What Is The GOP Healthcare Reform Plan?

[Redfish]

Without looking, can you say what the Republican Party's plan for healthcare reform is? I bet you cannot.

I think most right wingers know as far as, "Repeal ObamaCare."

Okay. Then what?

A repeal of Obamacare would in it of itself be an improvement even without a plan. Your question begs a false alternative. Indeed, let the states do what they want with their own states and allow people to vote with their feet. Indeed, the reason why Democrats want a national healthcare system is because if any one state did it people and businesses would flee.

The status quo was bankrupting us. We cannot do nothing.

so the answer is to exchange slow bankruptcy for instant bankruptcy?

inserting the government into the system never fixes anything. The free market and competition have been removed from medicine due to govt regulation. Thats why prices have gone up.

why should a bottle of 30 pills cost $200 when it costs big pharma $2 to make them? Why should big pharma be making 35% profit? you libs rant about big oil making 9% and defense companies making 7% but you never say anything about pharma making 35% or software companies making 25%.

 

[g5000]

A complicated system of which cannot be controlled by a central authority.

Is the current auto, home, and life insurance system a "complicated system of which cannot be controlled by a central authority"?

That's what I am proposing; that the health insurance market be made the same as all other insurance markets. We need to get away from employer sponsored health insurance.

 

[g5000]

What's the GOP plan? I know what it is, and it is not just "Repeal ObamaCare".

It is interesting no one else knows.

 

[g5000]

So far, the two alternatives to ObamaCare on the table are:

1. Repeal ObamaCare and do nothing more.

2. Move away from employer-sponsored health insurance and make health insurance the same as auto, home, and life insurance. Raise the Medicare eligibility age to 70.


Anyone else have a plan?

 

[Publius1787]

The status quo was bankrupting us. We cannot do nothing.

Government involvement in healthcare was bankrupting us so the solution is more government involvement?

The status quo was employer-provided healthcare for most Americans, Medicare for seniors, and emergency rooms for everyone else.

This was costing us $2.5 trillion a year, and climbing.

Do you even know what the GOP alternate plan to ObamaCare was? That was my original challenge in this topic. I am guessing you don't.

Your assuming that my opposition to Obamacare means that I support another government run alternative? My grandparents got a family doctor to look after my father via bartering and my fathers hospital bill at the time of his birth was nearly 2.5 months of my grandmothers salary doing piece work at a textile (I have the bill/$110 in 1948). Can anyone tell me how many months a low income individual needs to work to afford a live birth at a hospital today absent of Medicaid, food stamps, and other welfare services?

 

[g5000]

Government involvement in healthcare was bankrupting us so the solution is more government involvement?

The status quo was employer-provided healthcare for most Americans, Medicare for seniors, and emergency rooms for everyone else.

This was costing us $2.5 trillion a year, and climbing.

Do you even know what the GOP alternate plan to ObamaCare was? That was my original challenge in this topic. I am guessing you don't.

Your assuming that my opposition to Obamacare means that I support another government run alternative? My grandparents got a family doctor to look after my father via bartering and my fathers hospital bill at the time of his birth was nearly 2.5 months of my grandmothers salary doing piece work at a textile ($110 in 1948). Can anyone tell me how many months a low income individual needs to work to afford a live birth at a hospital today?

I am not assuming anything. I am asking, again, what is your alternative solution?

Also, do you know what the infant and maternal mortality rates were in your grandparents' time?

 

[Redfish]

Government involvement in healthcare was bankrupting us so the solution is more government involvement?

The status quo was employer-provided healthcare for most Americans, Medicare for seniors, and emergency rooms for everyone else.

This was costing us $2.5 trillion a year, and climbing.

Do you even know what the GOP alternate plan to ObamaCare was? That was my original challenge in this topic. I am guessing you don't.

Your assuming that my opposition to Obamacare means that I support another government run alternative? My grandparents got a family doctor to look after my father via bartering and my fathers hospital bill at the time of his birth was nearly 2.5 months of my grandmothers salary doing piece work at a textile ($110 in 1948). Can anyone tell me how many months a low income individual needs to work to afford a live birth at a hospital today?

most of his life

 

[Publius1787]

The status quo was employer-provided healthcare for most Americans, Medicare for seniors, and emergency rooms for everyone else.

This was costing us $2.5 trillion a year, and climbing.

Do you even know what the GOP alternate plan to ObamaCare was? That was my original challenge in this topic. I am guessing you don't.

Your assuming that my opposition to Obamacare means that I support another government run alternative? My grandparents got a family doctor to look after my father via bartering and my fathers hospital bill at the time of his birth was nearly 2.5 months of my grandmothers salary doing piece work at a textile ($110 in 1948). Can anyone tell me how many months a low income individual needs to work to afford a live birth at a hospital today?

I am not assuming anything. I am asking, again, what is your alternative solution?

Also, do you know what the infant and maternal mortality rates were in your grandparents' time?

Do you know the infant mortality rate in 1900? Comparatively speaking, they received the best healthcare of their day as do we today. A vast improvement on the past. The solution, get the federal government the hell out of healthcare.

 

[g5000]

Idealizing the past is to ignore the much greater challenges of the past. You really want to go back to high infant and maternal mortality rates?

If you want to birth your kid with nothing more than a pair of forceps, go for it. But if you want the kid and the mother to have a better chance of surviving the experience, that is going to cost.

 

[Redfish]

The status quo was employer-provided healthcare for most Americans, Medicare for seniors, and emergency rooms for everyone else.

This was costing us $2.5 trillion a year, and climbing.

Do you even know what the GOP alternate plan to ObamaCare was? That was my original challenge in this topic. I am guessing you don't.

Your assuming that my opposition to Obamacare means that I support another government run alternative? My grandparents got a family doctor to look after my father via bartering and my fathers hospital bill at the time of his birth was nearly 2.5 months of my grandmothers salary doing piece work at a textile ($110 in 1948). Can anyone tell me how many months a low income individual needs to work to afford a live birth at a hospital today?

I am not assuming anything. I am asking, again, what is your alternative solution?

before we can find a solution we must find the problem. 30 years ago health insurance was hospital insurance. It paid if you had to go to the hospital due to an injury, sickness, or to give birth. routine doctor visits and prescription came out of your pocket.

currently people think that they should not have to pay for any medical care, hence insurance rates have gone up through the roof.

 

[g5000]

Your assuming that my opposition to Obamacare means that I support another government run alternative? My grandparents got a family doctor to look after my father via bartering and my fathers hospital bill at the time of his birth was nearly 2.5 months of my grandmothers salary doing piece work at a textile ($110 in 1948). Can anyone tell me how many months a low income individual needs to work to afford a live birth at a hospital today?

I am not assuming anything. I am asking, again, what is your alternative solution?

Also, do you know what the infant and maternal mortality rates were in your grandparents' time?

Comparatively speaking, they receive the best healthcare of their day as do we today. The solution, get the federal government the hell out of healthcare.

"Get the federal government the hell out of healthcare" is a meaningless platitude which suggests you have not put any actual thought into an alternative.

Okay. Presto. Government is the hell out of healthcare. How will a minimum wage person get health care when they get cancer?

 

[Publius1787]

I am not assuming anything. I am asking, again, what is your alternative solution?

Also, do you know what the infant and maternal mortality rates were in your grandparents' time?

Comparatively speaking, they receive the best healthcare of their day as do we today. The solution, get the federal government the hell out of healthcare.

"Get the federal government the hell out of healthcare" is a meaningless platitude which suggests you have not put any actual thought into an alternative.

Okay. Presto. Government is the hell out of healthcare. How will you have your health care taken care of when you get cancer?

I did not say "government." I said "federal government." Why does that solution make liberals cringe? Because they know that once a state comes up with a universal healthcare plan they are going to lose businesses and taxpayers to other states. Thus they think they can even the playing field by forcing it down all of our throats, and thereby, we lose businesses to China who's healthcare is so universal that no one is taken care of. Simply allow the states to do what they want. What's wrong with that idea? Aside from the fact that it takes away your ability to shove it down all of our throats?

Indeed, without the 17th Amendment Obamacare would have been DOA along with every other liberal program in the past 80 years. (This particular statement assumes you have read and understood the US Constitution with the ability to connect the dots to my above arguement)

 

[Redfish]

I am not assuming anything. I am asking, again, what is your alternative solution?

Also, do you know what the infant and maternal mortality rates were in your grandparents' time?

Comparatively speaking, they receive the best healthcare of their day as do we today. The solution, get the federal government the hell out of healthcare.

"Get the federal government the hell out of healthcare" is a meaningless platitude which suggests you have not put any actual thought into an alternative.

Okay. Presto. Government is the hell out of healthcare. How will a minimum wage person get health care when they get cancer?

the same way they do now, go to the hospital and be treated, get a bill and do not pay it. those who do pay their bills will subsidize the ones who do not.

That's obamacare without a million civil servants and thousands of pages of regulations.

 

[eflatminor]

The problem is, ObamaCare won't bend down the cost curve. Bait and switch.

So what will?

While I cannot speak for the GOP, I can tell you what will reduce the costs associated with healthcare. In a word, competition.

For decades we've had local, state and federal regulators dictating who can provide healthcare and who must provide healthcare insurance. Further, regulators have been dictating what coverage must be provided in all health insurance policies and the maximum rates they're allowed to charge. Lastly, regulators have made the process of introducing new drugs, surgical techniques and technology overly burdensome and incredibly costly, further adding to the costs.

All this regulatory meddling has removed the process of the individual making voluntary choices about their health in competitive marketplace. Instead, we have health insurance tied to a job (ridiculous on it's face) and insurance policies that must include everything under the sun, even when customers do not desire all that coverage. Add to that the meddling with healthcare providers, drug and technology operations and we begin to see why the cost of healthcare has FAR outpaced the overall rate of inflation.

If you want healthcare costs to come down, allow competition and voluntary choice.
1) Allow insurance companies to write policies that offer a wide range of coverage and allow people to choose the coverage levels that suit their needs.
2) Undo the ridiculous law that requires larger companies to provide health insurance.
3) Get the FDA out of the drug and technology business, which would result in more drug companies entering the market and more choices for consumers. If a drug company puts out a dangerous product, they should face lawsuits and consumer boycotts. Today, they hide behind their compliance with FDA regulations when they screw up.
4) Make state DOIs the place to go if an insurance company harms a consumer, that's fine. However, they should NOT be the central price and coverage controllers of insurance markets...be that health or any other kind of insurance.
5) Allow more people to practice medicine. We've seen this since the middle ages with midwives. The establishment will persecute anyone they don't deem a "licensed" practitioner when in fact, a proper doctor is not always needed for every aliment. If a private organization wants to form the AMA without government support, fine, but customers should have choice who they seek out for health related support.

Competition, voluntary choices, free markets...that will bring the costs down and innovation up. It's the only thing that ever does.

 

[Publius1787]

The problem is, ObamaCare won't bend down the cost curve. Bait and switch.

So what will?

Competition, voluntary choices, free markets...that will bring the costs down and innovation up. It's the only thing that ever does.

It really is, and I would challenge anyone to prove otherwise.

 

[eflatminor]

How will a minimum wage person get health care when they get cancer?

Without state DOIs and the federal government dictating that everything under the sun be included in every health insurance policy, that minimum wage worker would have been able to purchase a bare bones policy at a very cheap price that only covers catastrophic illnesses or injury, such as cancer.

For the truly indigent person that couldn't afford insurance even in a free market, there has always been healthcare-oriented charity. We are a charitable people, particularly when it's on a voluntary basis.

 

[g5000]

Your assuming that my opposition to Obamacare means that I support another government run alternative? My grandparents got a family doctor to look after my father via bartering and my fathers hospital bill at the time of his birth was nearly 2.5 months of my grandmothers salary doing piece work at a textile ($110 in 1948). Can anyone tell me how many months a low income individual needs to work to afford a live birth at a hospital today?

I am not assuming anything. I am asking, again, what is your alternative solution?

Also, do you know what the infant and maternal mortality rates were in your grandparents' time?

Do you know the infant mortality rate in 1900? Comparatively speaking, they received the best healthcare of their day as do we today. A vast improvement on the past. The solution, get the federal government the hell out of healthcare.

Actually, I do know the infant mortality rate in 1900. And things have much improved with MORE federal government in health care. So your empty platitude is failing so far.


http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4838a2.htm

At the beginning of the 20th century, for every 1000 live births, six to nine women in the United States died of pregnancy-related complications, and approximately 100 infants died before age 1 year (1,2).

http://www.hrsa.gov/healthit/images/mchb_infantmortality_pub.pdf

 

[Wacky Quacky]

G5000, the responses you're getting on this topic are making my head hurt. It's as if no one responding to the topic has any reading comprehension whatsoever.

My solution. Create a universal single payer system done at a state level, not federal. I prefer a single payer system because I think it's bullshit that someone playing by all the rules and trying to stay healthy, can be bankrupted because they drew the short straw and contracted a dibilitating disease that will cost millions to cure.

But, I would only support a single payer system if it was state run, not federally. At a state level more citizens would feel like they have a voice. Ask someone if they feel like they can go to DC and make their voice heard. The answer will be a resounding, no. But to go to your state capital and make your voice heard, much easier.

Any changes would be easier to put in place at a state level.

If one state screwed the pooch on their healthcare it wouldn't affect the rest of the nation(unless the Feds jumped in and made it affect everyone).

That's what I would like to see.

 

[g5000]

How will a minimum wage person get health care when they get cancer?

Without state DOIs and the federal government dictating that everything under the sun be included in every health insurance policy, that minimum wage worker would have been able to purchase a bare bones policy at a very cheap price that only covers catastrophic illnesses or injury, such as cancer.

For the truly indigent person that couldn't afford insurance even in a free market, there has always been healthcare-oriented charity. We are a charitable people, particularly when it's on a voluntary basis.

I think if you read my proposal on the first page of this topic, you would find we are in alignment on most things.

However, private charity has never in history met all the needs of the indigent. Long before there was government intrusion into healthcare, private charities barely made a dent in the health and well being of the poor. So only someone entirely ignorant of history before the Progressive Era would argue for dependence on private charity to fill the gaps.

Private charity never has, and never will, meet that demand.

I am not only speaking as someone versed in our history, but as the president of a faith-based private charity which receives no government funds, and which works to fill those gaps. I walk the walk, and I can tell you the idea of private charities meeting all the needs is a delusional pipe dream.

 

[g5000]

G5000, the responses you're getting on this topic are making my head hurt. It's as if no one responding to the topic has any reading comprehension whatsoever.

My solution. Create a universal single payer system done at a state level, not federal. I prefer a single payer system because I think it's bullshit that someone playing by all the rules and trying to stay healthy, can be bankrupted because they drew the short straw and contracted a dibilitating disease that will cost millions to cure.

But, I would only support a single payer system if it was state run, not federally. At a state level more citizens would feel like they have a voice. Ask someone if they feel like they can go to DC and make their voice heard. The answer will be a resounding, no. But to go to your state capital and make your voice heard, much easier.

Any changes would be easier to put in place at a state level.

If one state screwed the pooch on their healthcare it wouldn't affect the rest of the nation(unless the Feds jumped in and made it affect everyone).

That's what I would like to see.

I think forcing everyone into a single payer system because of a few who suffer catastrophic illness is overkill. You don't want to punish the sick, I don't want to punish the healthy.

The more dependent we become on the State, local or federal, the less we take proper care of our health, our finances, and our general well being. Thus, we create ever increasing burdens on the State.

I would rather see a private insurance scheme like the one we have for home, auto, and life insurance.

I believe this would result in far more resources being made available to the State to aid those who are indigent through no fault of their own. Instead of everyone drawing from the state tit, only those who are truly incapacitated would be served.

This is the standard my own organization requires. We do a lot of due diligence to ensure the people we are helping got into the crisis through no fault of their own.

But I can tell you most private charities don't do that kind of due diligence, and they are taken advantage of far more than goverment charities are. The government, despite all the abuses which make the news, does far better due diligence than private organizations.