Seymour Flops
Diamond Member
None with a chance to succeed, anyway. There have been some plans offered that never went anywhere.
www.kff.org
Published: Sept 18, 2017
In 2017, President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress unsuccessfully pursued several efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. How did their replacement proposals compare to the ACA? How did they compare to each other?
Plans available for comparison:
The problem is this:
Any Republican plan to "replace Obamacare" would have to be a plan very much like Obamacare, but which follows Republican principals. Those are contradictory requirements that cannot be simultaneously fulfilled.
We have to remember what Obamacare is in both purpose and design. Jonathan Gruber gave the only honest answer by drunkenly saying the quiet part out loud (more than onece):
It is a scheme to transfer wealth from the healthy to the unhealthy. The healthy pay far larger premiums in order for insurance companies to survive the requirment that they accept patients already sick with expensive maladies.
What Gruber left out is that much of the funding to the unhealthy comes from borrowed money and printed money used for the subsidies. The overwhelming majority of the marketplace premiums are paid for by government, not the individual.
The current healthy taxpayer/policy purchaser pays a large part of the burden, but the rest will be borne by most of the grandchildren of the healthy and by some of the grandchildren of the unhealthy.
Another plan that accomplishes that wealth transfer cannot follow expressed (if not followed) Republican principals like low taxes, fiscal responsibility, freedom of choice, and individual responsibility.
The solution to Obamacare is no Obamacare so we can go back to the far lower premiums and freedom of choice that existed prior to that legislation being passed under a cover of lies. There is not the political will to repeal it, and probably never will be.
Most voters and nearly all politicians prefer pain later to pain now. As Keynes himself taught us, "In the long run we are all dead." Not our grandchildren or their grandchildren, of course, but Keynes at least is dead and thus safe from the economic disaster his policies are sure to lead to.
So, the Republicans can do nothing but tweak Obamacare to get rid of the worst of its worst excesses. Allowing the COVID Suplementary Subsdies to expire as provided for by those who voted them in is a baby step in that direction. So is barring illegal aliens who were granted "a legal status" en masse by the previous administration from the subsidies and from Medicaid.
Compare Proposals to Replace The Affordable Care Act | KFF
President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress have committed to repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act (ACA). How do their replacement proposals compare to the ACA? How do they compare to each other? Includes the Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson amendment (introduced 9/13/2017) as...
www.kff.org
Published: Sept 18, 2017
In 2017, President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress unsuccessfully pursued several efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. How did their replacement proposals compare to the ACA? How did they compare to each other?
Plans available for comparison:
- Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson Amendment – Updated 9.25.17 (PDF)
- The Health Care Freedom Act, 2017 (PDF)
- The Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017 (PDF) – Updated 7.20.17
- Obamacare Repeal Reconciliation Act of 2017 (PDF)
- The Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017 (PDF) – Updated 7.13.17. Includes Cruz amendment.
- The American Health Care Act, as passed by the House of Representatives on May 4, 2017 (PDF)
- The Affordable Care Act, 2010 (PDF)
The problem is this:
Any Republican plan to "replace Obamacare" would have to be a plan very much like Obamacare, but which follows Republican principals. Those are contradictory requirements that cannot be simultaneously fulfilled.
We have to remember what Obamacare is in both purpose and design. Jonathan Gruber gave the only honest answer by drunkenly saying the quiet part out loud (more than onece):
It is a scheme to transfer wealth from the healthy to the unhealthy. The healthy pay far larger premiums in order for insurance companies to survive the requirment that they accept patients already sick with expensive maladies.
What Gruber left out is that much of the funding to the unhealthy comes from borrowed money and printed money used for the subsidies. The overwhelming majority of the marketplace premiums are paid for by government, not the individual.
The current healthy taxpayer/policy purchaser pays a large part of the burden, but the rest will be borne by most of the grandchildren of the healthy and by some of the grandchildren of the unhealthy.
Another plan that accomplishes that wealth transfer cannot follow expressed (if not followed) Republican principals like low taxes, fiscal responsibility, freedom of choice, and individual responsibility.
The solution to Obamacare is no Obamacare so we can go back to the far lower premiums and freedom of choice that existed prior to that legislation being passed under a cover of lies. There is not the political will to repeal it, and probably never will be.
Most voters and nearly all politicians prefer pain later to pain now. As Keynes himself taught us, "In the long run we are all dead." Not our grandchildren or their grandchildren, of course, but Keynes at least is dead and thus safe from the economic disaster his policies are sure to lead to.
So, the Republicans can do nothing but tweak Obamacare to get rid of the worst of its worst excesses. Allowing the COVID Suplementary Subsdies to expire as provided for by those who voted them in is a baby step in that direction. So is barring illegal aliens who were granted "a legal status" en masse by the previous administration from the subsidies and from Medicaid.
