Come, it is just a trainwreck. None of these morons has thought anything through. They just scrabbled to get something on paper because they’d been flapping their jaws about it for 8 years, but never really put any thought into it. RAyn was the only one to put some thoughts into it, except his thoughts came after he took another toke of Ayn’s poison and his brain was fried and produced only illusions of Randian grandeur.
For instance, in Alaska, which will have only one carrier in 2017, a benchmark plan for a 45-year-old has an average cost of $12,600 annually, compared to $3,600 in one of the cheapest states, New Hampshire. Under the Republican plan, parallel consumers in those two states would get exactly the same assistance.
Then you should choose to live in New Hampshire, rather than Alaska. See, the American Healthcare Plan is all about having more choices. Instead of one or two, you’ll now have 50 of them!
The reason the problem exists in rural areas is really quite simple. Contemporary health insurance is built around building provider networks. In rural areas, there aren’t many providers. While providers frequently belong to more than one network, the insurance company has no ability to compete or negotiate lower rates in an area where there is effective one hospital and a handful of providers.
The result is predictable: they decline to enter the market (or if they do enter the market, someone leaves it quickly once a single insurer dominates). The World’s Greatest Health Insurance Act of 2017 (as noted) actually has provisions that make the situation worse rather than ameliorating it.
UpTheRumpCare is going to prove conclusively that crapping in the pool makes the chlorine worse, no matter how loudly people bitch about it and for much the same reasons.
But I’m sure that that low-cost Alabama plan now offered across state lines will be a boon in Alaska. Too bad about the commute to the ER, however. Details, details…
Good article. It does say a fair bit that they are willing to punish their areas of support the hardest. Thing is, many will still blame Obama and confusion would reign anyway. Many people were never totally aware of the ACA, due to so many lies about it, to make a valid opinion either way. And some would think various provisions were in place to be screwed later. Then the GOP can blame the consumer for not paying attention.
also, the 80 billion seems low. If costs are high in areas. That is $8 billion a year, which amounts to $160 million per state. That may or may not be enough for states to do much with. On top of that, forcing states to use high risk pools would likely increase pressure on the states. Given they have to balance their budgets and if medicaid was block granted than it is pretty easy to know what would suffer. The normal person, the poor, the sick, the old and the average GOP voter in those areas would be pretty bad.
Agree, and there are many problems related to the delivery of health care to isolated rural areas. Offering continuing medical education to providers is another problem.
Too often, providers living a distance from metropolitan centers, medical schools and statutory teaching hospitals face a dilemma: if they are to complete mandatory CME courses, they might have to shut down their practice and lose revenue if they are the only authorized provider, and travel out of the area for a few days. It’s a real burden, and throwing money at the problem is no quick fix. That’s why some groups work to offer courses online to the extent possible and create partnerships between providers and education/training groups such as medical schools or professional medical societies.
Another failure of the GOP: refusing to set up their own provider networks in state marketplaces.
When the House’s healthcare bill in 2009 included a single national marketplace exchange, Republicans complained and recommended 50-state based exchanges, arguing that local and state officials were more in tune to their state’s unique needs and challenges. They prevailed when their amendment was included in the Senate bill that was eventually enacted.
But when the ACA was signed, the Republican-led states refused to create their own exchanges, and let the federal government do that for them. So they can bitch all they want about the lack of choices, but when they had the chance to do something about it they refused to work to help their constituents, preferring instead to play politics with the health and lives of their electorate.
“Too beautiful to live”
The Fate of TrumpCare: Live fast, die young, leave a good looking, “beautiful” corpse. The AHCA, RIH (hell).
If you don’t like O’Care…here’s something you will like less, suckers.
Okay, I need some clarification from much smarter folks here: does this going nowhere bill mean that the rest of the session’s legislative agenda is off the table?
I mean, I know these bastards have already pushed through damaging things (thanks, Media Whores, for not telling us everyday what they are, so I had to look them up myself), but dare I dream that this essentially means all the other bullshit they want to pass is no longer viable?
NOBODY KNEW HEALTHCAR WAS COMPLICATED
-D Rump
Not saying that I agree with monopolies but when did Republicans ever care about monopolies elsewhere?
TrumpCare: the insured pay for the uninsured.
The lengths to which Republicans went to sabotage the intended functioning of ACA cannot be emphasized enough, however it remains skillfully buried under years of Republican lies, distortions, and obfuscations.
Why is insurance sold county by county?
No. But it would be a crushing blow to right-wing morale and could seriously imperil Ryan’s speakership in the House.
My recollection was that there were also some D’s opposed to eliminating state control over insurance markets, as well. The national marketplace idea would result in larger more stable risk pools for sure. My guess is that there would have to be commensurate national consolidation of health care providers as well. You see where all this is heading, and why they had to stop it.