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Padres1969
Guest
Only way anything is going to happen is if both sides work together. The Republicans despite having both houses and the presidency apparently can’t get anything done with their attempt at health care reform, other than trying to pick away at the ACA to make it fail.
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Ridgerunner
Guest
Obamacare is going to fail, no matter what, UNLESS some of these Dems’ recommendations are adopted. Among them are:
-More federal money paid into the program. Repubs are not likely to go for that.
-More coverage for everybody. Given the existing mandates, that’s also unlikely.
-Keeping the obamatax. Imaginably Repubs could go for that, at least in part, but not when government subsidies are also increased.
-Single payer. No way Repubs will go for that, and maybe not all the Dems either. Single payer was the objective initially, and obamacare was just a replacement until single payer could be achieved. The Dems had a supermajority in the senate but still couldn’t pass it.
So, at this point, it’s a Repub product or nothing. If it’s nothing, then Obamacare will continue to fall apart.
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PJH_74
Guest
They’d be stupid not to at least invite Democrats to the table for discussion. Firstly this is how it should actually happen in the first place. Secondly they will take absolutely all the blame if anything fails or fails to happen. It’s more or less either Trumpcare or looking like fools for demonizing Obamacare for 8 years and being completely impotent to do anything about it when given every chance.
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ucfengr
Guest
Getting a Democrat or two to vote for a bill isn’t really the problem, it’s getting 50 Republican votes. If you had Republican unity, I think it be pretty easy to peel off a handful of Red State Democrat Senators up for re-election in 2018.
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Padres1969
Guest
All the while most people have started to warm up to the ACA in the intervening time. Particularly after they figure out that Obamacare and the ACA are the same thing.
That had to be one of the most maddening things last fall was the volume of people who liked the ACA but voted for those promising to dismantle “Obamacare” because they “hated” Obamacare. Not realizing that the ACA and Obamacare were the same dang thing.
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Zzyzx_Road
Guest
Currently favored solutions consist almost entirely of throwing more money at it. Health care has risen from 3-5% of GDP in the 1960’s to 18% today and still increasing. That increase in percentage of GDP is having deflationary effects on our economy as the greater amount of our dollars spent on health care and insurance aren’t available to be spent on other things. A major problem is the increasing number people working in this sector of the economy who do not add a single minute to a patient’s care, but still have to get paid out of our premium, care and tax dollars. There are ways to cut that out, but no one wants to go there because the parties getting paid are more visible to our Congressmen than we are.
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Padres1969
Guest
No kidding. My sister is a OR nurse and was telling me about how things like the pharmacy at her hospital have gotten so out of control doctors are having patient pre-medicate themselves at home. For example a pair of Maximum Strength Tylenol (the same stuff you can get a Costco for $17.95 for 325 pills) for in her pre or post op ward now cost over $100 per pair. It’s outrageous. Obamacare per se isn’t what’s broken, it’s our for profit medical establishment and their accomplices the insurance companies who are broken. It was broken before the ACA, and it’ll be broken after the ACA (if it gets repealed). At some point we will have to go single payer like every other first world democracy. Question is do we do it sooner or later.
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Zzyzx_Road
Guest
Sorry to break it to you, but single payer will not be a panacea. If you want an example of a government run health care program operating today here in the US, take a look at the VA system. I have absolutely no faith that the outcomes will be any different for the rest of us.
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Padres1969
Guest
On the flip side, look at Canada, UK, Eurozone, Scandinavia… all have single payer and it works quite well over there. If they can do it, you’d think the supposed greatest country on Earth could do it too.
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Zzyzx_Road
Guest
They’re not as well run as you think they are. I’ve lived in both Canada and London long enough to hear all the stuff that doesn’t make our media here.
Canada does a number of things that one might find objectionable: routine care is rationed. Routine care for the elderly is rationed severely. They don’t usually have the latest and greatest technology. It’s illegal to seek out providers who aren’t in the system. Canadians with enough money often go out of country to get what they need.
The UK system isn’t much better. Financial scandal after financial scandal during my time there around 10 years ago. One example was people missing appointments with no notice cost the NHS over £100m in a single fiscal year. No penalty to patients for doing that. You do that here in the US, don’t be surprised if you get a bill. Good incentive not to do that. Not to mention the MRSA issues in their hospitals. I had a knee problem that required surgery, but I did not want it done there, I waited until my return to the US to have it done.
If our government cannot manage a smaller scale clientele like our veterans, what makes anyone think they’ll do better when the clientele is the entire country?
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Ridgerunner
Guest
There are those who would disagree about those programs. Besides, in some of them there are two systems going at the same time; a shoddier public one and a better private one. It’s Medicaid with deductibles for most and the best for the few. In France, for example, about 1/3 of the populace is in the “private” part, either self-financed or by insurance. I think Germany has at least two “tiers” of care.
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ARSpade
Guest
As a person who works with the federal government, we’ll make it worse for you, but we’ll all make a ton of money on it. DC Metro thanks you for paying our ridiculous salaries.
Also, lol at “bipartisan”. Like “compromise” in DC it’s a useless word that means “Give me everything I want, and you get to vote for it.”
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mary_bobo
Guest
The GOP does not have to make it fail. It is doing that all on its own, as it was intended to do.
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mary_bobo
Guest
It may work well enough for everyday care, but I believe that a serious medical problem is quite another matter. And the countries you mentioned have much smaller populations than we do and I wager not near as large a percentage of their population on welfare.
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ProVobis
Guest
It’s mostly the uncertainty that is affecting the insurance markets. Things only got more uncertain today.
LeafByNiggle
Well-known member
A two tiered health care system as your described is not so bad. It is better than some people getting no health care at all. In a way, that is also a two-tiered system where the lower tier is zilch.
LeafByNiggle
Well-known member
There is no doubt that one of the factors in rising premiums is the uncertainty caused by GOP’s intention to eliminate enforcement of the individual mandate. The insurance companies set their prices based on assumptions about the risk pool. If they think the risk pool is likely to shrink because of the lack of the individual mandate, they will raise their rates. This is an example of an active step the GOP is taking to make the ACA fail. It may have failed all on its own, but now we will never know.
LeafByNiggle
Well-known member
That depends on what you define as welfare. The public assistance programs in different countries are not directly comparable. I’m sure there is some definition of welfare under which Sweden has a higher proportion of its population on welfare than the US.
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ProVobis
Guest
Rates may rise also when insurance companies go back to commissions and underwriting for their products. The CBO score reflects this after the first year.
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