Will they repeal the ACA?

Now that the GOP controls the WH and congress, will they repeal Obamacare?

Will they take health insurance away from 22 million Americans? And, if yes, will that reduce costs? Or will the prices stay the same and the insurance company CEOs get a windfall?

It looks like the GOP may have the power now to repeal:

http://www.newsweek.com/how-hard-repeal-obamacare-433590

Also, if they repeal, will we go back to the previous system with millions of uninsured? Or will they come up with their own health care plan?

My guess: It will be repealed and replaced with some legislation that is based on "competition", but will essentially further enrich the insurance companies while leaving the average citizen holding the bag.

 

With the number of insurance companies opting out of covering Obamacare patients there's no need to repeal it, it will disappear all on it's own.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/05/16/many-obamacare-customers-one-provider-insurance-companies-pull/

 

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The ACA was exceedingly flawed from the start. Scarp it and go to a single-payer system.

 

I don't know why the federal government felt it needed to get into the healthcare business to start with but I do know one thing: If the beltway bean counters decide that doctors, nurses, hospitals, and big pharma are making too much $ and cut costs too much our entire healthcare system is going to crash and burn. How long do you think you'll have to wait to get an appointment about that strange mole on your back?

 

I believe that is precisely what will happen.

22 million people will lose health insurance.

The denial of service to people with pre existing conditions will return.

Maximum caps on coverage will return, bringing back the sceptre of bankruptcy over medical bills.

And, health care costs and insurance premiums will continue to rise at double digit rates, as they had for most of the last two decades before the ACA was passed.

None of these negative effects will even be acknowledged in conservative media, which will pretend they aren't happening.

 

I have three beliefs when it comes to the (un)affordable care act.

(1) They need to force ALL healthcare companies to allow patients with pre-existing conditions. I know this is the reason why the ACA is unaffordable, but not allowing patients with healthcare conditions completely negates why people buy healthcare in the first place!

(2) They need to stop enforcing the penalty when you don't have health insurance. I know this penalty is to pay for the possible problems of the uninsured, but there's a large group of people who don't have health insurance and don't want or need health insurance.

(3) As far as the marketplace exchange, I think one of two things ought to happen: everybody gets dumped into the marketplace exchange together to level the playing field, or just completely get rid of the marketplace altogether. When it comes to healthcare I just think everybody needs to have the same level of care as the other.

Remember that the idea of ACA was created by a ultra-conservative think tank.

TrumpCare?

 

Why would you say that? It's clearly not based on any actual knowlege or facts.

The United States has the highest per capita health care costs in the world. We spent nearly 20% of our GDP on health care, nearly twice as much as any other country.

Yet, Americans don't live longer than people in countries with single payer government run health insurance, or nationally regulated private health insurance, nor do they live better.

The United States does not have a healthcare system. The word system inplies some sort of unity and common management.

Insurance companies fought hard to preserve the disjointed system where 50 different sets of insurance regulators oversaw 50 different markets, all with different rules and different regulators.

That preserved a complex and opague marketplace which the four or five large health insurance companies that write most of the nation's health insurance operate in. It effectively discourages any sort of real competition, and insures that there will be no real effective effort to control costs.

Insurers act as the bankers of the health care "system", and they have no incentive to get the other players (doctors, big pharma, hospitals etc) to control their costs. They simply keep raising their rates.

Since most American don't actually write the check for thier health insurance, they have no idea what it really costs. Most Americans don't choose their health insurance provider either, they take what their employer offers, good, bad or indifferent.

That was one of the shocks of Obamacare. It exposed a lot of people to the fact that in the United States, health insurance is absurdly, and unnecessarily expensive.

The insurance industry has worked for decades to keep it that way. And health insurance companies are among the most profitable industries in the US.

People from modern industrialized countries shake their heads in amazement at health care in the United States. They would never put up with such an expensive, inefficient, institutionally corrupt and unfair system in their countries.

 

I guess I'm a white male racist then because I liked my healthcare before Obama got his hands on it. You know Lady Gaga, Bruce Springsteen and James Taylor get to keep their cadillac health plans.

.

 

Agreed. It will implode under its own weight. Not a very well thought through piece of legislation...

Absolutely right. And the ACA actually muddies the water: the problem we need to be addressing is the skyrocketing cost of our healthcare. In that regard, the ACA is a certifiable failure. Perhaps it's time to get people like Steven Brill, author of the very insightful article Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us (and a later follow up article), involved in actually addressing the core problem...

 

Good post.. Most Americans don't understand the system at all.

 

Could tort reform help to lower medical costs by restricting over the top lawsuits? I'm not a lawyer and I've never played one on TV.

 

They won't. The ACA will end up being "repackaged", watch.

They'll feed their low info supporters something to placate them with in the process.

 

Yes they will do so.....BO Peeps special care package is one of the issues that cost Hillary the Presidency and those Demos down ballot their Control of the Senate.

They never had a chance for the House.

Say, bubbye to the Peeps Signature Legislation.



McConnell: Oh Yeah, We're Going To Move To Repeal Obamacare.....


Senate Republicans, flush with victory and defying the odds, have maintained their majority in the upper chamber and vowed to move quickly on repealing Obamacare. Senate Majority Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said, “It's pretty high on our agenda as you know. I would be shocked if we didn't move forward and keep our commitment to the American people."

President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to repeal President Obama’s signature domestic achievement. McConnell did not discuss whether reconciliation would be used, though the chances of that are likely since the GOP majority is slim. And there is virtually no chance that Senate Republicans will be able to cobble together nine Democrats to reach 60 votes for cloture. Still, make no mistake, Trump and Congressional Republicans have signaled that Obamacare repeal is on the table. Yet, as with most bills, a lot of cost analysis, meetings, and the formulation of a replacement piece of legislation could take some time (via the Hill):

[Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Wednesday he would be "shocked" if Republicans did not move forward with repealing the health law, but declined to discuss if reconciliation would be used.

The GOP’s toughest challenge ahead, though, involves replacing ObamaCare — a problem that has consistently dogged Republicans since the law’s passage.

Experts say it is likely a repeal bill would delay the date it takes effect to give lawmakers time to try to come up with a replacement. The reconciliation bill last year did not include a replacement but phased out the subsidies and Medicaid expansion over two years in what could allow time for a replacement.

Republicans would face difficulty uniting around the details of a plan and dealing with factors like cost estimates, despite the outline put forward by House Republicans this year.

Joe Antos, a healthcare expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said there would have to be some kind of transition period so people were not kicked off their plans right away.

"I don't think you can get anybody to say 'OK, on February 1 you're off,'" Antos said. "2018 is another matter," he added, though he noted that the law could be adapted rather than completely scrapped.

In an interview, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) would not absolutely commit to using reconciliation to repeal ObamaCare, noting that there still had to be planning meetings with the Trump transition team, but spoke favorably of the test run the process got last year.].....snip~

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattve...re-going-to-move-to-repeal-obamacare-n2243641


Btw.....Ryan has already stated they have a plan to go.

 

No one called you a white racist.

You like paying the highest health care costs on the planet.

You like the possibility that you might find yourself in intensive care while you spouse is being informed by your employer's insurance company that they aren't going to pay the bill.

You like the idea that that same insurance company will decide that the won't insure you at any price.

You like the fact that the United States is the only country in the world where people lose their homes and go bankrupt over medical bills?

Because that's what you said you liked.

 

They need to transition away, beginning with removing the individual mandates and the requirements regarding all the freebies. If they just end the subsidies on day 1, people are not going to able to afford alternative policies and they won't have many options. By losing the coverage mandates it gives insurers time to craft more policy options to give consumers a softer landing.

 

Yeah, I wonder why nobody has ever seen the GOP healthcare plan. Could it be because it doesn't exist? Or could it be that, as usual, their only plan is repeal, cut, slash, burn..

 

Didn't President Trump already explain how this is going to work? Obamacare will be repealed along with the restrictions against selling insurance across state lines.

And of course the insurance companies will make money on it. Making money is why people go into business.

If you want, maybe teh Donald can tell you that if you like your health insurance, then you can keep your health insurance.

 

Tell me about paying the highest healthcare costs on the planet lol! At least I'm getting decent healthcare for my money. I wasn't looking forward to what Comrade Clinton had in mind for me healthcare-wise. I just hope our new president turns healthcare back over to the private sector.



Edit: Corrected typo

 

If they had any balls, ethics, and reliability at all...and I am not accusing them of having any...

...on January 21st, they should introduce the last bill they offered to eliminate it...exactly as it was written then.

It should pass...and will not have to contend with a presidential veto.

Back then, they pretending they were not just grandstanding...so...

...it should be a "put up or shut up" situation.

 

The new president and congress haven't even taken office yet! Why do you people speculate? It's a waste of time. Wait until they take office!

Sheesh!
Steve

 

Americans pay, on average, twice as much per year for health insurance and health care as the citizens of any other country on the planet.

This isn't hard to document.

You pay twice as much for health care as any Canadian, Briton, German, Swiss, Swede or any citizen of any other first world country.

You do not get superior health care. In fact, health statistics in the US are about on par with all those countries.

Health care was never taken away from the private sector, so I have no idea what you're talking about, and it's fairly clear that you don't either.

 

You would tell me healthcare hasn't been taken away from the private sector when I'm staring Medicare in the face? And do I have a choice, well no.

 

Ryan has been playing like Hillary and sending people to his site. A Better Way. Which was released in June of this year and even that Satire Newspaper the NY Times wrote up their piece on it. Where have you been?


[PDF]
A Better Way
abetterway.speaker.gov/_assets/pdf/ABetterWay-HealthCare-Policy...




House Republicans Unveil Long-Awaited Replacement for Health Law.....
JUNE 22, 2016

After six years of vague talk about a conservative alternative to the Affordable Care Act, House Republicans on Tuesday finally laid out the replacement for a repealed health law — a package of proposals that they said would slow the growth of health spending and relax federal rules for health insurance.

Opponents began the “repeal and replace” mantra almost as soon as the Affordable Care Act was signed in 2010, and while they have voted dozens of times to repeal the health law, the replacement has been elusive.

In finally presenting one, Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin and his Republican team did not provide a cost estimate or legislative language. But they did issue a 20,000-word plan that provides the most extensive description of their health care alternative to date.

Many of the ideas — for “health savings accounts,” “high-risk pools” and sales of insurance across state lines — are familiar. Democrats in and out of Congress have for weeks been rehearsing their lines of attack.

Others are sure to be contentious. House Republicans would gradually increase the eligibility age for Medicare, which is now 65. Starting in 2020, the Medicare age would rise along with the eligibility age for full Social Security benefits, eventually reaching 67.

Following Mr. Ryan’s budget plans of recent years, the health proposal would transform Medicare into “a fully competitive market-based model known as premium support.” The traditional fee-for-service Medicare program would compete directly with private plans offered by companies like UnitedHealth, Aetna and Humana.

In their blueprint, to be formally unveiled on Wednesday, House Republicans say they would eliminate the requirement that most Americans carry health insurance. They would offer a flat tax credit to each person or family in the individual insurance market, regardless of income or the premium for a particular insurance policy.

House Republicans also said they would roll back the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of Medicaid and give each state a fixed amount of money for each beneficiary or a lump sum of federal money for all of a state’s Medicaid program.

In addition, House Republicans would allow states to establish work requirements for able-bodied adults on Medicaid, requirements that the Obama administration has refused to permit. Under the House Republican plan, states could also “charge reasonable enforceable premiums or offer a limited benefit package” and use “waiting lists and enrollment caps” for certain groups of Medicaid beneficiaries.

Using these options and others proposed by House Republicans, states could profoundly reshape the Medicaid program, which provides health insurance to more than 70 million people at a federal cost of more than $350 billion a year.

“Reforming Medicaid’s financing with a per-capita allotment certainly will reduce federal spending, but just as importantly” will give states more control over the program and more incentives to manage care and costs, the blueprint says.

One of the most important provisions of the 2010 health care law stipulates that insurers cannot deny coverage or charge high premiums because of a person’s medical condition or history. The House Republican blueprint would replace this guarantee with more complicated, less stringent standards.

No American could be denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition, the House Republican plan says. But the protection against higher premiums would apply only to people who maintain “continuous coverage.” If a consumer allows a significant break in coverage, insurers could charge more than “standard rates” and take a person’s health status into account in setting premiums.

The House Republican plan would also change the tax treatment of some employer-provided health insurance, in a way that some employers are finding objectionable.

“To help lower the cost of coverage,” House Republicans said, they would cap the value of tax-free benefits, but the cap would be so high that it would affect “only the most generous plans.”

House Republicans would relax age-rating restrictions in the Affordable Care Act. Under the law, insurers generally cannot charge older Americans more than three times what they charge younger people, other factors being equal. Republicans said this was “an unrealistic regulation” that led to “higher premiums for millions of Americans, especially younger and healthier patients.”

House Republicans would allow a ratio of five to one, with states permitted to set more or less restrictive rules.....snip~

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/22/u...eil-affordable-care-act-replacement.html?_r=0

 

Are you going to make car insurance companies insure people after they receding there car. They always could buy insurance but the companies would exclude the preexisting illness.

 

Whilst playing scare tactics about how lousy healthcare is in countries with universal healthcare