So now Donald says he is going to "repeal and replace" Obamacare "simultaneously"

Yup. We will indeed!

 

That's a False Premise, since the GOP isn't obligated to come up with a replacement.

Or they can lobby their State governments to change existing insurance regulations.

 

I think people with pre-existing conditions will be screwed with a new Health Care system. I listened to Paul Ryan's Town Hall last night on CNN. He wants to create a pool for people who have pre-existing conditions such as cancer. I want more information on this. If they are going to force people into a high-risk pool, I feel like they are going to have to pay more because they are sick through no fault of their own.

 

Well said, well reasoned, and yes, you are almost certainly correct when you estimate that the present Obamacare will remain in place through the end of FY17 -- through September 30th.

I could support the idea of people being able to create unlimited tax-free health savings accounts, and for coverage to be offered in all 50 states. I find it impossible, though, to support the whole concept of having 'adult-children' on Mommy and Daddy's health insurance until they are TWENTY-SEVEN (*)(*)(*)(*)ING YEARS OLD. All that does is turn an entire generation of what should be fully-grown adults into thumb sucking, totally dependent children who will never be mentally prepared to grow the hell up!

It also is just not (NOT) right for people to refuse to buy health insurance until they get badly injured or sick and THEN they demand to be taken into a health insurance plan and have the same terms and conditions given to them as any nominally healthy person. That is, very truthfully, BULL (*)(*)(*)(*), and it just makes it more expensive for all the other people covered with that insurance company to have others brought in who are nothing but a huge, sudden financial drain on the whole system.

Never forget that this whole bag of Obamacare worms was passed into law as MANDATE, and then, for reasons that have never been made clear to anyone, Chief "Justice" of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, decided all by himself that it was actually a TAX, and he completely (and ILLEGALLY) remade the monstrosity into a something that was legal -- a tax, as opposed to an unconstitutional "mandate".

We SHOULD go back to a system where everybody provides for his/her own damn healthcare, but once the parasites have ever gotten the 'free stuff' you can never turn that spigot off again. They'll suck on that straw forever and curse you if you ever try to take it away from them....

 

Obama care was a failure!

 

Were not so cruel to former Barack Obama.....

 

Prior to Obamacare both parties were in agreement that the American healthcare system was too expensive and delivered much less than cost effective care.

 

His executive order has already started the process of dismantleing The ACA and there is absolutly no plan to replace. Trump has lied again.

And has everyone already forgotten his promise that the replacement plan would provide less expensive, effective health insurance for everyone.

 

Here are some of Trump's past statements n healthcare:


Here are eight memorable healthcare quotes Mr. Trump has said over the years:

1. At an American Airlines Center in Dallas last year, Mr. Trump said, "Obamacare. We're going to repeal it, we're going to replace it, get something great. Repeal it, replace it, get something great!"

2. During his June 2015 presidential announcement speech, Mr. Trump said, "But Obamacare kicks in in 2016. Really big league. It is going to be amazingly destructive. Doctors are quitting. I have a friend who's a doctor, and he said to me the other day, 'Donald, I never saw anything like it. I have more accountants than I have nurses.' It's a disaster. My patients are beside themselves. They had a plan that was good. They have no plan now."

3. In September 2014, Mr. Trump tweeted, "I'm not against vaccinations for your children, I'm against them in one massive dose. Spread them out over a period of time & autism will drop!"

4. Mr. Trump told The Hill the federal government should not play a huge role in healthcare regulation. He said, "The only way the government should be involved, they have to make sure those companies are financially strong, so that if they have catastrophic events or they have a miscalculation, they have plenty of money. Other than that, it's private."

5. In a 1999 interview with Larry King Live, Mr. Trump took a different stance, saying, "If you can't take care of your sick in the country, forget it, it's all over. I mean, it's no good. So I'm very liberal when it comes to healthcare. I believe in universal healthcare. I believe in whatever it takes to make people well and better."

6. In an interview on "60 Minutes," Scott Pelley asked Mr. Trump about his plans to fix the healthcare system.

"There's many different ways, by the way. Everybody's got to be covered. This is an un-Republican thing for me to say because a lot of times they say, 'No, no, the lower 25 percent that can't afford private'… I am going to take care of everybody. I don't care if it costs me votes or not. Everybody's going to be taken care of much better than they're taken care of now."

7. When Mr. Pelley asked Mr. Trump how his health law would care for the uninsured, Mr. Trump said, "the government's gonna pay for it. But we're going to save so much money on the other side. But for the most it's going to be a private plan and people are going to be able to go out and negotiate great plans with lots of different competition with lots of competitors with great companies and they can have their doctors, they can have plans, they can have everything."

8. At a Republican rally in New Hampshire in February, Mr. Trump said negotiating with pharmaceutical companies could reap huge savings, according to Fortune.

The candidate said, "Because the drug companies have an unbelievable lobby. And these guys that run for office, that are on my left and right and plenty of others, they're all taken care of by the drug companies. And they're never going to put out competitive bidding. So I said to myself wow, let me do some numbers. If we competitively bid, drugs in the United States, we can save as much as $300 billion a year."

 

Good point, although this fraudulent, unconstitutional 'Obamacare' scam didn't help working taxpayers. It was a nice thing for people who are on welfare and who qualify for "subsidies" (which is just another word for "welfare").

I disagree greatly with other Conservatives, however, on what is probably the best course going forward. I now advocate a "single-payer" system! BUT, it must be one that makes all healthcare providers BID for Federal contracts that are awarded to cover citizen participants in all fifty states. It must also be a system in which people PAY PREMIUMS to be in the single-payer system -- no welfare or "subsidies". Real people pay real money, and get real healthcare plans at the best prices, with the fewest co-pays, and the fewest deductibles.

What about people who won't or don't want to pay to be in my single-payer system? They can provide for themselves or sign up for Medicaid (yes, we'd have to keep it also). There would be no "Nazi-state" penalties and fines for not signing up as we have now with Obamacare....

But we would absolutely HAVE to keep the welfare mob out of the single-payer system or they would drown it with their sheer numbers, and because they would bring nothing to help fund the system. They would bring only their problems, and we have way too many of those among people who would pay for the privilege of being in a good healthcare system already.

 

Polly...you are smarter than this. And I hope you have more humanity.

You are advocating for "Screw 'em, let 'em die." In fact, it sounds more like, "I've got mine...screw them."

There are some who will never contribute to the work environment in the way you suppose a contribution should be made. But that does not mean they are not contributing.

There's an old joke about a guy who asks the plumber, "What are your rates?"

The plumber says, "$95 per hour...one hour minimum."

So the homeowner asks, "Okay...and how much if I help?"

"Then it is $125 an hour...and two hour minimum."

Yeah...it is a joke. But think about them message being conveyed. And think about where you work...and if there are any people who would contribute to overall productivity by being absent.

 

Yes there is.

No he hasn't. Son, you have to quit listening to fake news! Obamacare is still in place, with some impacts from EO. Obama impacted it with EO repeatedly. Can you direct me to your outraged posts when Obama issued EO's pertaining to Obamacare?

Actually "Lie of the Year" Obama, said it would lower insurance costs, and of course he lied his ass off. Can you direct me to your outraged posts on this?

Trump vowed insurance for everybody in Republican health care replacement plan, and I expect that will be the case when Congress passes the new healthcare law.

 

No, Frank, we should not just totally "cut people off" -- most especially those who have had horrible injuries, birth defects, or terrible diseases that have made it impossible for them to support themselves. That's why, like it or not, we MUST keep Medicaid! From the very beginning, Medicaid was intended for those who cannot, or simply do not pay their own way in life, and that includes healthcare.

But blanket "subsidies" for anybody who can con some bleeding-heart, hyperliberal "social worker" into giving them "disability" and all the other welfare goody is simply NOT a good idea. Those are the parasites who are bankrupting the entire system, for those who cannot pay, and for those who actually DO pay their own way in life. Surely you aren't defending slackers, leeches, and bums, are you...?

 

In a way...I guess I am.

Surely you do not think it to be a good idea to have slackers, leeches, and bums as part of our production effort?

We have too many of those types already.

We do not need them. We can get all the work done that needs doing...without using incompetents and malingerers. In fact, if we force those kinds of people out of the workforce, productivity will improve.

Of course, some people are so determined to require everyone to "work" in order to live...they'd probably think it a good idea to force less productive people to do the equivalent of digging holes all morning and filling them in all afternoon.

I respectfully suggest that makes no sense.

Give those kinds of people (who come in all shades, genders, and ethnicity) enough to live reasonably...and require that they stay out of the way. THAT makes more sense to me.

Apparently you do not agree.

 

You do make several good points, Frank. And yes, there are a lot of people who do half-assed jobs, and the companies they work for might well be rid of them. There was a HUGE shake-out of "dead wood", slackers, and clock-watchers during the 'Great Recession', and that really did snag a lot of them!

If you are defending those who cannot work, who cannot support themselves, and who are genuinely disabled (and can prove it), then I I agree with you. Those are the very people that SHOULD be able to collect disability, food stamp credit cards (EBT cards), get "subsidies", TANF, and other welfare -- specifically MEDICAID! But honestly, Frank, people who are perfectly capable of working, and doing a reasonably good job SHOULD get off their asses and find a job! Why should they not -- if they can work and, as I said, have expectations of being able to do a reasonably good job? Do you really disagree with that?

Think: you earn what you are worth in a free-market society. And if there's nothing really wrong with a person, then why can't they support themselves to the best of their ability?

 

No question that single payer is the most effective system. But if you limit it to those who pay into the system then you will have to figure out a cost effective system to provide care to what you consider the welfare mob.

If you really want to be cynical the welfare mob is actually anyone who gets more benefit from the system than they put in. So in reality maybe what you are advocating is a free for all, no insurance, no assistance system where you only get the healthcare you can pay for.

 

OK, please post the Republican plan to replace the ACA. We will wait while laughing hysterically.

 

Obamacare is still in force, Silly!

 

My answer to this has never been well-received...and I expect you will see it as deficient also. But I will offer it for consideration.

The best way to present it is to answer that last question of yours the way I think it should be answered.

Because the cost to society is too great.

There are people (both extremely capable people and extremely incompetent people) who ARE "supporting themselves to the best of their ability"...and their doing so causes society to be the lesser for it. Some by taking too much of the pie as compensation for their ability (or willingness) to support themselves to the best of their ability...some by taking it at great cost to others by doing so.

Donald Trump is extremely capable of supporting himself to the best of his ability; the members of the Walton family are all extremely capable of supporting themselves to the best of their ability; John Rockefeller; JP Morgan; Henry Ford, Joshua John Ward...and so many others of their ilk were also.

They simply take too much of the pie for being able to do what they are capable and willing to do.

Bernie Madoff, Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, Albert Anastasia, Charles Ponzi, Jesse James, John Dillinger, Clyde Barrow were extremely capable of supporting themselves to the best of their ability.

What they took came at great cost to others.

And…well I’ll not give their names…with whom I’ve worked or come in contact with over the years…who take space in a job…and support themselves to the best of their ability…but who simply should not be there. They do not want to be there…and they are going to do the least possible in the shoddiest way possible…for as much as possible. OFTEN, they have been managers or upper level individuals who are incompetent. Yeah, some are janitors or mail handlers or cashiers or lackeys. Their cost to productivity is enormous.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

Doing work…having a job, Polly, should be a reward for the competent…and the innovator…and should have an upper limit for compensation.

EVERYONE should be guaranteed sufficient without working…and gain the MORE by being rewarded for having earned the right to work.

To my way of thinking…work should be a REWARD…not an obligation.

As I said…not many people think the way I do on this issue.

 

Simple easy for Obamas Traitors. More toughless for Trump, Clinton too.

 

I understand what you mean, and instead of simply responding with the usual, "You get what you're worth in a free-market economy" spiel, I'll try to use an example of what happens in society if we only allow/expect the very most talented persons to do anything self-supportive and useful: It's in Orwell's masterpiece, "1984". I know you've read it, Frank. We both come from a generation that actually read and considered things, and were generally well-educated.

The unproductive, non-working class of people you've described, saying that they should receive limitless subsistence-welfare from a government simply because they exist comprises the raison d'etre for what Orwell described as the "Prole"... remember? They were an enormous segment of the population, and they had to be rigorously policed lest they become rebellious, get out of hand, and overthrow the established government headed by Big Brother.

It is a peculiar and rather perverted sort of societal arrangement, Frank, and it has never worked satisfactorily for anyone, except in totalitarian states, like Nazi Germany (where they murdered those that they regarded as worthless drags on the government). People need a purpose, they need self-worth, and they need to aspire to goals, attainment, and self-fulfillment. If they don't, they become petulant, morose, angry, and eventually they revolt violently, turning everything into chaos and anarchy. Neither you or I want that, Frank. And having over half the population on one form of welfare or another, like we do in the United States RIGHT NOW, is not a good portent....

The example of "1984" can be used also to illustrate how your "innovator" (Inner Party Members), and those being 'rewarded' by being able to work (Outer Party Members) are simply other portions of the stratified caste-system in this fictional country. In reality, in such a situation, unless the police-state is thoroughly effective, the "Proles" revolt against the Innovators, strip them of their "compensation", claim that all the "Inner and Outer Party Members" are, themselves, a bunch of oppressive parasites, and then the chaos and anarchy ensue, ravaging the country.

Think: When has socialism, communism, and/or fascism ever worked successfully? It doesn't, Frank... and it tends to be even more of a failure in societies like ours which are made up of so many racially and socially diverse people.

 

Even if I were to agree, Polly, that socialism, communism, and fascism “have never worked” (in a sense, I do agree)…that would not mean that THEY CANNOT WORK. There is a first time for everything…and perhaps there will be a first time for one of them being successful. (I hope not! Socialism, communism, and fascism, in my opinion, suck!)

But what I suggested was not socialism, communism, nor fascism. Not by a long shot. I am a capitalist…and I want those things (the stuff I suggested) to work under CAPITALISM.

They can…or at least I think they can.

DISCLAIMER: Although I scored high on almost all IQ tests in my younger days…whatever I was, I no longer am. I am not the sharpest tool in the shed anymore…and I may be all wrong in my thinking on this issue at this time. I conceived of all this back when I still had more smarts…and I still favor it.

Like most of us from “back then” I was entranced by 1984. It hit me like a jackhammer…and I was sure George Orwell had unleashed a truth that could never be rebottled.

As the years passed, I came to regard the story as one possible way things could go…but that it was the darkest and bleakest of the possibilities. Dystopian novels almost always sell better than their cousins.

Orwell lived, and was influenced, by the crap that was going on in post-Victorian England…he essentially was one of the people working for Lord Grantham at Downton Abbey. He saw that world as inevitable and eternal…and saw what its consequences would be…and probably was right if it had continued.

But it didn’t…and I doubt it will ever come to be.

I want a world where the machines do damn near all the work. I hope for fewer and fewer humans doing the toil. I want the “self-worth” and “motivation” you correctly see as necessary for a decent life…to come from other places. Maybe creating art, poetry and things like that. I want people to have more time for other things.

A paragraph I once wrote for a long essay said it best:

“Not having to work” affords us all time to play more golf or tennis; to read, write, create music, art, poems, wash the car, tend to the house and garden, spend more time with the family, or lie around in a hammock doing nothing more productive than training a couple of trees to bend in toward each other.”

 

Fascinating post, Frank! And even more stunning, perhaps, is that in the LONG run, I agree with you totally.

To use another example... aside from the darker, bleaker dystopian views of the future expressed in science fiction, what do we see in our long term future? Do we see a bunch of miserable, frustrated office workers sulking in "cubes", sparring with colleagues, customers, and others on email, creating "issues", responding to "issues", wishing they were back in their quarters, goofing off, eating favorite foods, listening to favorite music, and having sex...? NO.

Do we see a society where miserable people lay around on their butts, doing nothing, accomplishing nothing, and so then, breaking laws, getting in legal trouble, going way overboard on drugs, alcohol, etc.? NO.

We do see people developing their best abilities, based on their hopes for the future, goals that they set for themselves, and pursuit of it all -- without the constant, wearisome struggle to "earn a (*)(*)(*)(*)ing living"....

I, too, want robots, computers, and whatever else we can harness or develop to do ALL the "earn a (*)(*)(*)(*)ing living" work, and FREE mankind from drudgery, debt-enslavement, and modern day 'serfdom'. I must sound like a latent socialist to you at this point. But I'm not.

The science fiction world you and I both want (I'm pretty sure) will come -- if we don't destroy ourselves and this whole planet first. But, Frank, it will be many decades out in the future. I wish it weren't true, but you know it is. As a capitalist, you know that the best, most direct avenue to the development of a society in which mankind is finally free of the constant pressure to "earn a (*)(*)(*)(*)ing living" is through invention, enterprise, competition, innovation -- in short, all of the things that socialism/communism/fascism/monarchism/feudalism is NOT!

But, here we are. Stuck in 2017, and I may not be a psychohistory master like "Hari Seldon", the visionary seer in Asimov's astounding science fiction work, "The Foundation Trilogy", but I suspect that we must go through a kind of new "dark ages" before we can finally emerge as a civilization that is free of drudgery and pointless, needless toil... a world in which money, per se, finally becomes obsolete and mankind is unleashed to develop the full potential of our species. You and I won't be a part of that Utopia. No one alive today will be. But it, or the death of our species will come, Frank... it's inevitable.

. (Mr. Spock time-warps to the 21st Century): "What does, 'Do you have change for a twenty' mean? I've never heard of that before."

 

Thank you, Polly. I think we are on the same page in this area. I appreciate your wise, well-considered thoughts on the issues being discussed here.

I want a world where nobody HAS to work…but where most will CHOOSE to work…or who will do other productive and satisfying things.

As you suggested, I doubt either of us will see it. It’s still is a long way off…we humans have a lot of growing up to do before we can get to that destination.

I hope we soon find ways to motive ourselves and find satisfaction/self-esteem in ways other than variations on, “This is how rich I am; this is what I own; this is how I compare financially to others.” (What a rutty road that is!)

If we do not head in that direction…I suspect there will be turmoil the likes of which have not previously been seen. We’ve gotta get out in front of that. And while we will not see Utopia…if we do not start moving in the right direction soon…we may live long enough to see the turmoil.

Too bad that!

 

It is not way in the future. Within ten to twenty years at least fifty percent of workers can be replaced by computers. And my guess is that is a conservative estimate. Basically we are already seeing the implications in the world where labor is minimally rewarded because it is surplus while capital is richly rewarded because of scarcity. That in reality is why the rich are getting richer and those that work are basically static or falling behind.

Got to wonder whether the change will be peaceful or will Marx be proven correct.