Since the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, ie, Obamacare, was passed, Republicans have promised to repeal it in full. That’s why they were elected in a wave to the House in 2010. We were promised this in 2012, 2014, and 2016, adding on “replace” as Ocare took effect. The Ryan “Trumpcare” bill is supposed to do this. Does it?
(The Hill) Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) said Wednesday night he and President Trump have come to an “agreement in principle†on a plan to repeal and replace ObamaCare, just one day before a historic House vote on the bill.
“The president and I came to an agreement in principle,†Meadows said during an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity, adding that he was still ironing out a few final details with the White House. (snip)
The round-the-clock negotiations between the White House, Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus have centered on adding to the bill a repeal of ObamaCare’s “essential health benefits,†as well as other insurance regulations in Title I of the existing health law.
Many of the Freedom Caucus members are poo-pooing the notion that there is any sort of deal, and this supposed deal is driving away the squishy Republicans. Regardless, reading between the lines, does this look like an actual repeal of Ocare, or just dinking and dunking around the edges? Reading the actual text of the bill, it repeals this and that and the other from Ocare, but, never repeals it in full. Which means a lot of it is left in place. Which also means that so many of the Health and Human Services rules, such as the contraception mandate, are still in place, because the statutory authority to create all those rules is still in place.
Paul Ryan, meanwhile, is yammering on at the Wall Street Journal about Keeping Our Promise To Repeal Obamacare. Well, Paul, first, your article is behind a paywall, so most can’t read it. Second, your bill doesn’t actually repeal Ocare in full.
I’m a subscriber to The Wall Street Journal, so I could, and did, read the Speaker’s article. It’s really a nothingburger, nothing we haven’t heard before. The Republicans are simply rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic when it comes to health care coverage.
The laughably-named Affordable Care Act was a sop to Republicans, a hoped-for method to get conservatives on board due to its reliance on the private insurance system. If the GOP hadn’t hung the name Obamacare on it, they could actually live with it, but they’ll never agree to support anything that gives credit to Barack Hussein Obama.
So, now they’ve come up with Obamacare Lite, hoping to put enough changes into the ACA so that the previous President won’t get credit for it, but all that they’ve done is to take a pile of stinking [insert slang term for feces here] and make it stinkier. If the ACA was a lousy attempt at a universal health care coverage system using the private insurance system, the AHCA — are those the right initials? — will turn out to be an even worse attempt at doing so. If there was ever any hope of achieving universal coverage through the private insurance system, the Democrats and the Republicans have unwittingly colluded in eliminating that possibility. The Democrats are pretty happy about that, because single-payer is what they’ve wanted all along, and all that the Republicans are going to do is bring that about more quickly.
The obvious point is that while free market reforms and the elimination of government involvement (repeal only; no replacement) might, might! make health care more affordable — as long as there are malpractice lawyers out there screaming “Cash, cash, cash!†I have my doubts — even much less expensive health care will be unaffordable for those at the low end of the income scale.
Nobody else out there is willing to say what I’ll say, what I have said, that if you cannot or will not pay for your health insurance or health care, you shouldn’t get it. But if you are unwilling to say that, at least to yourself, then you can have no real objection to the government providing some form of health care coverage; the most you can do is quibble about how best to provide it.
Interestingly, Paul Ryan had a decent plan all the way back in 2009, which still involved the government a bit too much, but, is certainly better than this slop he has now. It even included lawsuit reform.
One thing they absolutely have to do is make it mandatory that everybody is in it. No exclusions for Congress, unions, government employees and other “special” people. Either we are all on it together or we are all out.
Maybe if they screw up health care enough the Canadians will stop sneaking in to use ours.
Right. Because you can’t have real fascism without forcing everyone into it. The people in charge will still get their Obamacare at Bethesda and you will still get yours at the local community clinic, after waiting a few hours, if they have time.
What they should do is exactly what they promised: Full repeal. No replace. Replace it with what we had before.
If the House Republicans pass this then they can wave bye-bye to majority status in 2018.
Book it.
More Americans leave the US for healthcare than foreigners “sneak” in for healthcare.
The Republicans are finding out that repealing the ACA is not as easy as first thought, largely because Americans like many provisions of the system. If they repeal without a reasonable replacement they will alienate 60% of voters.
No they don’t.
Unless you consider people going for treatments which are illegal in the US, for tans-sex operations, elective body modification and other oddities. Of course then we can count 800,000 immigrants coming in and getting health care here. Free, no less. When citizens have to pay for it. And pay for theirs.
Did they include trumpy’s promise to force Medicaid and Medicare to negotiate drug prices down?
Did they include trumpy’s promise to make sure everyone gets “insurance”?
They’re trying to undo the lying sack of shit Obumby’s lie that we can keep our doctor.
They’re trying to undo the lying sack of shit Obumby’s lie that we could keep our insurance company.
They’re trying to undo the lying sack of shit Obumby’s lie that our rates would go down $2500 a year.
They’re trying to undo the lying sack of shit Obumby’s lie that everyone would be covered then he gave out “exemptions” to his connected friends.
They’re trying to undo the lying sack of shit Obumby’s lie that an additional 30 million Americans would be covered which never happened.
They’re trying to undo the lying sack of shit Obumby’s lie well, you get the point.
Stinky,
trumpelstiltskin lies more in a day than President Obama lied in a lifetime.
Did you not hear, President Obama is gone. It’s time to hold that lying sack of shit royal trumposity’s feet to the fire, LOL. Maybe he needs to cut Medicaid and Medicare to afford to keep his Mrs. in Manhattan. Actually, it’s not his money that pays for his luxuries – now it’s the put upon American taxpayers’ money!
Do you suspect that lying sack of shit trumpy’s boss Putin doesn’t want him to repeal the ACA for some reason? What else can explain the lying sacks of shit Republican House, Senate and presidon’ts lack of action in repealing this disastrous law that is ruining America?
According to lore, they were elected to repeal Obamacare. Is it that they don’t have the balls to just do it – after all, 40% of Americans don’t approve of the ACA. 40% is known as a “Republican majority”.
It can’t be that they don’t know how to repeal Obamacare having practiced doing just that about a gazillion over the past several years. Are the sack of shit Rethuglican pussies afraid that they’ll be criticized? Hitler and Mussolini didn’t get scared away from doing the right thing.
It really seems peculiar that now that they can easily repeal the disastrous Obamacare they won’t do it. Why? It’s almost as if the sack of shit Repubicunts don’t believe their own bullshit. Were all those repeal bills over the years just political theater?
17% of Americans like the latest version of TrumpKare.
48% like the ACA.
Latest from the CBO says the greatest benefit goes to those making $200,000 and more. Thanks Donnie!
Biggest hit? On working class 50 to 64 year olds whose premiums would jump 1000 percent!!! Repub solution? Huge 100 billion dollar slush fund to subsidize the premiums, LOL.
Why don’t the piece of shit Republicans just repeal the ACA and let the markets work their magic? Why are they working on Obamacare Version 0.1??
Curiouser and curiouser.