JimofPennsylvan
Platinum Member
- Jun 6, 2007
- 952
- 714
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The consensus in the Senate is that a bill to extend the Affordable Care Act enhanced premium tax credits for most of those eligible prior to the expiration is dead. Contrary to what moderate Republicans like Pennsylvania Senator David McCormack want to make the narrative to be about why this desperately needed effort died where he wrote in the Wall Street Journal on January 29th that Republicans with respect to the ACA premium tax credits want to "cap payments for high-income recipients and eliminate fraud and waste. But these common-sense proposals have been met with outright lies and vitriol from Democrats" , the reason why it died is the abortion issue Republicans are pandering to their Pro-Life base they know this base is very powerful for Republicans from a winning elections standpoint so they are demanding that insurance plans on the exchanges that receive tax payer money through premium tax credits don't cover an abortion procedure. Democrats cannot and should not agree to these terms because a women getting an abortion in the early stages of her pregnancy is a completely private matter and Republicans obstructing access to such a procedure by denying insurance coverage can have a profound effect on that women's life by either delaying care or causing that women to carry that pregnancy to term! This whole strategy by Republicans is a brazen abuse of our legislative system for political gain because today we don't have tax payer money paying for abortions, insurance companies that operate on the exchanges are mandated by law to separate premium payments from individuals and from the government and only use individual premium monies to pay for abortion medical claims; moreover, the nation has had individual insurance plans sold on the exchanges covering abortion for ten plus years why in 2025 has it all of a sudden become an unprincipled use of taxpayer money! Again, the reason is politics Republican leaders want to fire up their pro-life base turn them militant on this issue in the hope it will help Republicans in future elections, it is disgraceful beyond words that Republicans will stop desperately needed health insurance premium assistance going to ordinary American families so Republicans can get a political edge. Moderate Republicans should call their leadership out on this outrageously bad tact the Party is taking and stop it because I will tell you right now in moderate states like Pennsylvania when David McCormack comes up for reelection he is not going to get away with his claim I wanted to extend the ACA enhanced tax credits for most Pennsylvanians but Democrats would not agree to stop waste, fraud and abuse in the system; most Pennsylvanians will acknowledge the truth that Senator McCormack would not stand up to the anti-abortion extremists in his Party and penalize him accordingly!
President Donald Trump's big solution to America's problem of unaffordable health care is to directly give Americans the monies they currently receive through premium tax credit assistance and let them go out and buy health insurance directly from health insurance companies. This is the long awaited better than ever policy plan that President Trump has promised, it is a colossally stupid idea that is absolutely doomed to fail; and why didn't Donald Trump tell us this was his plan during the campaign season for the 2024 elections because the American people would have tagged it as a bad plan destined to fail and he would have lost a lot of votes over it. It is a terrible plan for an abundance of reasons. First, it will be turning back the clock prior to 2009 and passage of the ACA where many people thought they had good health insurance were paying significant insurance premiums every month and when they got seriously sick their insurance wouldn't cover the treatments they needed to get well and people died over this problem - individual Americans are no match to negotiate with health insurance executives and their experts that draw up these health plans. Secondly, a plan that involves individuals negotiating directly with insurance companies will leave people with pre-existing conditions (like having had cancer or having high blood pressure) in really bad straights because insurance companies underwrite, determine the premium cost, based on risk of medical claims and people with pre-existing conditions pose a high risk of expensive medical claims so their insurance premiums will be very high; this Trump plan will leave many people with pre-existing condition not able to afford to buy health insurance because the insurance premium cost is beyond their resources to pay resulting in many of these people with preexisting conditions and no health insurances dying over their inability to get needed medical care. Thirdly, the government assistance going to individual families will not rise fairly with medical inflation that occurs in America on a yearly basis so over time the federal governments help will be insufficient to help low and middle income Americans buy health insurance. In the ACA system government assistance is based on the cost of an average silver plan on the exchanges in the Trump system individual Americans will be dealing directly with insurance companies so Individual insurance in America will go back to individual underwritten plans so the ACA exchanges will become non-existent because insurance plans on the exchanges are underwritten based on pools of people and insurance companies will not be able to determine the make-up of such pools because of so many people coming to them directly to buy insurance and so insurance companies will not participate on the exchanges so they won't exist; and Republicans in Congress who truthfully loathe government assistance because they have to pay for it with taxpayer dollars will certainly not raise the government assistance on a yearly basis commensurate with medical inflation which is historically significantly higher than regular inflation!
Republicans are so so short sighted on the healthcare problem they should be amending the ACA to make it work better because the design of the ACA is the best fundamentally designed system America could come up with because it reduces the cost of health insurance for people with either serious health problems or a history of such problem by putting them in large insurance pools where healthy people defray the cost which is fair because most healthy people will one day get serious health problems. By not fixing/improving the ACA Republicans are going to bring a Medicare for all on America and talk about Government expenditure once that plan gets implemented it will cost like three trillion dollars a year taxes will go up across the board in America you Republicans responsible for this because you didn't work to fix the only good alternative will be hated as if you completely ruined America. There is dozens of ways to improve the ACA individual insurance for people. With drug addiction problems because it is a societal problem if government/law enforcement was effective they would shut this trade down have the government pick up the tab for inpatient treatment care for these people and have these facilities require a federal license this whole rehabilitation system in America is a failure, scam and a disgrace the government needs to fix thru regulation. Another way to reduce health insurance cost is for people with catastrophic health problems that cost over a million dollars a year have the government pick up the tab for their medical care mandate health care providers at that point take Medicare rates to lower the governments bill a little. Another way is regulate Pharmaceutical prices in America like they do in Europe where these Companies cannot just charge the value they think their drugs are worth but have to get the price they charge approved by a government agency that takes affordability into account. Republicans are duping themselves in thinking that the American people come this November won't blame the Republican Party for the lack of extension of the ACA enhanced premium tax credits!
President Donald Trump's big solution to America's problem of unaffordable health care is to directly give Americans the monies they currently receive through premium tax credit assistance and let them go out and buy health insurance directly from health insurance companies. This is the long awaited better than ever policy plan that President Trump has promised, it is a colossally stupid idea that is absolutely doomed to fail; and why didn't Donald Trump tell us this was his plan during the campaign season for the 2024 elections because the American people would have tagged it as a bad plan destined to fail and he would have lost a lot of votes over it. It is a terrible plan for an abundance of reasons. First, it will be turning back the clock prior to 2009 and passage of the ACA where many people thought they had good health insurance were paying significant insurance premiums every month and when they got seriously sick their insurance wouldn't cover the treatments they needed to get well and people died over this problem - individual Americans are no match to negotiate with health insurance executives and their experts that draw up these health plans. Secondly, a plan that involves individuals negotiating directly with insurance companies will leave people with pre-existing conditions (like having had cancer or having high blood pressure) in really bad straights because insurance companies underwrite, determine the premium cost, based on risk of medical claims and people with pre-existing conditions pose a high risk of expensive medical claims so their insurance premiums will be very high; this Trump plan will leave many people with pre-existing condition not able to afford to buy health insurance because the insurance premium cost is beyond their resources to pay resulting in many of these people with preexisting conditions and no health insurances dying over their inability to get needed medical care. Thirdly, the government assistance going to individual families will not rise fairly with medical inflation that occurs in America on a yearly basis so over time the federal governments help will be insufficient to help low and middle income Americans buy health insurance. In the ACA system government assistance is based on the cost of an average silver plan on the exchanges in the Trump system individual Americans will be dealing directly with insurance companies so Individual insurance in America will go back to individual underwritten plans so the ACA exchanges will become non-existent because insurance plans on the exchanges are underwritten based on pools of people and insurance companies will not be able to determine the make-up of such pools because of so many people coming to them directly to buy insurance and so insurance companies will not participate on the exchanges so they won't exist; and Republicans in Congress who truthfully loathe government assistance because they have to pay for it with taxpayer dollars will certainly not raise the government assistance on a yearly basis commensurate with medical inflation which is historically significantly higher than regular inflation!
Republicans are so so short sighted on the healthcare problem they should be amending the ACA to make it work better because the design of the ACA is the best fundamentally designed system America could come up with because it reduces the cost of health insurance for people with either serious health problems or a history of such problem by putting them in large insurance pools where healthy people defray the cost which is fair because most healthy people will one day get serious health problems. By not fixing/improving the ACA Republicans are going to bring a Medicare for all on America and talk about Government expenditure once that plan gets implemented it will cost like three trillion dollars a year taxes will go up across the board in America you Republicans responsible for this because you didn't work to fix the only good alternative will be hated as if you completely ruined America. There is dozens of ways to improve the ACA individual insurance for people. With drug addiction problems because it is a societal problem if government/law enforcement was effective they would shut this trade down have the government pick up the tab for inpatient treatment care for these people and have these facilities require a federal license this whole rehabilitation system in America is a failure, scam and a disgrace the government needs to fix thru regulation. Another way to reduce health insurance cost is for people with catastrophic health problems that cost over a million dollars a year have the government pick up the tab for their medical care mandate health care providers at that point take Medicare rates to lower the governments bill a little. Another way is regulate Pharmaceutical prices in America like they do in Europe where these Companies cannot just charge the value they think their drugs are worth but have to get the price they charge approved by a government agency that takes affordability into account. Republicans are duping themselves in thinking that the American people come this November won't blame the Republican Party for the lack of extension of the ACA enhanced premium tax credits!
