If it walks like Obamacare, and it quacks like Obamacare…
“I say systems, not one system. If anyone is expecting Senator McConnell to roll a wheelbarrow on to the Senate floor with a Republican health care plan they’re going to be waiting a long time because we don’t believe in that. We don’t want to replace a failed Obamacare federal system with a failed – with another failed federal system. We want to create many systems across this country step by step … we’ll do this by moving more health care decisions out of Washington and into the hands of states and patients.”
That’s the only quote that matters. He just admitted there never was a plan and they want to throw everything back to insurance companies.
Ayup. They’ll tweak the current ACA and blow a bunch of smoke about how they repealed and replaced “Obamacare”. Wonder what they’ll name it?
Will golden showers be covered under Trumpcare, Lamar(!)?
PS: Health savings accounts are a crock of shit.
He said nothing about keeping or repealing the revenue stream based on taxing the rich? Inquiring plutocrats want to know…
All this hot air comes at a good time …
It is winter —
I don’t think that’s the correct interpretation of his remarks. Throwing things back to the states, giving recipients the funds to purchase health insurance outside of the exchange, getting rid of the individual mandate, issuing block grants for Medicaid, pushing health savings accounts, etc. - these aren’t Obamacare, nor are they likely to work. But this plan does create enough uncertainty for Republicans to claim that they “fixed” things.
As for the requirement about pre-existing conditions, one thing conspicuous by its absence is any guarantee that the coverage will be affordable. If I require that insurance companies cover such individuals but add no requirements as to cost, insurance companies are free to charge me a million dollars a year to cover my cancer.
Edited to add that you should also note the conspicuous absence of any discussion about revenue or taxes to cover the costs.
We want to create many systems across this country step by step … we’ll do this by moving more health care decisions out of Washington and into the hands of states and patients."
Great. Most of us hate that fact that healthcare is tied to a job. Now it’s going to be tied to your state, too.
Costs aren’t the state’s problem. They’re the patients’ problem.
yes, and also I didn’t see where they mentioned removing the individual mandate, just the one on business. So, they can charge you a million dollars or you can pay the tax penalty a few times before you die for lack of dr’s care.
Use your subsidy on off exchange plans? That means building parallel things that look like exchanges, function like exchanges, but arent called exchanges.
And throw stuff back at the states. How do we expect all this to work?
During the debate over obamacare, a single national exchange was seriously considered. One of the concessions to Republicans was to let the states build their own exchanges. But the Republicans in the states chose not to use the proviosion they asked for!
Alexander is better than most Republicans at looking like a policy wonk, but behind the curtain he is just another scammer.
It’s there.
He also advocated “repeal [ing] the individual mandate when new insurance market rules are in place”
Is there a single bit of evidence that HSAs and tax credits work for poor people? Sounds like an odd fit, and and excuse to make Medicaid (and health insurance generally) even less generous than it already is. A move that is diametrically opposed to what most voters–including Trump voters–actually want from a health care finance system.
The ACA is a plan. This doesn’t appear to be “a plan” to me so much as a road map to getting to a plan that still doesn’t not exist.
Am I missing something?
Ah I did miss it. thanks. So just a million bucks or nothing. I feel better now.
Really after six years of bitching about Obamacare they haven’t figured out that some of ushave learned more about health insurance than those in Congress.
I do not think this is a real issue. Even now insurance plans (and even companies) differ from state to state. So if you move to a different state you would have to enroll in a new health insurance plan – it is already similar to employer tied insurance (but of course less restrictive).
I think “moving health care decisions… into the hands of states” is not so much about tying healthcare to states but about regulation – one of the achievements of ACA is the requirement for insurance plans to offer meaningful coverage. If the determination of coverage requirements is left to the states, we can expect that some states will have very lax requirements and there will be “affordable” plans which only cover you until you need to use them.
According to the GOP, health insurance under the ACA is too expensive and the deductibles and co-pays are too high. What do they think will happen when “the bill [will not] be used to take away protection for people who have pre-existing conditions” but it will repeal both the individual and employer mandates? As @woland66 points out, the GOP will crow about reducing the premium when they allow any state-approved plan to count as health insurance, but people who require actual insurance to cover actual pre-existing conditions will be truly and royally screwed. Alexander’s outline for a replacement plan sounds like nothing more than a return to the massive failure of the status quo ante.
Sounds like he wants to devolve health cafe to individual states. That just doesn’t work well for a mobile population. We expect basic standards eligibility and coverage across the entire country and ease of transition in any inter-state move. Amongst other objections to devolution to “many systems”. Seems the GOP is just making this unnecessarily complicated and expensive.
Oh no you don’t!!! REPEAL REPEAL IT NOW!!! within 60 days. Let the Pensytucky yahoos feel what they voted for. Let the Insurance companies go back to their old ways…Caps on care…no insurance for pre-existing conditions…no kids on policies after age 18…Go ahead Make their day! Let their children diagnosed with a sever disease go to an emergency room for treatment. They wreaked havoc on our country by electing this disgrace of a human being. Let them deal with it. They only understand stupidity so let the stupid republican congress keep their word. Maybe when the Pensytucky crowd realizes that they have cut their own noses to spite their faces they will wake up by 2018 and get this country back to sanity with a congress that can neuter the short fingered vulgarian!
“On some great and glorious day the “Plain Folks” will reach their hearts desire at last, and the White house will be adorned with a downright MORON”!
H.L. Mencken