Obamacare Repeal Falls Off Republicans' To-Do List As Law Takes Hold

Obamacare Repeal Falls Off Republicans' To-Do List As Law Takes Hold

By Noam N. Levey | latimes.com | 04.18.2015
Excerpts:

"After five years and more than 50 votes in Congress, the Republican campaign to repeal the Affordable Care Act is essentially over. GOP congressional leaders, unable to roll back the law while President Obama remains in office and unwilling to again threaten a government shutdown to pressure him, are focused on other issues, including trade and tax reform. In 2013, congressional Republicans' maneuver to shut down the government became a debacle, prompting McConnell to promise no more shutdowns over the healthcare law.

And although the law remains very unpopular with GOP voters, more than 20 million Americans now depend on it for health benefits, making even some of the most conservative Republicans loath to cut off coverage. Facing the prospect that the Supreme Court this year could strip away insurance subsidies provided through the law in most states, several GOP lawmakers have proposed extending the aid, perhaps even until a new president takes office. In 2013, congressional Republicans' maneuver to shut down the government became a debacle, prompting McConnell to promise no more shutdowns over the healthcare law."

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"Today, more than 11 million Americans, many of them previously uninsured, get health coverage through marketplaces created by the law. Another 11 million low-income people have signed up for Medicaid, mostly in states that expanded their programs with federal funding made available through the law. Republican lawmakers once cheered a legal challenge targeting insurance subsidies in about three dozen states as an opportunity to dismantle the law.

Now, they are scrambling for a plan to preserve the subsidies if the Supreme Court backs the challenge. A ruling in the King vs. Burwell case is expected in June. Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb. has proposed legislation to extend the aid for 18 months. Sasse and other Republican lawmakers say the time is needed to develop a replacement for the current law. "This acknowledges that the ACA is the law and you have to start with what is there and build on it," said former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt."
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read more:
http://www.latimes.com/business/healthcare/la-na-obamacare-republicans-20150418-story.html#page=2
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IMO: The republican Congressmen have been fighting over Obamacare for over 5 years, 50 separate votes, a government shutdown over Obamacare and only now do they understand it is what the American people want. But we can see that if the republicans win the 2016 elections, they will start "reforming" Obamacare and changing it to become theirs.

It is amazing that those same Congressmen can ignore the wishes of the people and go to the extreme of shutting the government down to try to get their way, but there you have it folks, all they have is their agenda and their leaders to give them the buzz-words for the day, otherwise they wouldn't know what to do next. All we have seen for five years has been stalling, obstructing, working 1 1/2 days a week because they had obstructed the government into a non-workable state.

I believe this sudden abrupt about-face is because they cannot walk and chew gum at th same time and the 2016 elections are proving more intricate than they had even imagined. They have over 34 republicans to try to get back into office, and that ain't gonna be easy. Plus Jeb Boy didn't pan out as they hoped, and there is not another legislator in the republican Clown Car that can win a dog contest. That is what happens when you do not posses experience, brains, and a logical agenda for the masses.

 

You can still repeal Crap Care. Why are Republicans making the false presumption that the repeal of the law= no health care? Insurance existed prior to the advent of Crap Care. This isn't an insurance law. It's an Economic Organization law(and a crappy one) no matter how many of the 20 million get to benefit from its flawed conception.

The ACA tried to make Insurance "more affordable" by demanding everyone buy it(along with various other mechanisms) in a cheap ploy that not only DIDN'T make it less expensive, but failed to alter the market in a fundamental way. Insurance companies got millions of customers, Americans got CRAP(and alot of it they don't even need). WAY to go Washington.

And you think we can't fix this? Guess again. I offered a plan to Segment the market place and *target* specific Americans for specific wants. You know, how the free market works. My plan will enable "All Americans to be covered" like those Liberals want(as though their coverage is some great goal to be achieved. It's not like they'll be magically healthy because they have someone to pay for their doctor bills). It's just, you won't be *FORCED* to buy it.

The government took away YOUR leverage as a consumer, and you're clapping for them. Why?

 

The Supreme Court's going to do it for them.

 

It's a lose/lose for Democrats. They count on the youth vote that is getting nailed for 1% of their income for not buying health insurance, I believe that jumps to 2% for 2015. According to CNN some 3 million to 6 million will have to pay the penalty this year. To put that in perspective Obama won by about 5 million votes in 2012. I think you're right, why would the Republicans want to repeal it's blowing up in the Democrats face.

 

The only issue I can see the majority of States expanded Medicaid, 28 on the last count that means 56 Senate Seats and the majority of House Seats they are very unlikely to go against their States and repeal that part of the law and keeping that most GOP members won't likely go with so I don't see much of a chance of a repeal of the whole law but some kind of amending law.

 

The GOP's budgets have been retaining the ACA's savings since 2011. The "repeal" calls have been entirely smoke-and-mirrors since they truncated the "repeal-and-replace" slogan by dropping the last two words. Which was almost immediately after the law passed.

It was good theater for a while but that time is passing.

 

Republicans still lack the votes to alter or repeal Obama Care, as always, and it's bad law, so I fail to see the point of the thread except as more political theater. The next president, who will be republican, will be able to do away with the more odious parts of the law (which is almost all of it) and retain the only part most people agree with...doing away with pre existing conditions restrictions.

 

Repeal of the ACA with no other plan (which Repubs have had five years to offer something better and never did) will mean the loss of insurance for millions and that will echo loudly through our economy, not to mention resulting in the premature deaths of tens of thousands.

The rise in the cost of healthcare since the passage of the ACA has declined from double digits to manageable single digits. It has been quite successful so far as millions of people can attest and to anyone who'd bother to consult reality.

I found your proposal to be unworkable and ridiculous.

Since most people get coverage through the company they work for, just how much "leverage" do they have? As for individuals, they are in a far better bargaining position now than previously. Again, another factoid you seem to be unaware of.

 

Paying for pre-existing conditions is one of the very few hard problems. That is why we have mandatory insurance. Insurance companies can't have people jumping in and out as individual health care situations change.

This was the big issue from the very start. Nobody had a solution for it other than the mandatory insurance system we have.

 

No, "repealing" is not a choice. The issue is purely a matter of what change (wholesale or minor mods) will be made. So far, nobody from the GOP has posed a plan (a plan, not a wish list) for us to move to.

We have mandatory insurance for one reason - it is how we pay for having no exclusions for pre-existing conditions. Insurance companies state unequivocally that they can not support a model where people can buy insurance and drop coverage as their health situations changes over time.

There IS another plan, of course. EVERY other first world country supports some form of single payer health care. And, ALL those nations pay only a fraction of what the US pays for health care while covering EVERYBODY.

 

No, Democrats had simply folded to Insurance Companies in negotiations. I would've told Insurance Companies: "It doesn't matter what *You* can support or not. The rules governing your market are determined by US. Now, you can either manuever within our terms, or you'll be stuck within them. But it IS our terms." The Insurance Companies did not get the privilege of US Citizens being body bags for their money grubbing purposes.

Democrats folded, and it's why there's tension regarding Iran today. After all, if the POTUS folded to mere insurance companies, what's to stop him from groveling at a country's feet?

I've posed a plan: Segmented markets, which will A: Lower costs considerably for Insurance companies(No more one size-fits all plans). and B: Restore consumer choice for the Consumers. We can do this, and if we're going to "single payer", there's only one form acceptable: Singapore's, which incorporate private hospice care. Again, choice and competition.

Since Democrats/Leftists can't represent their constituents as consumers, I humbly ask they focus on ANYTHING but the economy. They're not economically savvy people.

 

I have heard it suggested that every state start a special pool for those hard to insure cases that
don't easily fit into the main stream of health care. Those with pre-existing conditions would fit into this category.

I realize there are a million details attached to any special solution but we shouldn't be burdened with a trillion dollar white elephant of a law just to deal with the problem of pre-existing conditions.

 

We've tried that for nearly 20 years now. It simply doesn't work--it's ineffective and it's inefficient.

Why High Risk Pools (Still) Won't Work

 

That's why I mentioned those million details attached to every problem. I can't believe the price of constructing a state wide high risk pool would be more expensive to all involved than the massive edifice of Obama Care itself. No problem is solvable when you begin with the assumption that something can't be done.

 

lol - your idea of how government interacts with industry is a little weird.

I agree Dems folded. Obama wanted single payer, and Dems in congress decided that if they went that route, they would get zero Republican votes for the bill.

Of course, the joke was on them, as Boehner and McConnell stated that health care was to be used as a show of continuing GOP power to show the party hadn't died due to their monumental loss in the 2008 election.


We don't have "one size fits all" plans today. There is a concept of a minimum plan, but there are more offerings today than previous to the ACA. Individuals still have choice of plans - which is all they had before the ACA, too. And, you said nothing about pre-existing conditions.

I'm hoping you won't try to answer these problems. The important issue here is what congress is likely to be able to do. And, congress is not going to radically change the ACA.

Today, Kansas points to the devastation of GOP economics while I'm pretty darn happy with our growth here in WA where we believe in stuff like wages one can live on. And, in health care, I'm more excited about single payer, the kind of plan used by EVERY other first world nation and where EVERY one of those nations gets great results while paying dramatically less than we do. But, congress isn't going to do that, either.

 

On the insurance side, Obamacare sets out to create functioning, consumer-friendly markets with rational incentives in place. It achieves that.

Thinking this can be replicated by shoving some subset of the sick into an underfunded separate pool betrays a certain lack of appreciation of what exactly has happened over the past few years in the individual insurance market.

 

In actuality he's created insurance friendly markets (with certain levels of profit for Big Insurance written right into the law).

You assume these pools would necessarily be underfunded.

 

No particular insurer is guaranteed anything, which is why insurers in the new marketplace are fighting tooth and nail to contain costs and attract price-sensitive consumers. Historically somewhat unusual in health insurance and rather significant.

More Competition Helps Restrain Premiums In Federal Health Marketplace

Health insurance premiums: comparing ACA exchange rates to the employer-based market

What other rationale is there for carving these people out of the general insurance markets and shoving them off into a special pool reserved for undesirables? You do it to limit the amount the rest of us have to pay for their health conditions, while still pretending we're doing something comprehensive about the problem.

Historical experience (not to mention any proposal going forward) bears this out.

 

This is the narrative that conservatives have decided to award themselves.

Victories in Congress were very much the product of jerrymandering, not of a groundswell of opposition to Democrats or the ACA.

In fact, the majority of Americans continue to support health care reform, and always have.

And, in 2012, a majority of votes cast in Congressional races across the country went to Democrats. Yet Republicans won, especially in North Carolina and Michigan.

The GOP knows that it can't turn back the clock on health care reform.

And their position has always been dishonest.

They railed about the individual mandate. But they all knew that this was the one part of the law that was never going away.

 

Being "covered" and getting "health care" are two different things, you realize that right? That is why 50,000 Canadians flee to the United States to get health care.

When the lines get backed up months and months in the United States (weve already seen this in the VA) where are Americans supposed to flee?

The rich (especially the politicians who caused the problem of course) will flee to private doctors..........the rest of us will just get the table scraps.

 

It's good that the GOP has finally given up that fight for now. There are many other more important and more urgent items that need to be addressed. If they still want to repeal it, they need to campaign hard for one of their candidates. Perhaps, a Republican president can come up with an alternative to the ACA. If not, then they should leave it as is.

 

I just find it funny that all these "Repeal Obamacare" are suddenly silent when they are in charge and able to do so. Looks like the cons that voted in these Republicans just got Grubbered by their own candidates they elected.

 

The Kansas economy is going to explode in a few years when they get their spending in check. Liberals (a word used to describe people who dont know what they are talking about) think policies have to immediately work to be successful. Its going to take a few years for the people of Kansas to save that money that would otherwise be wasted by the government and then invest it into businesses and services.

We are seeing that exact thing happen in Wisconsin right now. Our unemployment rate is disappearing...much, much lower than the national average....that is thanks directly to changed Scott Walker made in his time as governor here. He is easily the best governor in the United States.

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/06/27/profits-in-health-insurance-under-obamacare/