Secret “There’s Something About Mary” sauce?
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which conservatives claim to be a $5 billion raid of the Treasury Department
As opposed to the $700 billion raid that bailed out the “too big to fail” banks.
Shagged out after a long squawk.
Agree. Nearly everything that’s wrong with the ACA can be tied back to attempts to prop up and coddle the private insurance and pharma companies.
The next big challenge is to lower the cost of heathcare. Let’s take out the middleman.
There is very little he can actually do to limit the Essential Health Benefits as they are hard coded into the legislation. They are benefits such as hospitalization, emergency services, maternity and newborn care. Many are also defined in other legislation, such as Medicare and Medicaid. The ACA states that they should be equivalent to what employer plans offer. I have trouble thinking up what one could exclude from say, emergency services. The rule in the health plan world is that a health plan must provide all services that are medically necessary per evidence based medicine in each area. So, if he tinkers with the definition, the lawsuit is that the tinkering does not tie to either evidence based medicine or employer practice.
If he can chip away at them, most of the chipping will be in the government operated exchanges, mostly red states. There is another layer of administration between HHS and the health plans in States that chose to operate their own exchanges, mostly blue states. CMS/HHS issues guidance on the essential health benefits and the exchange operating states can make it more generous if they want.
Contraceptive services are a preventive service and the required preventive services are decided by a well recognized evidence based medical board, based on evidence based literature. The benefits of contraception on health outcomes are very hard to deny since they eliminate all childbirth related death and morbidity of both mothers and babies for a small increase in clotting risk. For Price to limit them, he has to find another evidence based board and have them review the literature and come to a different finding. If it could be done, it could potentially affect the guidance given out for 2019 or 2020 and is extremely susceptible to lawsuit.
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Exactly. The congressional Dems have been content to mostly be spectators as the AHCA implosion has unfolded. Yet for years the Repubs were able to do real damage to ACA and greatly undermine public sentiment about it with little real pushback from the Dems.
The ACA is not perfect and the Dems need to acknowledge this while offering realistic improvements…and do this loudly and forcefully so Americans know they’re not just content with the status quo and have a more accurate picture of what’s happening. The Repubs have controlled this issue for way too long and now is the time for the Dems to take the offensive.
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Thank you for writing this. It is very helpful to read. I wish I had multiple recommendations to give for this post.
Well, I want healthcare too, but I got it , Medicare provided by kp California. When I said the strategery wouldn’t work, I meant for Trump, and that all the Forces of Darkness could do was arrest things until the door didn’t hit em where the Lord split 'em. In the longer post I pointed out that business-friendly Justice Roberts had not killed the ACA because the pressure from the overall business community was to adjust the existing framework as well as could be done(these are small-c conservatives)to avoid costs, social unrest, public health(with it, National Security)and did I mention avoid costs(remember these are businesses). What I think is going to happen is that the benign improvements(wouldn’t rule out Medicare for all) will continue after 2020 or even sooner. Ryan, Price and Trump can talk all they want about proceeding to ultimate victory, but as far as Wall Street is concerned it’s time to move on. Maybe Somebody Really Important gave Trump a Lucky Phone Call to suggest that Moving On would be a good idea.Your post was great.
OT618
Boy, this makes me feel a lot better. In a response to Birdford below I pointed out practical and legal obstacles(IMHO) to GOP dreams of throwing sand in the gears of the ACA.Hope you hang around for future discussions on this topic.
Dr Death will get an ulcer trying to administer a program that saves lives
Price was a surgeon. I am a nurse. And any nurse knows that surgeons are arrogant egomaniacs who would rather deal with anaesthatised patients than those who are conscious. He is the extreme of a type, and yes, he is a very scary and amoral guy.
I think Price will do everything in his power to disrupt the law. The idea that republicans are concerned about being blamed for the laws failure is a non-starter. Even if they make obvious moves to disrupt the law they will blame Obama and the democrats. The people who vote republican will continue to vote republican.
bcarmel, I hope that you will be on that healthcare discussion in the Hive tomorrow. I worked for several years as a Federal regulatory official(analysis for tax purposes) If I were Prime I’d try to ask the possible impact of congress underfunding/understaffing regulatory authorities, or hiring a Department head who deliberately does nothing. From Big Orange’s point of view this might “work” even if the law is tound. TIA OTSickcestteen