The Republican Healthcare Problem

Discussion in 'Politics' started by joepistole, Feb 8, 2017.

  1. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    "The Republicans are in one hell of a jam. They have taken a blood oath to repeal Obamacare, yet have no viable replacement. Tossing 23 million Obamacare-insured Americans under the bus could be political suicide.

    Yes, Tom Price, the presumptive Secretary of Health and Human Services, has a plan. But it doesn’t pass muster. The plan provides refundable tax credits ranging from \$ 1,500 to \$ 3,000 depending on your age. Try buying a plan with decent coverage for such measly sums. Moreover, if you have a pre-existing condition and your coverage has lapsed for too long, insurers can turn you away or jack up your premium by 50 percent for three years.

    Having lousy health insurance is little better than simply being uninsured. But many healthy people will buy the cheapest available policy so they can flip to a decent, if more expensive policy when they get sick."

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/kotliko...e-answer-the-purple-health-plan/#7e9bdaac168f

    Republicans are in one hell of a jam, and they know it. All that Obamacare rhetoric was great when Obama was in office but now...not so much.

    So what do Republicans do with Obamacare? Trump has delegated fixing it to Congress. So what happens next? Republicans have been saying for 8 years now they have a plan. But the reality is they don't. What they have are a bunch of silly ideological ideas. But silly ideological ideas ain't gonna cut it. All that crap was great when they weren't responsible for anything. But not that they are responsible, it's a totally different story.

    Now I don't agree with everything Kotlikoff proposes with his Purple Plan as outlined in his Forbes article. But at least he understands the problem and what the ultimate solution looks like, which is more than I can say for congressional Republicans.

    "The result is lots of healthy people with crappy policies gaming the system and lots of sick people with crappy policies because they can’t afford decent policies. Tom Price can claim everyone or most everyone has bought a piece of paper with the words “health insurance policy” printed on the top, but he’s literally papering over the problem.

    Tom Price is a doctor. He’s not an economist, let alone a health economist. It shows. Economists know enough not to do brain surgery. Doctors should learn health economics and the economics of information before they try to fix health insurance.

    There is only one way to fix healthcare for real and for good -- put everyone in the same pool with the same policy." - Kotlikoff

    The solution to Obamacare is antithetical to what Republicans have been preaching for the last 8 years. That's going to be a tough swallow for the Republican Party. I'm guessing that despite all the Republican rhetoric congressional Republicans will follow the path of least resistance and that would be to stall, at least until after the 2018 elections.

    So what do Republicans do about healthcare?

    Edited post to correct LaTeX formatting garbling.
     

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