Republicans revamp U.S. health bill, boost benefits to older Americans

[Guest shiloh357]

7 minutes ago, Tea Ess said:

I didn't realize the GOP had such a victim complex. Oh wait, actually I did. They're the ones who promised to repeal and replace, and they've had years to come up with a replacement. The downsides that come with the AHCA are their fault. 

Actually have had replacements, but the Democrats wanted Obamacare and ONLY Obamacare.  The Republicans had other  options to present before Obamacare was shoved down our throats, but the Democrats would not hear of it. Instead of entertaining other options or plans, the Democrats rammed Obamacare through.   They were not interested in hearing anything about an alternative to Obamacare or even revisions.  They didn't even allow anyone enough time to read it before it was rammed through.   They knew that if we saw it, we would not like it.   That's why Pelosi said we had to pass it first to see what was in it, which was completely foolish on her part.

So, it is pretty dishonest for the Democrats to get on TV to accuse the GOP of having no other plans, when they would not allow the Republicans to present any competing plan.

[ruck1b]

7 hours ago, shiloh357 said:

It was Obamacare that gave us premiums that ranged from $5000 -$12,000 a year.   According to Obama and his amen corner that was "affordable" health insurance.

what does this have to do with us having higher premiums under this plan?

 

[Tea Ess]

1 minute ago, shiloh357 said:

I know a family on the bronze plan.   $5000 a year in deductibles and for the four of them, AFTER subsidies, the premiums were $1,000 a month.    They made around $30,000 a year or so.   That's $17,000 a year on$30000 a year budget. Like 2/3 of their income. 

There is going to be a lot more choice, though.   There will be competition and 90 year olds will  not be forced to pay for prenatal care.   What's going to happen is that you will be able to choose the coverage you want, and not what the government says you have to have.   There won't be a one-size fits all health care plan.   

The elderly were already being taken to the cleaners by Obama, being forced to pay for healthcare they didn't need and couldn't use.  That is going to stop with this plan.

And I will also add that having health insurance doesn't guarantee healthcare.   If you cannot pay the deductible, then you can't use the insurance and you're paying out of pocket, any way even though you have health insurance. 

It is also important to note that all we have is phase one of the plan and a rough draft that is still being worked on.   We have not seen the finished product.   So a lot of the criticisms it is getting are pretty much unfounded at this point.

I'm sorry that healthcare was so unaffordable for them. That being said, it's one example when I'm talking about average premiums. It's anecdotal evidence. 

No individual mandate is good for healthy people who don't want insurance, but it does mean that everyone else will have to pay more into the system. Whether or not you like the mandate, it's just how it works. Most things come with benefits and trade offs. 

And it's going to be even harder to pay all of those co-pays, coinsurance, and deductibles when premiums are higher. 

You have absolutely not disproved the likelihood that premiums are going to go up. Nothing you just said contradicts my statement. 

[Tea Ess]

3 minutes ago, shiloh357 said:

Actually have had replacements, but the Democrats wanted Obamacare and ONLY Obamacare.  The Republicans had other  options to present before Obamacare was shoved down our throats, but the Democrats would not hear of it. Instead of entertaining other options or plans, the Democrats rammed Obamacare through.   They were not interested in hearing anything about an alternative to Obamacare or even revisions.  They didn't even allow anyone enough time to read it before it was rammed through.   They knew that if we saw it, we would not like it.   That's why Pelosi said we had to pass it first to see what was in it, which was completely foolish on her part.

So, it is pretty dishonest for the Democrats to get on TV to accuse the GOP of having no other plans, when they would not allow the Republicans to present any competing plan.

So the solution to Democrats ramming the ACA through Congress is to ram even worse legislation through Congress even faster? 

[Guest shiloh357]

10 minutes ago, Tea Ess said:

So the solution to Democrats ramming the ACA through Congress is to ram even worse legislation through Congress even faster? 

How do you know it is worse?   You have not seen the entire plan, yet.  

[Guest shiloh357]

13 minutes ago, Tea Ess said:

I'm sorry that healthcare was so unaffordable for them. That being said, it's one example when I'm talking about average premiums. It's anecdotal evidence. 

It's anecdotal, but it was a common experience.  When Obamacare first came online, 5 million people lost healthcare and could not afford Obamacare. 

Most people were taking the penalty because it was cheaper than the insurance because the premiums and deductible were anything but affordable.   Obama lied and the liberals perpetuated his lies about what it would be like and most people simply didn't' get the insurance.

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No individual mandate is good for healthy people who don't want insurance, but it does mean that everyone else will have to pay more into the system. Whether or not you like the mandate, it's just how it works. Most things come with benefits and trade offs. 

The mandate was unconstitutional.  The government does not have the right to force you to buy insurance or any other product, for that matter. 
 

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And it's going to be even harder to pay all of those co-pays, coinsurance, and deductibles when premiums are higher. 

You have absolutely not disproved the likelihood that premiums are going to go up. Nothing you just said contradicts my statement. 

 

One reason the premiums are so  high is because the government was forcing people to pay for things in their healthcare that they don't need or can't use.  There was no choice, no competition.  Competition will always drive prices down, not up.   This plan will allow for competition.

[Tea Ess]

3 hours ago, shiloh357 said:

It's anecdotal, but it was a common experience.  When Obamacare first came online, 5 million people lost healthcare and could not afford Obamacare. 

Most people were taking the penalty because it was cheaper than the insurance because the premiums and deductible were anything but affordable.   Obama lied and the liberals perpetuated his lies about what it would be like and most people simply didn't' get the insurance.

The mandate was unconstitutional.  The government does not have the right to force you to buy insurance or any other product, for that matter. 
 

One reason the premiums are so  high is because the government was forcing people to pay for things in their healthcare that they don't need or can't use.  There was no choice, no competition.  Competition will always drive prices down, not up.   This plan will allow for competition.

Yes, but we're not talking about anecdotal evidence or even a common experience. The issue is that America as a whole spends an insane amount on healthcare and generally has to pay high premiums for insurance. The ACA did not resolve that issue, but it did have some benefits, like extending coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. I don't care if you don't like Obamacare; my issue is acting like the ACHA magically solves the problem of expensive insurance, when it makes the problem worse. 

Again, I don't care if you don't like the mandate. Having different opinions is great. What everyone should recognize, however, is that the mandate had positive and negative aspects. One positive was that it spread the cost of insurance out by requiring everyone to buy it or pay a fine. Repealing the mandate means people are free to not buy insurance if they don't want to, but it also means that the people who DO buy insurance are going to have to pay more on average, because most people who opt will be healthy and likely young adults.  

Shiloh, you are required to have auto insurance, no? I hope you're not driving around without the means to pay for any accidents you might cause. 

Yeah, I generally think that choices and competition are good things, so if the AHCA is able to bring us more of those, that could be a benefit. 

[Guest shiloh357]

20 minutes ago, Tea Ess said:

Yes, but we're not talking about anecdotal evidence or even a common experience. efit. 

Well, yes.  Because liberal arguments can't hold up when it comes to real life and what people are actually dealing with on the ground.  Liberal arguments only work if everything is kept in the realm of academic discussion.   When 5 million people lost their insurance because of Obamacare, the Left immediately set about to diminish it and pretend that it didn't matter.   The Left always wants to ignore those who don't fare well under their misguided policies.  Real life experiences can never enter into the discussion because it proves their suppositions wrong.

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The issue is that America as a whole spends an insane amount on healthcare and generally has to pay high premiums for insurance. The ACA did not resolve that issue, but it did have some benefits, like extending coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. I don't care if you don't like Obamacare; my issue is acting like the ACHA magically solves the problem of expensive insurance, when it makes the problem worse. 

Most people before Obamacare, were paying $500 or many $1500 in deductibles, and around $300 in monthly premiums.  Obamacare raised people's deductibles from $1500 to $5000 or $7000 and their premiums sky rocketed to over $1000 a month.  And Obamacare was such a failure, such a disaster they had to rename it "The Affordable Care Act"  in order to take Obama's name off of it, so it wasn't connected to him.   The Left tries to brainwash people into thinking that a 500% increase in cost is "affordable."   It wasn't affordable.   That's why most people just decided to pay the penalty.

The "benefits" you describe were non-existent on a practical level.   The cost of the deductible (which you don't seem to want to acknowledge) was so incredibly, insanely high, that a regular person could not use the insurance.  They had to pay out of pocket because they didn't ahve $7000 to just pull out of hat.   

You equate having insurance with having healthcare and that is completely false.  If you can't use the insurance, it's worthless.

You have no basis for claiming that the ACHA will make it worse. 
 

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Again, I don't care if you don't like the mandate.

It isn't a matter of not liking the mandate.  The mandate was unconstitutional, period.  The government doesn't have the right to force you to buy insurance of any kind, or any other kind of product.   For the government to mandate that you must purchase a particular product is tyranny.

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Having different opinions is great. What everyone should recognize, however, is that the mandate had positive and negative aspects. One positive was that it spread the cost of insurance out by requiring everyone to buy it or pay a fine. Repealing the mandate means people are free to not buy insurance if they don't want to, but it also means that the people who DO buy insurance are going to have to pay more on average, because most people who opt will be healthy and likely young adults.  

The problem with the mandate was that it forced people to buy what they don't need.  Why should men pay for pap smears?   Why should a 60 year old couple be forced to pay for birth control or pre-natal care?   Why should a perfectly healthy person be forced to pay for someone else's colostomy bag or catheters?    It isn't fair and it is part of what drove up the cost.

Yes, getting rid of the mandate restores freedom, which is anathema to the Left.     People are free to buy what they want, or not buy anything at all.  But those who choose to buy their own insurance will only buy what they need and not what the government mandate they MUST have.   Being able to say, "I just want catastrophic coverage"  is not going to raise prices.   You only pay for what you need and want.

 

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Shiloh, you are required to have auto insurance, no?

No, no one is required to buy auto insurance.   If it were "required"  everyone would have to have it regardless if they have a car or not, if we approach car insurance like Obamacare.  

I can own a car and it can sit in the garage and it does not have to be insured. You are required by law to be insured if you choose to operate on the road, just like you are required to have a license, but that is not a mandate at all like Obamacare.  You are not required or mandated to buy auto insurance simply by virtue of being an American citizen like we were with Obamacare.

If we approached it like Obamacare, then everyone would have to have car insurance and they would have to have the car insurance the government mandates even if they don't own a car and take the bus or the express train to work every day.

 

 

[Tea Ess]

Statistics are real. They represent people's personal experiences on an aggregate level. 

I'm not equating having insurance with having healthcare. 

On the "practical level," the ACA was literally lifesaving to many people with pre-existing conditions. 

I think I have a relatively firm basis for believing that the AHCA is going to make premiums higher, based on my own understanding of insurance and the articles and summaries I've read. 

The Supreme Court found the mandate to be constitutional, and I'm going to go with it on this instead of you. Sorry. 

Literally the entire point of insurance is for people to cover the claims made by other people. Why should other people have to pay for your auto accidents? Because insurance, at the most basic level of understanding, is about sharing risk. Imagine it as people paying into a fund, and when someone crashes their car, they get a payment to cover the loss of their vehicle. Same thing with health insurance. You could view it as the healthy paying for the healthcare of the sick. 

 

 

Edited March 20, 2017 by Tea Ess

[Guest shiloh357]

2 hours ago, Tea Ess said:

Statistics are real. They represent people's personal experiences on an aggregate level.

People's experiences are real and more important that statistics.  I am not saying stats are not real.  I am saying that Liberals don't want to talk about real people and real experiences outside of stats because everyone knows that the reality on the ground is that most people are not happy with paying more for less care.  And reality usually proves that the stats are basically wrong.

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I'm not equating having insurance with having healthcare. 

On the "practical level," the ACA was literally lifesaving to many people with pre-existing conditions. 

 

Most people could not afford to pay the high price of the insurance.  Their preexisting conditions had to paid for out of pocket, not with the insurance because they could not pull thousands of $$$ out of their pocket to pay the deductibles AND pay the huge premiums of Obamacare.   Yeah they had coverage, but it was coverage they could not use.    That's hardly "lifesaving"  if you have to choose between paying rent or paying your healthcare premium/deductible.

 

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I think I have a relatively firm basis for believing that the AHCA is going to make premiums higher, based on my own understanding of insurance and the articles and summaries I've read. 

No, all you have are summaries on a rough draft of phase one, not the entire bill.  So, you have no basis for your claims at this point.

 

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The Supreme Court found the mandate to be constitutional, and I'm going to go with it on this instead of you. Sorry. 

No, what the Supreme Court did was essentially change constitutional doctrine to give powers to the legislature that is not actually given to them by the Constitution.   It's not constitutional, so a way had to be made to force it through even though a plain reading of the law of the land would not allow it.

Nowhere in the Constitution is Congress given the power to mandate that an individual enter into a contract with a private party or purchase a good or service and, as this paper will explain, no decision or present doctrine of the Supreme Court justifies such a claim of power. Therefore, because this claim of power by Congress would literally be without precedent, it could only be upheld if the Supreme Court is willing to create a new constitutional doctrine. This memorandum explains why the two powers cited by supporters of this bill--the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce and the power of Congress to tax--do not justify an individual mandate, even under the most expansive readings given these powers by the Supreme Court. http://www.heritage.org/health-care-reform/report/why-the-personal-mandate-buy-health-insurance-unprecedented-and#_ftn1

You have to essentially add to the Constitution because as written, the US Federal Government is not empowered by the laws of our land to force Americans to buy a good or service by virtue of being Americans.

"A mandate requiring all individuals to purchase health insurance would be an unprecedented form of federal action. The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States. An individual mandate would have two features that, in combination, would make it unique. First, it would impose a duty on individuals as members of society. Second, it would require people to purchase a specific service that would be heavily regulated by the federal government." Congressional Budget Office, The Budgetary Treatment of an Individual Mandate to Buy Health Insurance,(1994) available athttp://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/48xx/doc4816/doc38.pdf.

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Literally the entire point of insurance is for people to cover the claims made by other people. Why should other people have to pay for your auto accidents? Because insurance, at the most basic level of understanding, is about sharing risk. Imagine it as people paying into a fund, and when someone crashes their car, they get a payment to cover the loss of their vehicle. Same thing with health insurance. You could view it as the healthy paying for the healthcare of the sick. 

I understand how insurance works.  I worked in that industry.  But Obamacare was not about sharing risk.  I buy car insurance to pay for an accident I caused, or that was caused to me by someone else who was not insured.     But Obama care is quite different. 

If we took Obamacare and applied it to the car insurance industry, I would be required to have insurance, even if I don't have a car.  I would have to pay thousands a year for comprehensive, collision, and I would have to have coverage for property damage and bodily injury for accidents I did not cause.   I might not have a car, but I am paying for someone else's accident.   

In Obamacare, I am paying for female birth control and for abortions for someone else.  I am paying for prenatal care for someone else. I am paying for someone else's catheters and colostomy bag and for someone else's pediatric care, even though I don't have children.

It really is nothing but socialism and wealth redistribution not health care.