Obamacare/Trumpcare Horror Stories

[arch stanton]

So you ignored the last sentence so you could do your famous holier than thou act?

[mtangelsfan]

Yeah, that is why.  Can you show me where this "holier than thou" act is in my responses to you?  Or are you just being douchy?

[Thomas]

Not sure I'm following MT's objection(s). 

[mtangelsfan]

Clearly I am failing at communicating it.

I interpreted his initial post as "cons are blaming libs for their failure".  While I agree with said statement, it isn't like the libs didn't have their chances to do stuff, but they couldn't get it done and they blamed the cons.

Its one big fricking game.  Trump will blame whoever he can.  He holds no allegiances to anyone except his wallet.

[red321]

We've seen this already...with the initial house failure...Republicans will go back and start arm twisting, it will start with the conservatives and there's a few hundred billion to toss around to the "moderates". McConnell failed in the July push, but a lot of this is still just theater giving Senators a chance to come back and say see...I turned the triple shit burger into a double shitburger....yeah for me.

[Blarg]

You're just disappointed it isn't a Vegan shit burger.

[Adam]

I still don't believe they'll pass a healthcare bill. All theatre. Obamacare sucks but they aren't going to want to be on the hook for something worse. I think they're just trying to figure out how to blame the Dems for the bill failing. 

[red321]

1 minute ago, Adam said:

I still don't believe they'll pass a healthcare bill. All theatre. Obamacare sucks but they aren't going to want to be on the hook for something worse. I think they're just trying to figure out how to blame the Dems for the bill failing. 

That certainly could be in the minds of many...certainly orange julius is already beating that drum. But if that was their intention, why would they have hung a huge noose around the neck of house members. You have about 40-50 republican house members in swingable districts who have this albatross of voting for Trumpcare, even if it doesn't pass, and kicking 23 million people off their insurance. Add to that, many of those clowns went and had a bud light kegger at the white house to celebrate...with photos.

The ads are already being written.

 

[Adam]

4 minutes ago, red321 said:

That certainly could be in the minds of many...certainly orange julius is already beating that drum. But if that was their intention, why would they have hung a huge noose around the neck of house members. You have about 40-50 republican house members in swingable districts who have this albatross of voting for Trumpcare, even if it doesn't pass, and kicking 23 million people off their insurance. Add to that, many of those clowns went and had a bud light kegger at the white house to celebrate...with photos.

The ads are already being written.

 

All good points and headscratchers for sure. I could be completely wrong. There is a lot of speculation that the GOP feels they can withstand a brutal healthcare bill because of districts, super-pac money, etc... Everything to me points to the republicans being stuck between a rock and a hard place. Obamacare was something they had to attack to leverage victory. They had to promise to repeal it. Unfortunately (for everyone) there's no State solution to improve healthcare. What can they do? To me their best option is to move forward with a repeal with the intent of it failing. The challenge will be to blame dems. But "red hat mouth breathers" will likely buy whatever they sell so that shouldn't be too difficult. The rest of the republicans aren't going to vote dem anyway. 

 

[fan_since79]

It does make some sense to let the bill fail in the Senate. If Obamacare stays by default and (almost certainly) implodes, the GOP can say they tried to fix it but the Democrats wouldn't cooperate. The Democrats own Obamacare. You can't get around that fact. If (when) it collapses, it's all on them.

Obamacare as it stands now will be simply impossible for most people to afford. They're already talking about 50-100% increases in premiums for 2018, and it will only accelerate in the coming years. More companies are dropping out of more states, and you'll have a financial death spiral in the system.

Edited June 28, 2017 by fan_since79

[Adam]

What's strange is our company's rates went down 7% this year. 

[fan_since79]

12 minutes ago, Adam said:

What's strange is our company's rates went down 7% this year. 

It's the individual markets that have experienced the huge rate increases. Several million Californians have to purchase insurance there. Many smaller companies have cut their employees' hours to below 29 per week to avoid having to provide them with insurance. Many other people are self-employed or working for companies that don't provide benefits.

 

 

[Tank]

The shame in all of this is that they can't find a reasonable solution because their political objectives and big donor commitments supersede common sense.

[mtangelsfan]

It would be really hard to fix.  With our political system money rules the day.  No way they take on big pharma to lower the costs of drugs or the medical industry to lower the cost of care.

It is virtually impossible to fix this problem.  

[red321]

32 minutes ago, mtangelsfan said:

It would be really hard to fix.  With our political system money rules the day.  No way they take on big pharma to lower the costs of drugs or the medical industry to lower the cost of care.

It is virtually impossible to fix this problem.  

I'm not sure it's impossible...I think part of the challenge is we expect it to be done in one fell swoop.

Use Obamacare as an example, that was never intended to be the end all be all...it was a step. In a reasonable world you would then look at what works, what isn't working...and adjust from there. Healthcare is something like 1/6 of the US economy...the idea that it can be perfected in one fell swoop overnight just isn't realistic.

[Thomas]

2 hours ago, red321 said:

That certainly could be in the minds of many...certainly orange julius is already beating that drum. But if that was their intention, why would they have hung a huge noose around the neck of house members. You have about 40-50 republican house members in swingable districts who have this albatross of voting for Trumpcare, even if it doesn't pass, and kicking 23 million people off their insurance. Add to that, many of those clowns went and had a bud light kegger at the white house to celebrate...with photos.

The ads are already being written.

 

It's like they really wanted to make it look like they wanted to pass something. 

But there are questions:

1. Are they even trying to pass it?  Where is the campaigning for it? Nintendo did a better job marketing the Wii U. 

2. Why did they come up with such a tremendously terrible bill? 

3. What is the upside of passing a bill versus not passing this bill? 

[red321]

6 minutes ago, Thomas said:

It's like they really wanted to make it look like they wanted to pass something. 

But there are questions:

1. Are they even trying to pass it?  Where is the campaigning for it? Nintendo did a better job marketing the Wii U. 

2. Why did they come up with such a tremendously terrible bill? 

3. What is the upside of passing a bill versus not passing this bill? 

Time will tell...if you don't hear anything from Republican leadership about healthcare for the next few months...then maybe they were never serious.

Word is that McConnell is sending a revised bill to CBO Friday...which if the House process is any bellwether will be..."slightly?" better (depending on your definition of better) and then you can get a bunch of Senators talking about how hard they worked to make the bill better, and while they still have concerns it's time to move forward blah blah blah...I'd guess they forego the whitehouse lawn kegger...but you never know.

 

I also don't think a lot of them think this is a terrible bill...they have to pay for their tax cuts.

 

[Jay]

I don't see any reason to vote on a bill one day after the CBO score. They should take some time to review the CBO report and try to address the issues.

 

[Thomas]

22 minutes ago, red321 said:

I'm not sure it's impossible...I think part of the challenge is we expect it to be done in one fell swoop.

How do you fix the costs without being branded un-American? I think you can get a large enough majority to support universal Medicare. The per capita costs would plummet if we did.  Though the per capita overhead administrative costs would soar from the magic "3 percent" given right now. But that's the "easy"  part.  

Right now it'd drain the treasury faster than a bunch of unnecessary military entanglements.  How do you constrain the costs (and salaries) of doctors while increasing the number of them two-fold? How do you place price fixes on medication and other medical supplies? Given the political climate even when we swing left to the furthest on the fulcrum I can't see anything meaningful happening here. 

[red321]

all good questions...the country should be having that discussion and the first step is probably ignoring people who take about the other side being un-American. (and not saying you are calling folks un-American)

 

[Adam]

The only folks who are un-American are vegans and Saab drivers

[Thomas]

11 minutes ago, red321 said:

I also don't think a lot of them think this is a terrible bill...they have to pay for their tax cuts.

I really doubt a good number of them in vulnerable districts forgot what happened to the Democrats after passing ACA. And that bill was an ice cream sunday compared to this one. They can weather the Trump administration. The right will be destroyed if they go through with Trumpcare. I doubt they misunderstand this. 

[Thomas]

8 minutes ago, red321 said:

all good questions...the country should be having that discussion and the first step is probably ignoring people who take about the other side being un-American. (and not saying you are calling folks un-American)

 

At this point I think that eliminates everyone over the age of six months. 

[red321]

5 minutes ago, Thomas said:

I really doubt a good number of them in vulnerable districts forgot what happened to the Democrats after passing ACA. And that bill was an ice cream sunday compared to this one. They can weather the Trump administration. The right will be destroyed if they go through with Trumpcare. I doubt they misunderstand this. 

I'd tend to agree with you if we didn't watch house members hang this albatross on their heads a few weeks ago. House members, with the exception of folks in non gerrymandered districts, are usually more concerned about being primaried than the general election.

[Thomas]

Just now, red321 said:

I'd tend to agree with you if we didn't watch house members hang this albatross on their heads a few weeks ago. House members, with the exception of folks in non gerrymandered districts, are usually more concerned about being primaried than the general election.

Unless they had certain kind of assurances from leadership that alleviated this risk... 

Also just because 

"Way I remember it, albatross was a ship's good luck, 'til some idiot killed it. 
Yes, I've read a poem. Try not to faint."