Minority Tyranny: GOP Determined to Dismantle Popular Healthcare <Again>

[Acidbaron]

You seem to think that there aren't drawbacks to any system and that we could simply replace our current healthcare system and suddenly all the problems people face with insurance would go away. For one, the two anecdotes you provide seem bizarre to me and not providing the full story. I have never had problems with my insurance and neither has anyone I know so that is my counter-anecdote.

If we are going off of our experiences, mine have been far worse with socialized medicine. I was staying with family friends in the suburbs of Paris about 10 years ago. They had a narrow staircase where I tripped and broke my leg and collarbone, it took about 3 hours to get me into the ER because of the long queues. A similar situation happened to me when I was a kid in Japan and I was stung by a jellyfish. If either of those things happened to me where I live now in the States, I would be in the ER within 15 minutes.

You aren't giving an honest assessment of how both of these systems function, you are simply looking at the worst of one and the best of the other. That's not how real life works. There are no magical solutions, only trade-offs (Edit: I accidentally plagiarized this line from Sowell). If the US were to adopt socialized medicine, it would cost $32 trillion over 10 years by most estimates. Instead of expensive insurance bills, you would pay more in taxes. You would need to wait longer to see doctors (America is already short on doctors due to, among other things, occupational licensing) and of course, most of the costs would not be paid by taxes they would just be added onto our national debt in the long run.

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I said early symptoms, not risk factors. There certainly is medication you take that will help combined with lifestyle changes but I was referring to when someone is actually diagnosed which might be when they feel fine. Again, this is why insurance covers medication.

At the end of the day its your funeral, and you can take that quite literally. Either you learn to set aside your bias and understand how medicine works elsewhere and what socialized medicine actually is instead of being a good sheep and believe that is something found only in poorer countries with poorly working systems.

And you learn what little value insurance companies actually bring to the world of medicine and how they are a for profit organization what means in addition to increasing the cost significantly for people that need help they are also the reason why hospitals and doctors get paid out as little as they do. No wonder you have a staff shortage when the debt left behind from education (another amazing system your kind seems to believe is good, might as well just sign yourself into slavery at this rate) isn't being covered by what you earn as a doctor.

You aren't going to be put infront of the line in an emergency room in Europe for non life threatening injuries. Yes instead of kicking people out on the street to die over here we make people with more money wait for small injuries such as a broken leg over let's say stab wounds.

If you want expensive healthcare where you pay for more than it is worth, where you create a system of who pays more gets first care. Sure america is great for that perverse system, so long you can afford it. If you want good care that is given to you in a decent time frame and it covers everyone and it doesn't leave you behind in debt you have nothing on Europes systems. And oh yeah, on top of that we have private insurers so you can get a nicer room and such, so we do have that but something as perverse and digusting as leaving people to die as seen in the US when needing to decide between a broken bound and a fatal wound, yes you win.

(ps you would have gotten quicker care if you went to an actual GP or GP point instead of the emergency room, since those over here are actually intended for actual emergencies, not for people who can't walk and fall in dumbest way possible)

Actually you still lose since at the end of the day your insurer has so many possibilities to kick you out that you end up without care eventually anyway.

Aren't you also one of those far righties that always harp on about patriotism? Explain to me what about letting your fellow countrymen die so you can enjoy overpriced slightly quicker care is patriotic?

[Deletedaccount1]

At the end of the day its your funeral, and you can take that quite literally. Either you learn to set aside your bias and understand how medicine works elsewhere and what socialized medicine actually is instead of being a good sheep and believe that is something found only in poorer countries with poorly working systems.

You're already wrong about what I've said. Thanks for playing.

[Edge-]

You're already wrong about what I've said. Thanks for playing.

https://www.politifact.com/wisconsin...iagnosis-mark/

We're the only industrialized country that hasn't figured it out yet, everyone else seems to.

[Acidbaron]

You're already wrong about what I've said. Thanks for playing.

Your inability to read has been well documented on this forum. I'm aware you're an dishonest person who needs their safe space that's why you nitpick the one part from my post while i went into more detail about european healthcare.

Don't worry, i honestly was expecting this and generally when dealing with alt righters like you my replies are generally intended to inject a dosage of facts and truths for others to read. So thanks for playing, fully appreciate the display of ignorance like a good boy

[Methodd]

Of course when this blows up in the GOP's face, they'll attempt to play damage control by blaming the Democrats on the poor state of healthcare. "Look, we didn't want to repeal it, but we had to. Blame the Democrats for passing it in the first place! We never would have had to repeal it if they didn't pass it, so this is ultimately their fault!" As fucked up as that sounds, some 30% of the country will guzzle that kool-aid like it's cocaine.

My favorite talking point nowadays is how Democrats blame the shitty state of health care costs in the country on the GOP. It's like pretending we can't look and see that they required exactly zero Republican votes to pass the Affordable Care Act. Even blaming parts of the law on requirements to appease the GOP, when in fact they could have passed whatever law they wanted without a single GOP vote (in fact, even some Democrats voted against it). That's exactly what they did. The law is a mess, and Democrats can't seem to own it.

I don't know about the rest of the people in this thread but I have actually had to go through the marketplace to buy my own health insurance, as I was working for a startup that did not offer their own employee plan. It was a mess, and the costs were astronomical, such as $500/mo to $900/mo from one year to the next for insurance I couldn't even use. People like Bernie (and the entire Democrat party as they are adopting all of his policies) do not understand markets, running a business, or where money and labor comes from. They operate on feelings, emotions, and fighting boogeymen.

[Eveningforest]

It IS the democrats fault for the state of healthcare as they are the ones that passed the ACA in the middle of the night by wheeling Robert Byrd in on a gurney to get the last vote that they needed. Ever since that damn law passed my healthcare has gotten worse. Longer waits, higher deductibles, and a higher contribution to my insurance. The only people who like the ACA are the cheapskates that didnt want to pay for insurance before and can now get it cheaper because of the subsidies they are given after yanking it out of mine and other hard working people's wallets

This "cheapskate" pays $900/mo! Would you rather scrap a system in which everyone without an employer sponsored coverage, all of your early retirees, freelance professionals, self-employed, etc become a burden on the system? If you think that it's somehow going to be cheaper to have 20 million uninsured Americans visiting the Emergency rooms with common viral illnesses again because they don't have a primary doctor, you're delusional.

You're also delusional if you think that it's the ACA that's responsible for your health insurance getting crappier every year. I don't know how long you've been in the work force, but this trend has been going on for decades. All insurance plans are basically high deductible (catastrophic) plans now. It's not the ACA that's causing this. They're doing it because they can get away with it.
It's shit and it needs a major overhaul. Getting rid off responsible people who pay lots of money into the system every month though, surely isn't the way.

[Elegiac]

My favorite talking point nowadays is how Democrats blame the shitty state of health care costs in the country on the GOP. It's like pretending we can't look and see that they required exactly zero Republican votes to pass the Affordable Care Act. Even blaming parts of the law on requirements to appease the GOP, when in fact they could have passed whatever law they wanted without a single GOP vote (in fact, even some Democrats voted against it). That's exactly what they did. The law is a mess, and Democrats can't seem to own it.

They could have passed whatever law they wanted (is false, but regardless) but they chose not to; why do you think that is? Why do you think the dirty, socialist Democrats didn't use their magic wand and nationalise the entire industry? The answer is that they wanted whatever system was put into place to have bipartisan backing, and the Republicans refused to meet them halfway on anything because they didn't want to give Obama a legislative victory.

If your criticism is that the Democrats bothered trying to gain a consensus, I agree. They should have seized the moment and pushed through massive reform and let the Republicans deal with the fallout of having to campaign on taking away people's healthcare.

I don't know about the rest of the people in this thread but I have actually had to go through the marketplace to buy my own health insurance, as I was working for a startup that did not offer their own employee plan. It was a mess, and the costs were astronomical, such as $500/mo to $900/mo from one year to the next for insurance I couldn't even use. People like Bernie (and the entire Democrat party as they are adopting all of his policies) do not understand markets, running a business, or where money and labor comes from. They operate on feelings, emotions, and fighting boogeymen.

If your complaint is that it's expensive to buy your employees healthcare, you should be supporting Medicare for All to absolve you of that responsibility permanently.

[jeezusisacasual]

They could have passed whatever law they wanted (is false, but regardless) but they chose not to; why do you think that is? Why do you think the dirty, socialist Democrats didn't use their magic wand and nationalise the entire industry? The answer is that they wanted whatever system was put into place to have bipartisan backing, and the Republicans refused to meet them halfway on anything because they didn't want to give Obama a legislative victory.

If your criticism is that the Democrats bothered trying to gain a consensus, I agree. They should have seized the moment and pushed through massive reform and let the Republicans deal with the fallout of having to campaign on taking away people's healthcare.



If your complaint is that it's expensive to buy your employees healthcare, you should be supporting Medicare for All to absolve you of that responsibility permanently.

Every single small business employee / owner should want a socialized system to remove costs to make them on a more even standing with the leaders of their industries. The other thing is freedom of employment to a degree in that a job can no longer dangle over their head to keep them wanting to stay.

[Stormspellz]

My favorite talking point nowadays is how Democrats blame the shitty state of health care costs in the country on the GOP. It's like pretending we can't look and see that they required exactly zero Republican votes to pass the Affordable Care Act. Even blaming parts of the law on requirements to appease the GOP, when in fact they could have passed whatever law they wanted without a single GOP vote (in fact, even some Democrats voted against it). That's exactly what they did. The law is a mess, and Democrats can't seem to own it.

I don't know about the rest of the people in this thread but I have actually had to go through the marketplace to buy my own health insurance, as I was working for a startup that did not offer their own employee plan. It was a mess, and the costs were astronomical, such as $500/mo to $900/mo from one year to the next for insurance I couldn't even use. People like Bernie (and the entire Democrat party as they are adopting all of his policies) do not understand markets, running a business, or where money and labor comes from. They operate on feelings, emotions, and fighting boogeymen.

which party keeps trying to take an axe to it?
which party keeps preventing any follow up bills for it?
which party has blocked it at every turn, screamed things like "death panels" and other lies about the bill?

so yes it is on the GOP, no one said the ACA was a perfect bill but it was what could pass, and better then nothing.

[Methodd]

They could have passed whatever law they wanted (is false, but regardless) but they chose not to; why do you think that is? Why do you think the dirty, socialist Democrats didn't use their magic wand and nationalise the entire industry? The answer is that they wanted whatever system was put into place to have bipartisan backing, and the Republicans refused to meet them halfway on anything because they didn't want to give Obama a legislative victory.

If your criticism is that the Democrats bothered trying to gain a consensus, I agree. They should have seized the moment and pushed through massive reform and let the Republicans deal with the fallout of having to campaign on taking away people's healthcare.

See this is my point, they didn't need to give two shits about what the Republicans thought. This whole idea of needing bipartisan backing or appeasing Republicans is bogus. That isn't the problem. The problem is that they passed their partisan law, and now that since it doesn't work it is somehow someone else's fault. The only way the ACA works is if millions of people pay into it and never use it. It's hard to sell a law where people start paying for something then getting nothing, maybe that was why they said "the stupidity of the American voter" is the only way it would gain any support by hiding how much it would cost. Market forces are the only thing that is going to drive down costs of healthcare, and that hasn't been in play for decades. You're blaming the Republicans for the Democrats law, which is exactly what I described people doing in my post. Hilarious!

[Gestopft]

My favorite talking point nowadays is how Democrats blame the shitty state of health care costs in the country on the GOP. It's like pretending we can't look and see that they required exactly zero Republican votes to pass the Affordable Care Act. Even blaming parts of the law on requirements to appease the GOP, when in fact they could have passed whatever law they wanted without a single GOP vote (in fact, even some Democrats voted against it). That's exactly what they did. The law is a mess, and Democrats can't seem to own it.

Well, while the ACA neither caused nor solved the problem of high healthcare costs in the USA, it should be noted that healthcare costs rose most drastically during Republican presidencies.


Don't think I'm absolving Democrats; they passed the law that the insurance companies wanted, and didn't include Medicare bargaining on drug prices or a public option in the ACA (thanks for nothing, Joe Lieberman). But it wasn't the ACA that made healthcare expensive. It shifted costs around, and actually slowed the rate of healthcare inflation, but healthcare was already expensive to begin with.

People like Bernie (and the entire Democrat party as they are adopting all of his policies) do not understand markets, running a business, or where money and labor comes from. They operate on feelings, emotions, and fighting boogeymen.

People that understand markets also understand that the efficiency of markets requires that consumers are able to make informed choices. In healthcare, however, both information and choice are lacking, and thus markets will not be efficient. (You don't know what your healthcare needs will be, when you will require them, and you can't choose you illness based on cost- or choose not to get sick at all. Getting cancer isn't a consumer choice.) Furthermore, healthcare is a captive market and demand is inelastic- the US's inability to grasp this basic market failure is why we have (by far) the most expensive healthcare in the world. Every other developed country has realized that markets are incapable of effectively regulating the cost of healthcare- again, due to reasons endemic to healthcare- and that for-profit middlemen are inefficient. I would also argue that the way other countries do healthcare, and the way Sanders wants to is more moral, but the Sanders/European way to do health care already wins the fiscal argument without having to resort to "feelings."

[ipaq]

Remember that their goal (as per Heritage Foundation internal working documents) is to give back the power to the rich and control the lower class so that they die off around 50yo so that they won't cost money to more to keep alive than they bring back to they coffer.

Enjoy.

Ongoing in: One Party Really Resents Poor and Middle Class America Having Healthcare.

Basically this is Republican lawyers in front of Republican judges, arguing that insurance companies shouldn’t be required to cover prescription drugs or preexisting conditions.
Why?
One judge basically says "the process they used to repeal the law couldn't actually repeal the they, thus they actually wanted to repeal the law." This was after congress failed to get enough votes to actually repeal the ACA.

So to spite congress and popular will, these judges say humbug.


Republican judges appear to side with Texas challenge to Obamacare

Two Republican-appointed judges on the appeals panel hearing a Trump-backed challenge to Obamacare — a majority of the three-judge panel — suggested Tuesday that they might side with a lower court judge who said last year that the whole law should be struck down.

Lawyers from the Trump administration and a group of Republican states squared off against attorneys from a coalition of Democratic states and the House of Representatives in a New Orleans appeals court to argue the fate of the Affordable Care Act.

If the challenge is upheld, it threatens to wipe away coverage for millions of Americans, as well as the law’s protections for those with pre-existing conditions. And it would do what Congress failed to accomplish in 2017 — take down Obamacare.

Three 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals judges — one nominated by President Donald Trump, one by George W. Bush and one by Jimmy Carter — heard the arguments. Because the case is before one of the most conservative appellate courts in the country, it is almost guaranteed to wind up in the Supreme Court.

The lawsuit against the ACA was brought by 20 Republican state attorneys general and governors, as well as two individuals — though the number of attorneys general is now down to 18 after Democrats took control of Maine and Wisconsin in the midterm election last year. The challenge revolves around the congressional decision to effectively eliminate the individual mandate penalty by reducing it to $0 as part of the 2017 tax cut bill. The mandate requires nearly all Americans to get health insurance or pay a penalty.

The Republican coalition, led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, maintains that the change rendered the mandate itself unconstitutional.

The states say that the voiding of the penalty, which took effect this year, removes the legal underpinning the Supreme Court relied upon when it upheld the law in 2012 under Congress’ tax power.

A federal judge in Texas agreed, ruling in December that the change invalidates Obamacare in its entirety. The law remains in effect while the case works its way through the courts.

Douglas Letter, arguing for the now-Democratic controlled House of Representatives, said that Texas and other states are exaggerating the impact of the law Trump signed in 2017 eliminating the mandate. Texas, he said, created a new excuse to challenge a law it doesn’t like, which was upheld in 2012.

“Texas said ‘HA! — you just did something unconstitutional,'” Letter said.

Even though the tax penalty is now $0, Letter argued, the choice people had still exists: buy insurance or don’t.

“The Supreme Court said unequivocally, either you shall maintain health insurance or incur a tax,” he said, adding that it doesn’t matter if that tax is $0.

“That means the choice is still there,” he said. In fact, he argued “there’s less coercion than there was before” to buy insurance.

Trump’s Justice Department wants law struck down
Notably, the Trump administration is not defending the law. Initially, it argued that zeroing out the penalty invalidates only two of the law’s protections of those with pre-existing conditions — specifically the provisions banning insurers from denying people policies or charging them more based on their medical histories.

But in a surprise move in March, the Justice Department said it now agrees with the December ruling that the entire Affordable Care Act should be struck down.

Trump is pinning his hopes on the court striking down the law, allowing him to fulfill his campaign promise to repeal it, but congressional Republicans are keeping their distance since it gives Democrats fodder to attack the GOP for not protecting those with pre-existing conditions — a hallmark of the landmark health reform law.


This is truly the Counter-Majoritarian Difficulty. When the party that lost the overall popular vote in the last two elections gets to dismantle popular government programs.

[Gestopft]

See this is my point, they didn't need to give two shits about what the Republicans thought. This whole idea of needing bipartisan backing or appeasing Republicans is bogus. That isn't the problem. The problem is that they passed their partisan law, and now that since it doesn't work it is somehow someone else's fault.

Unfortunately, Democrats also take donations from Insurance and Pharma companies.

The only way the ACA works is if millions of people pay into it and never use it.

This is literally how private insurance works. It only functions because most people pay in more than they get out.

Market forces are the only thing that is going to drive down costs of healthcare, and that hasn't been in play for decades.

They won't. See my previous post above.

[Elegiac]

See this is my point, they didn't need to give two shits about what the Republicans thought. This whole idea of needing bipartisan backing or appeasing Republicans is bogus.

Democrats of the time were still under the illusion that Republicans had principles and didn't believe them to be "bogus".

Again, you're not disagreeing with me - you're just confirming that the GOP was acting in bad faith.

That isn't the problem. The problem is that they passed their partisan law, and now that since it doesn't work it is somehow someone else's fault. The only way the ACA works is if millions of people pay into it and never use it.

What you just described was how all insurance works, bud.

It's hard to sell a law where people start paying for something then getting nothing, maybe that was why they said "the stupidity of the American voter" is the only way it would gain any support by hiding how much it would cost. Market forces are the only thing that is going to drive down costs of healthcare, and that hasn't been in play for decades. You're blaming the Republicans for the Democrats law, which is exactly what I described people doing in my post. Hilarious!

What's hilarious is that you don't remember how healthcare was before the ACA.

And I mean how it was for ordinary people, not business owners providing their employees with junk plans.

[Edge-]

The only way the ACA works is if millions of people pay into it and never use it.

Actually, this is quite literally how all insurance works. Auto, life, fire, home, flood, health, boat, tornado etc. etc., all those work by relying on large pools of people paying into the system with only a minority using it at any one time.

Did you think this was something unique to the ACA or something?

[Methodd]

Actually, this is quite literally how all insurance works. Auto, life, fire, home, flood, health, boat, tornado etc. etc., all those work by relying on large pools of people paying into the system with only a minority using it at any one time.

Did you think this was something unique to the ACA or something?

I know how insurance works. The difference is that none of those things are government mandated. ACA forced people to pay into a system who were not paying before. So yes, it is unique to the ACA.

[Gestopft]

I know how insurance works. The difference is that none of those things are government mandated. ACA forced people to pay into a system who were not paying before. So yes, it is unique to the ACA.

1) Auto insurance is government-mandated (at least if you want to drive)

2) Putting more people into the pool defrays the costs among more people, resulting in a lower per-person cost. The "PP" part of the PPACA basically got rid of junk plans; the individual mandate was included to ensure high participation in risk pools and to avoid a death spiral. But it doesn't function any different than any other insurance- most people put in more than they get out.

[SirBeef]

I assume this is still with no replacement plan for the ACA whatsoever?



I'd be curious of that list, since I still have family convinced none of it ever happened and the ACA was just bad from the get-go with no GOP sabotaging involved.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nyt...e-act.amp.html

https://www.healthinsurance.org/blog...ged-obamacare/

Then they stripped away the penalty for ot having insurance basically taking away the individual mandate allowing millions to drop out weakening overall pools by removing healthy people.

[ohtlmtlm]

You seem to think that there aren't drawbacks to any system and that we could simply replace our current healthcare system and suddenly all the problems people face with insurance would go away. For one, the two anecdotes you provide seem bizarre to me and not providing the full story. I have never had problems with my insurance and neither has anyone I know so that is my counter-anecdote.

If we are going off of our experiences, mine have been far worse with socialized medicine. I was staying with family friends in the suburbs of Paris about 10 years ago. They had a narrow staircase where I tripped and broke my leg and collarbone, it took about 3 hours to get me into the ER because of the long queues. A similar situation happened to me when I was a kid in Japan and I was stung by a jellyfish. If either of those things happened to me where I live now in the States, I would be in the ER within 15 minutes.

You aren't giving an honest assessment of how both of these systems function, you are simply looking at the worst of one and the best of the other. That's not how real life works. There are no magical solutions, only trade-offs (Edit: I accidentally plagiarized this line from Sowell). If the US were to adopt socialized medicine, it would cost $32 trillion over 10 years by most estimates. Instead of expensive insurance bills, you would pay more in taxes. You would need to wait longer to see doctors (America is already short on doctors due to, among other things, occupational licensing) and of course, most of the costs would not be paid by taxes they would just be added onto our national debt in the long run.

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I said early symptoms, not risk factors. There certainly is medication you take that will help combined with lifestyle changes but I was referring to when someone is actually diagnosed which might be when they feel fine. Again, this is why insurance covers medication.

hey. guy. they will not be diagnosed until they see a fucking doctor, which they wont see in the first place currently.
which is the whole argument about preventative care... are you mentally deficient or something?

[Deletedaccount1]

hey. guy. they will not be diagnosed until they see a fucking doctor, which they wont see in the first place currently.
which is the whole argument about preventative care... are you mentally deficient or something?

Which is why I said the focus should be on expanding coverage, not replacing it. Read the thread before replying.