Repealing Obamacare

Hey, here's a novel idea. How about whatever the solution is that is come up with by congress, how about it also covers them?

Besides all the lies told to get it passed, What was the first tipoff that Obamacare was a piece of trash and wasn't going to work?

Congress exempted themselves from it.

 

The ACA doesn't need to be repealed in full; something that Trump has stated.

There are a multitude of parts that need to be repealed; there are a multitude of parts that should be kept.

For example, the ACA re-classified a lot of medical equipment, which caused their costs to rise. This affected not only standard doctors and hospitals, but even vet (animal) offices (instruments not classified as animal only fell under the provisions that caused higher costs).

I personally think that insurance despite pre-existing conditions should be kept.

Now let's be honest: they're not going to apply a revocation to the VA. That would be political suicide.

I also can't believe that they're going to repeal the ACA in full. That would throw the industry into more of a tizzy than the initial introduction of ACA did.

Guess we'll have to wait a couple of weeks and see what really happens.

 

And THAT post I agree with 150%.

 

One last time: What is your solution to the problem? What ideas do you have? You can't just sit and complain about something without thinking of a solution. I agree that if there's any substantive reform then everyone should be subject to it, however, given what's currently running the show, there's going to be a big old heap of nothing coming. The GOP has been opposed to the ACA for the last 7 years. They have YET to come up with a real solution. What we have now isn't the best, but it's a darn sight better than anything the GOP has come up with (which is nothing).

 

I am passionate about this for one reason. We went without insurance for about three months. My husband is a diabetic without a pancreas. We had to scramble to beg and borrow what he needed until we could get covered (Thank God for the medicaid expansion). He couldn't go to the VA at that time because I'd made too much money the year before (their cap is about 38K/yr income unless it's a service connected disability). His prescriptions run 6 thousand a month. Its insane that a vial of insulin costs about 300 dollars. Blood glucose test strips run 75 dollars for 50 of them (about a week's supply). The pancreatic enzymes he takes to be able to digest his food run about 4 thousand dollars per month. Its insane. The funny thing? When we still had employer provided insurance (United Healthcare and Blue Cross), I had to fight like a demon to get those things covered. Medicaid? Covered, no questions asked. VA...covered with some minor changes (brand of insulin and a different glucose meter).

We had to fight to get the insurance companies to cover his total pancreatectomy. They would only cover it if "in the opinion of the doctors" he had less than 6 months to live and/or a substantive risk of developing pancreatic cancer. It took 4 YEARS to get them to agree to the surgery.

So...if you're thinking that things would get worse, in my opinion, they're better than they were prior to the ACA. If you've never faced these sorts of things, then you can la-de-dah your way through life. I only hope that none of you ever face the fear of losing a loved one because they can't get the treatment they need to live.

 

Agreed.

They can't repeal it in toto. Doesn't matter how trashy and unworkable parts of it are. Democrats would never allow it because of the Senate rules on fillibustering. They will only repeal those parts that have to do with the funding process through the budget reconciliation process.

 

Sure I can. Congress doesn't care what I think, or you either, for that matter. if they did, the piece of trash known as Obamacare would never have passed in the first place. Almost half of our representatives were shut out of the process to ram it through. In their arrogance , democrats thought they had all the answers and swindled us all.

But the voice of the disenfranchised is finally being heard. Now we'll see if the "elite establishment" can get it right. They blew it once. They're getting a second chance, but here;s the problem. Democrats have vowed to oppose any change at all. Apparently they'd just rather see it all self destruct.

 

And therein lies the problem. Your husband should have been picked up by the VA immediately, regardless of your income. He's a veteran. He earned it.

 

Ideas for fixing the health care system starts first with treating insurance companies like insurance companies and not financial services companies.
No one sends fill ups, oil changes, tire replacement etc. to their car insurance to pay for. No one sends light bulbs, cleaning supplies, etc to their homeowners insurance. The thought of doing that is just ludicrous because they are their to cover if something major happens.
I know first hand that cutting out the insurance middle man save money, as we pay cash for all my dr. visits because we cannot afford to use the insurance we have on me.
Next their needs to be open pricing. I should be able to go to any Dr or hospital website and see how much everything from a yearly check up to full blown major surgery, is going to cost. A little over a year ago my husband and I thought I might need surgery, that would not be covered under our insurance, and I could never get a direct answer on how much that would cost so we could budget for it. It ended up that I didn't need the surgery but still not being able to tell me what it would cost was ridiculous.
That also goes for drugs, you should be able to find out what any given drug will cost you. (pharmaceutical the multi-billion dollar industry no one wants to take on.) Also they need to stop requiring that hospital and nursing homes destroy billions of dollars of drugs that are in blister packs just because it has someone name on it that no longer needs the drug for what ever reason.
doing those things would allow market forces to work. Right now they can't because there is not open information and too many people need to get paid besides the staff that you saw.

Fixing the health care industry in this county is not going to be painless, and the longer that insurance companies and pharmaceutical have their hands in the regulations coming from DC the more painful it will become.

People having insurance does not equal having health care. So we need to focus on making sure they can afford health care not a piece of paper that they can't afford to use as is my case under the current system.
Opening up the system is the best way I can think to do that because than people can make more informed decisions and plan for some events and save the insurance for the catastrophic events that insurance is meant for.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

 

I agree with open pricing...however, you CAN find prescription prices online. HOWEVER, I still don't think that "market forces" will be the end all be all fix. I think getting the profit out of it is a good start. I don't mean not paying the people PROVIDING the health care, I mean the insurance companies trying to make money. That's essentially what single-payer does. It removes the profit-driven dances from the insurance companies. I also think that, like other countries, our government should be able to negotiate drug prices. It's ridiculous that a single vial of insulin is 300 bucks or more when it SHOULD be a generic and cost maybe 10% of that. The companies that manufacture insulin just change the formula a tiny bit right before their patent runs out so they can re-patent it.

We did get an estimate on my husband's half-million dollar surgery...and have been able to get costs for many other medical procedures and office visits. That is something that is fairly new.

 

I can tell you with absolute certainty that no flight is made without cost. You just were not the one who received the bill.

 

One can only hope that the Second Chance is not wasted. Since Congress as a body (both parties included) is almost as competent as a bunch of baboons, I am not optimistic.

 

Yeah, that's the Socialist propaganda.

Government is the problem with healthcare. The only fix is backing out.

But "single payer" or anything like socialized medicine is control. That's all.

And I won't do your homework for you. The evidence is out there if you can cut through the bs.

 

Where is this 2% payroll tax number coming from?

I have very good insurance for the state in which I reside, and my portion of the cost is around 8%, with my employer kicking in an even bigger share.

 

Thin air. It would never come close to funding health care.

 

They won't fix it because they won't work together. I believe republicans are willing to try but the left is too ideologically dug in.

Democrats have already stated they will oppose any and all changes, even with the implosion of ACA staring them in the face.

 

A quick google shows 15.5 trillion for 2015 personal income, and 2015 national health expenditures at 3.2 trillion.

So it would require a 20% tax.

 

Think that it will keep the kids on parents insurance and giving insurance towards all regardless of health, but everything else is toast!

 

I supported and voted for Trump. Eliminating abortion is my main concern along with the SCOTUS receiving a conservative pro-life justice appointed by Trump as promised.

However when it comes to ObamaCare I believe a Repeal/Replace process is not the solution of best practices.
IMO a progressive transformation is more in order. I have even said I wouldn't mind if upon completion it was renamed ObamaCareII.

Then, IMO you are correct. Many, maybe most of the insurance companies are motivated beyond a healthy profit but greed.

I have worked as a software architect/engineer in the insurance industry so admittedly I was part of the problem in perpetuating their tools of the profit trade.

Profit is not a sin, however when a person or company sees a need that can easily be solved by a better fair trade situation it is IMO wrong to do nothing.

I have worked for one insurance company that was willing to trim profits for a better people/good will oriented profit.

Then there is this unholy alliance between the medical profession and the prescription drug cartels based upon greed.

This IMO this is the starting point. Yes it means more regulation but as Trump has suggested - make a regulation, cancel two. There are myriad of medical regulations which could be eliminated and those which could be enacted to the betterment of society e.g. the two bipartisan regulations - coverage of preexistence conditions and health insurance competition over state lines.

Compassion cannot be regulated into existence but greed can be diminished by eliminating fair trade abuse.

HankD

 

Yet, the idea of healthcare entitlement needs to be addressed or regulated at some point along the line.

For instance, should a 350lb diabetic man on expensive dialysis who won’t put down his fork be entitled to get a $260,000+ kidney transplant which may allow him to live 5 years longer? When you consider that it takes something like a year’s worth of over 100 working family’s premiums to pay for that one surgery it suggests that accountability for one’s own health should perhaps be a control (regulated) factor. How about the $40,000 joint replacements they are handing out like candy nowadays to people that are carrying around more than 100lbs of extra weight? Should they not have to bear more of the "weight" of the cost?

Compassion and entitlement need to factor in personal responsibility or no national health plan will be affordable…