GOP Healthcare plan

• BoatShoes

  gut;1857286 wrote:And that's the point I'm making - you didn't need Obamacare to expand Medicaid. Bush did it without turning healthcare on its head.

  Look what the,moderate republicans balked at with the American Healthcare Act - cancer survivors being denied coverage was hugely unpopular.
  
  The medicaid expansion was a sweetner to offload other unhealthies off of private insurers so they would buy in to covering riskier individuals - same with the tax on uninsured individuals.
  
  Everything has to be looked at through that lens IMHO
• gut

  BoatShoes;1857331 wrote:Look what the,moderate republicans balked at with the American Healthcare Act - cancer survivors being denied coverage was hugely unpopular.
  
  The medicaid expansion was a sweetner to offload other unhealthies off of private insurers so they would buy in to covering riskier individuals - same with the tax on uninsured individuals.
  
  Everything has to be looked at through that lens IMHO

  
  If you have a point in either of these posts could you share please?
• BoatShoes

  gut;1857545 wrote:If you have a point in either of these posts could you share please?

  Your suggestion that the ACA was really just an inefficient expansion of medicaid is a gross oversimplification that fails to consider the desire to cover people with pre-existing conditions and is likely a manifestation of your apparent confirmation bias against Obama and policies you consider liberal in general. Hope that helps.
• QuakerOats

  ACA was designed to fail in order to get to government single-payer. Everyone knows that. Unfortunately for the Marxists, the left did not win any elections after 2010, because The People resoundingly and repeatedly have rejected obamaKare as a total disaster brought to us completely by liberal democrats. When in the hell are you going to simply accept this reality and OWN the disaster.
• Dr Winston O'Boogie

  

  QuakerOats;1857622 wrote:ACA was designed to fail in order to get to government single-payer. Everyone knows that. Unfortunately for the Marxists, the left did not win any elections after 2010, because The People resoundingly and repeatedly have rejected obamaKare as a total disaster brought to us completely by liberal democrats. When in the hell are you going to simply accept this reality and OWN the disaster.

  Health insurance was a disaster long before Obama came on the scene. I see the ACA as a partial solution and that's because he probably couldn't have gotten anything more at that time. It's a starting point. Its aims to reign in uninsured people inefficiently using the system and eliminating denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions are both honorable. I spend a lot of time in first world countries with single-payer systems and I have yet to hear anyone tell me anything negative about that model.
• gut

  BoatShoes;1857619 wrote:Your suggestion that the ACA was really just an inefficient expansion of medicaid is a gross oversimplification that fails to consider the desire to cover people with pre-existing conditions

  Again, they didn't need to re-write the healthcare industry to do that. Obamacare is a disaster, even many Dems admit it. Don't make it a partisan thing because you feel stupid for cheerleading for it all these years when it was so obvious why it was going to be a disaster.
• QuakerOats

  Dr Winston O'Boogie;1857690 wrote:Health insurance was a disaster long before Obama came on the scene.

  
  It was not a disaster; it had a couple of elements that needed to be addressed. The disaster began in 2010.
• Dr Winston O'Boogie

  

  QuakerOats;1857709 wrote:It was not a disaster; it had a couple of elements that needed to be addressed. The disaster began in 2010.

  Average premiums for families and single payers more than doubled from 2000-2008. That's a larger increase by half compared to 2008-2017. That's a disaster in my book.
• gut

  Dr Winston O'Boogie;1857839 wrote:Average premiums for families and single payers more than doubled from 2000-2008. That's a larger increase by half compared to 2008-2017. That's a disaster in my book.

  Well, there you have it - all we need is a Great Recession and a mediocre recovery to keep healthcare costs increases more reasonable.
• QuakerOats

  Dr Winston O'Boogie;1857839 wrote:Average premiums for families and single payers more than doubled from 2000-2008. That's a larger increase by half compared to 2008-2017. That's a disaster in my book.

  
  Incorrect. However, obamaKare premiums have more than doubled in just the last 4 years ---- literally astounding that he took already-high premiums and then doubled them in just 4 fours years. Of course, this is the same empty suit that doubled our debt in just 8 years - up $10 trillion; simply unfathomable.
  
  
  [The findings, assembled by the Health and Human Services Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, show that since 2013, one year before the Obamacare regulations were fully implemented, premiums have risen from an average of $2,784 in 2013 to $5,712 in 2017 on the federal exchange, healthcare.gov. This represents an increase of $2,928, or 105 percent.]
• Dr Winston O'Boogie

  

  QuakerOats;1857848 wrote:Incorrect. However, obamaKare premiums have more than doubled in just the last 4 years ---- literally astounding that he took already-high premiums and then doubled them in just 4 fours years. Of course, this is the same empty suit that doubled our debt in just 8 years - up $10 trillion; simply unfathomable.
  
  
  [The findings, assembled by the Health and Human Services Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, show that since 2013, one year before the Obamacare regulations were fully implemented, premiums have risen from an average of $2,784 in 2013 to $5,712 in 2017 on the federal exchange, healthcare.gov. This represents an increase of $2,928, or 105 percent.]

  Don't get me wrong, I don't contend that health insurance isn't still a HUGE problem - it is. My point is that it was a HUGE problem long before Obama came onto the scene. To his credit, at least he tried to do something about it. As imperfect as the ACA is, perhaps it will serve as a starting point for a major overhaul. I don't hold my breath with the present administration though.
  
  
• QuakerOats

  Thanks. And according to obama, families would be saving at least $2,000 per year; instead they are spending over $4,000 MORE, and cannot even use their insurance plan because the deductibles have sky-rocketed. A $6,000 dollar swing in premiums, for a FAR, FAR worse plan. Please, equalize premiums to account for astounding increase in deductibles in order to compare apples to apples. Doing so would result in an immeasurable disparity. What a disaster.
  
  
  Only in the twisted, liberal, demented mind could such an atrocity be rationalized.
• gut

  Dr Winston O'Boogie;1857870 wrote:To his credit, at least he tried to do something about it. As imperfect as the ACA is, perhaps it will serve as a starting point for a major overhaul.

  What's that, like a participation trophy for wrecking your car in a race? At least you tried, is that the gist of it?
• Dr Winston O'Boogie

  

  gut;1857876 wrote:What's that, like a participation trophy for wrecking your car in a race? At least you tried, is that the gist of it?

  No it's not. It's more like there was a problem that had been growing worse unchecked for many years and he took it on. The result was not as transformative as anyone would have liked. But it was a starting point for addressing two of most glaring weaknesses in the system: uninsured users and no protection for those with pre-existing conditions. The whole thing isn't "fixed"; far from it. But progress has been made. With something as large as this, it is not practical that it is going to be fixed all at once or under one person's power. There are too many cultural transformations that will take time.
  
  But again, progress has been made. Because of the ACA, healthcare is front and center where it belongs.
• gut

  Dr Winston O'Boogie;1857888 wrote: But again, progress has been made and because of the ACA, healthcare is front and center where it belongs.

  Yes, because the ACA is a failure. Thanks, Obama.
• Dr Winston O'Boogie

  

  gut;1857891 wrote:Yes, because the ACA is a failure. Thanks, Obama.

  How is it a failure?
• QuakerOats

  Well for starters, there are now many states and counties that have no carrier. No carrier, no insurance.
  
  Next, ruining medical insurance for 300,000,000 in order to say you secured insurance for 20 million, is an utter failure to the highest degree.
  
  Lastly, lying about premiums and doctor choices in order to sell a marxist policy is grounds for dismissal. Instead of saving thousands per year in premiums, people pay thousands more, for far shittier coverage, with far fewer choices. Most cannot even afford to use this so-called insurance because the deductibles are quadruple any reasonable amount.
  
  
  Please, defending this disaster is not worth your time.
• rocketalum

  Ohio presents a good case study in the damned if you do damned if you don't position the GOP finds themselves in on healthcare. When Gov Kasich accepted the Medicare expansion it provided coverage to many poor working class or rural whites. The rural part of the equation being a particularly loyal R voting block. Now you have a Senator in Rob Portman who is caught between upholding an 8 year Republican mantra to repeal or taking away coverage from a reliable voting demographic. This is happening across a lot of rural red states. This is opinion but I do think a big part of the backlash is the right did such a good job with 'ObamaCare' branding knowing their base would hate anything with his name in it that now that same base is realizing Obamacare means my Medicare and they're pissed off it's going away. So keep a promise or piss off voters. I think that's the crux of why they can't get this accomplished.
• gut

  Dr Winston O'Boogie;1857892 wrote:How is it a failure?

  From an overall cost perspective. From an insured perspective. From a coverage and provider/doctor perspective.
  
  But what makes it a failure is it simply wasn't necessary to accomplish the few things you would point to as a success. You had the ability to regulate - you could have simply made it illegal to screen on pre-existing conditions. No issue without gaps in coverage, and it's standard practice to have waiting periods for certain things if you had a gap (i.e. I had a 6-month waiting period for anything basically other than cleanings when I reinstated dental coverage).
  
  And before you say an 18-24 month waiting period screws pre-existing conditions, realize how long it actually took to implement this monstrosity. The rest was simply an expansion of Medicaid.
• gut

  rocketalum;1857919 wrote:...realizing Obamacare means my Medicare and they're pissed off it's going away. So keep a promise or piss off voters. I think that's the crux of why they can't get this accomplished.

  Only a question of funding and expanding Medicaid. Problem is, without 60 votes they have to work through budget reconciliation which makes things very difficult. Not like they can just go in an change parts and clauses as they see fit.
• Dr Winston O'Boogie

  

  QuakerOats;1857900 wrote:Well for starters, there are now many states and counties that have no carrier. No carrier, no insurance.

  I assume you're referring tot he insurance exchanges? If so, the lack of competition on some being bad is a valid point and one of the areas where the ACA is not enough of a fix. But the way you phrase it makes it sound like people in these states can't get insurance. That's not true. Most people in any state get their insurance through an employer. For those that don't, and who live in states where there are not multiple options on the exchanges, they can still buy insurance if the carriers have coverage in their area - just not through the exchange. Limited carrier coverage, especially in rural areas, was already a problem long before Obamacare.
  
  You never explain why premiums rising pre-Obamacare, at a higher rate than during Obamacare, were not considered a "disaster".
• Dr Winston O'Boogie

  

  gut;1857921 wrote:From an overall cost perspective. From an insured perspective. From a coverage and provider/doctor perspective.

  Insurance premium costs rose faster in the 11 years before Obamacare than they have since. I'm not sure what you mean by your other two points.
• rocketalum

  I think gut and QO are both referring to the fact that while premium increases have slowed (not sure either are even admitting that much) deductibles have on average exploded. I don't mean to lecture I'm sure you know this but there's two pieces to the 'cost' pie of insurance. There's how much does it cost me to even be insured "premium" and how much do I have to spend before it kicks in "deductible". The cost to be insured may have slowed for many but the cost to use has gone crazy. We're dealing with this right now as an executive team at my company. We had great insurance and still better than most but we're dropping our PPO $250 deductible plan because the cost to us as the employer is too great. Our lowest deductible PPO will now be $500. We're passing some saving on the the employee's so their out of check premium won't change but they now need to spend 500 bucks instead of 250 for insurance to kick in. Our example is just a microcosm of the larger national trend. E.g. the amount coming out of my paycheck may be only going up slightly but I need to kick in more and more out of pocket before I can use it. In that regard QO has a valid point.
• Dr Winston O'Boogie

  

  rocketalum;1857980 wrote:I think gut and QO are both referring to the fact that while premium increases have slowed (not sure either are even admitting that much) deductibles have on average exploded. I don't mean to lecture I'm sure you know this but there's two pieces to the 'cost' pie of insurance. There's how much does it cost me to even be insured "premium" and how much do I have to spend before it kicks in "deductible". The cost to be insured may have slowed for many but the cost to use has gone crazy. We're dealing with this right now as an executive team at my company. We had great insurance and still better than most but we're dropping our PPO $250 deductible plan because the cost to us as the employer is too great. Our lowest deductible PPO will now be $500. We're passing some saving on the the employee's so their out of check premium won't change but they now need to spend 500 bucks instead of 250 for insurance to kick in. Our example is just a microcosm of the larger national trend. E.g. the amount coming out of my paycheck may be only going up slightly but I need to kick in more and more out of pocket before I can use it. In that regard QO has a valid point.

  Yes, this is a valid point.
• FatHobbit

  

  rocketalum;1857980 wrote:I think gut and QO are both referring to the fact that while premium increases have slowed (not sure either are even admitting that much) deductibles have on average exploded. I don't mean to lecture I'm sure you know this but there's two pieces to the 'cost' pie of insurance. There's how much does it cost me to even be insured "premium" and how much do I have to spend before it kicks in "deductible". The cost to be insured may have slowed for many but the cost to use has gone crazy. We're dealing with this right now as an executive team at my company. We had great insurance and still better than most but we're dropping our PPO $250 deductible plan because the cost to us as the employer is too great. Our lowest deductible PPO will now be $500. We're passing some saving on the the employee's so their out of check premium won't change but they now need to spend 500 bucks instead of 250 for insurance to kick in. Our example is just a microcosm of the larger national trend. E.g. the amount coming out of my paycheck may be only going up slightly but I need to kick in more and more out of pocket before I can use it. In that regard QO has a valid point.

  My deductible is $2500. I do have an hsa but still if i use my insurance it sucks.