Quote:
Originally Posted by CTMountaineer
Perhaps. Personally, I've always thought the answer was to provide Medicaid for people with pre existing conditions or poverty incomes rather than mess with everyone else's insurance as they did, with 2,000 pages of insanity they didn't even bother reading before putting it into effect. Medicaid available... problem solved. They could have done it with less than one page, and even the clueless wonders we elect as politicians would be able to read and understand it.
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That is the logical assumption to make if we assume that covering everyone was the impetus for the original Obama Care program; I assert that it was never the plan to actually cover everyone but was rather a takeover of the largest sector of non-retail activity in the commerce of the nation by the federal government. The plan was to design a system a system that would fail state-by-state until there was no option but to move to a single payer - i.e.. federal government provider program.
Prior to enactment of Obama Care there were roughly 17 million people without medical coverage out of 300 million or just over 5% of the population. These were the very poor. Another roughly 20 million people did not have any coverage but that was by choice as they were young and healthy and saw no need for something they had no need to use. But, the total of 47 million uninsured is the figure touted in pre-Obama Care literature and it is now reported that roughly 30 million do not have coverage now, which is roughly the same group of young people that prefer to pay the penalty than elect to buy into an exchange for coverage. The 17 million poor have blossomed to almost 50 million now that the illegal immigrant has access to the program.
The big lie in all of it is that the poor on Medicaid, while covered, have no where to go. No physician office will accept Medicaid patients thus forcing all Medicaid covered patients to seek health care in the local trauma hospitals around the nation - which was exactly what they did before Obama Care. Ditto for the 30 to 35 million illegal aliens.
The biggest lie is that millions of Americans that technically have coverage have nothing but a piece of paper to show for the thousands they pay in premiums. Their programs cover very little and to even use that, they must first pay 100% of the 5,000 plus dollar out of pocket expenses before a single coverage dollar is spent. Even then, many plans still only cover at 50%
Everyone wants a health care system that works and few will argue against one that is reasonably priced. Fewer still will argue that the poorest should be without coverage.
But the best vehicle for this is the free market.
The Republicans are fighting a losing battle. The insurance lobbies are now hooked on the government money flushing through the system AND the private money that the government FORCES the citizenry to pay to the insurers. The insurance companies are getting paid twice for providing nothing!!!
It is in their best interest to load any replacement program that does little more than change the name of the program but leaves in place all of the Obama Care structure.
Astute politicians would educate their constituents when the come home on breaks but they are told if they do they will lose millions of dollars for reelection from the INSURANCE LOBBY!.
The solution is simple. Repeal Obama Care and the government sets no mandates on what an insurer will or will not provide. the Market Place will sort it out. Will pre-existing condition still be there? not likely. Will portability be there? Not likely. Will poor people be covered? Only of the voters in their state of residence deem it prudent, otherwise too bad.
In time, well run health care providers would re-organize and begin to offer programs from the above concerns but it would come with a cost - as it should. The poor will be covered at different levels depending upon the state they live in because the people footing the bill - the taxpayers - will vote on such expenditures - as it should be.
President Trump understands this basic set up and hates it. Everyone in Congress understands it just as well if not better because they crafted it and other than the president they all hope the we, the people, never figure it out. Of course if you watch CNN as your primary news source or only read the editorial pages in the Gazette or scan the New York Times, you likely believe nothing is wrong and your ears were closed a long time ago to such chatter. Sheep.
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