing the maximum HSA contribution, b) allowing people to pay for insurance premiums from an HSA account so individuals have the same tax advantage currently enjoyed by corporate employees, c) repeal the requirement that exclusively links HSAs to certain high deductible plans and d) allow people to contribute to an HSA and use it to fund a Medical Cost Sharing plan or a Direct Medical Care arrangement.

Expanding Direct Medical Care to increase choices and lower costs.

• Putting patients back in charge of their healthcare spending through expanded pre-tax accounts will vastly increase direct medical care, which cuts out middlemen to lower costs and gives patients more choice.
• For family care needs, direct medical care is known as direct primary care, which offers families all their primary medical care needs for one low monthly membership fee – no insurance or middlemen necessary. Patients can get access to their regular doctors at any time through call, text, or telemedicine.
• For other procedures – at surgery centers, for instance – direct medical care means transparent cash prices, which will allow patients to price shop, lowering prices.
• Cash prices are often cheaper than what insurers can offer. According to Vanderbilt economist Larry Van Horn, cash healthcare prices are 40 percent lower than insurers’ negotiated rates.
• Whether it’s a monthly membership fee for Direct Primary Care, posted pricing at a surgical center, or fee for service from a specialist, patients will be able to get healthcare at a lower price and have more choice.

Reform: Eliminate rules that restrict the use of direct medical care and encourage patients to take advantage of alternative avenues to receiving health services.

Lowering insurance premiums through increased choice and price transparency.

• In every industry where we have more choice and price transparency, we see lower prices and more innovation; healthcare is not an exception to this economic fact.
• End inefficient federal rules and requirements on private insurance plans and allow states to expand and regulate their private insurance markets to offer more choice and better options.
• Let patients purchase plans that are customized to their needs like they do with auto and life insurance
• Rather than another centralized federal experiment, we should remove federal regulations on this private market and let the state insurance departments and lawmakers tackle problems or concerns. What works best in New York may not work for Kansas. You should not be required to pay for features that you don’t want.
• End federal restrictions on modern healthcare advances like telemedicine, which allows patients to access their physicians via text, email and SKYPE, decreasing time spent waiting in doctors’ offices to be seen for minor issues.

Reform: End rules that regulate what should be included in a healthcare plan, how you can access it and when you can keep it.

Lowering drug prices.

• Return savings back to the patients instead of medicine middlemen; right now $250 billion per year goes to middlemen.
• Nearly all the recent increases in drug list prices can be chalked up to rising rebates.

Reform: Repeal the legislation that exempts these middlemen from penalty for violating the federal anti-kickback law.

Protecting against pre-existing conditions.

• Patients will be covered even if they have a pre-existing condition.
• Allow employees to use Personal Health Management Accounts to buy their own health insurance which prevents any lapse in coverage when changing jobs. This change helps address some of the problems of pre-existing conditions.

Reform: Give states the autonomy to guarantee a health insurance policy that cannot raise people’s rates or drop them from coverage due to health conditions. Many states have these laws in place, but they are moot under the ACA. Others can amend their laws to include it, or they can set up risk pools.​

And ...
2) Reform MedicAID into a government run health insurance system that is pro-rated for income level and the premium based on national averages - 20%.

I think if you do that, most moderates thinking about a Democrat will jump over to Trump because we get national health care coverage for everyone, and keep our private insurance too.

It's not designed to work for all. Its designed to fail and allow liberal beaurocrats tank free market healthcare so that people are forced to accept Socialism.