Norman
Diamond Member
- Sep 24, 2010
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There is no problem determining what you can afford to pay for healthcare. For your area and family size if you income is at or above the average income of similar people who buy their own health insurance, then you will be charge the prevailing market rate for the services you received. Similarly, for your area and family size it is unreasonable to believe you can afford to pay nothing, then you pay nothing. There you have the top and bottom of the scale and there is no problem defining increments.I think Trump will have to reconsider keeping any part of Obamacare because it is simply unworkable and too many Republicans in Congress won't tolerate it. Certainly, everyone should have the opportunity to get affordable healthcare, but if he keeps the provision that insurers must accept high risk people at the same rate as others, he must keep the mandate to spread the cost over a large number of people and in that system we have already seen insurers must significantly raise premiums and co-pays or drop out of the market, making healthcare less affordable. The system is simply unworkable and it is not a question of if Obamacare will fail, but when Obamacare will fair.Donald Trump, in Exclusive Interview, Tells WSJ He Is Willing to Keep Parts of Obama Health Law
You don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. You trim the fat and make it leaner and work better. You throw 20 million people off healthcare you will have a revolt on your hands and a HUGE loss in 2018. I agree with Trump here....EVERYONE that hates Obamacare hates it because its WAY to expensive and ridiculous to FORCE people to buy healthcare.
What is needed is an entirely new approach to providing affordable healthcare to those who are poor or who have pre existing conditions. Fortunately, we already have that has been in existence for many years. There are already thousands of clinics funded by a state-federal partnership program under HEW that provide comprehensive healthcare and dental care, including tests and medications to patients on a sliding scale according to income. The poorest patients pay nothing and middle class patients market comparable fees. About 1 in every 13 people in the US already get their primary healthcare at these clinics. For this system to provide complete healthcare, it would have to be supplemented with a hospital care insurance on a sliding scale basis. Since this program already existed, it could have been expanded in a revenue bill, which cannot be filibustered in the Senate, so if Obama had chosen to go this route, everyone in America would have had access to affordable healthcare in a month. It would have left the private healthcare system intact and it would have provided affordable healthcare to all the people who fell through the cracks in that system. If Trump decides to go this route, everyone in America will have access to affordable healthcare in a month and with Obamacare gone, insurance premiums would fall because the insurers would no longer have to cover high risk people.
http://www.bphc.hrsa.gov/about/healthcenterfactsheet.pdf
About the Health Center Program
There are some problems with all this. First of all, how can government (or anybody else for that matter) determine what one can afford? This is what Commie Care does. Government says if you make X amount of money, and you live in X area, YOU CAN afford X amount in healthcare, and then they determine how much they will kick in for you to afford it.
Okay, so you know what my income is. Do you know what my car payment is, my credit card payments, outstanding medical bills, my mortgage or rent payments, my child support or even alimony in rare cases, my utility bills, gasoline costs, my property taxes............
If preexisting conditions is the problem, then what we should have done is anybody that can't get insurance at a reasonable cost, or can't get insurance period, should be allowed to go on a government program like Medicare or Medicaid. Yes, you should have to pay into those programs as well, but at least be able to deduct your actual living expenses before it's determined what you can or can't afford.
Remember this program already exists and has existed for many years. It is intended to serve the health care needs that the private market fails to serve, making it essentially a welfare program, but a very low cost, efficient one. Presently, it only provides primary care services, but it does this for much less money than Medicaid does. It is a very simple system to maintain and a simple system for patients to access. It provides universal access to affordable healthcare at a very low cost to taxpayers. Setting ideological concerns aside, it is a win for everyone.
Yeah, it's just for serving those who the market fails to serve... that's all it is, nothing more to see here folks!
What an idiot. It's a costly industry overtaking disaster. But it did put Trump into office.