The US Healthcare Mass Debate

[Tero]

"We thought Obama was just giving stuff free to black people. But we now get it."
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/24/politics/ ... index.html

[Tero]

Paul Ryan nearly ORGASMIC about possibility to screw us!

At 4PM, House Republicans will vote to strip health care away from 24 MILLION Americans.

And they don’t care. As long as their megadonors (who are getting massive tax breaks!) are happy, they’re happy.

We need to be ready to fight back.

[Tero]

OOPS RYAN: GOP health-care bill: Ryan visits White House to say he lacks support for health-care bill

[Tyrannical]

I'm willing to wait to get rid of that abomination of Obama care. It ruined every private company insurance by changing it to high deductible.
One more supreme court pick after gorsuch and anchor babies get deported too. Then we'll have plenty of health care money for Americans.

[Tero]

No Freedom Caucus member will ever vote to spend one dollar on healthcare. Not tax deductions, nothing.

A Republican official involved in counting votes says the party thinks it needs about 25 of the roughly 36 members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus members to back the GOP health care bill if it's going to pass Friday.

[Animavore]

Trump's bill fails to pass.

[Tero]

Socialism!

The Freedom Caucus and its allies that led the conservative opposition to the bill are outnumbered by some estimates at five to one, so there won't be multiple opportunities to play the same card. The next bill that comes up, if it is a net positive that does not close the door on further free-market reforms, should be supported by all who are sincere in their opposition to the fundamental, socialist transformation of America.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles ... zilla.html

[Animavore]

[Tero]

Mr. Trump claimed Obamacare was ‘exploding.’

“I’ve been saying for the last year and a half that the best thing we can do politically speaking is let Obamacare explode. It is exploding right now.”

This is exaggerated. As Reed Abelson and Margot Sanger-Katz have reported for The Upshot, the Affordable Care Act’s insurance markets are not “exploding,” “imploding,” “failing,” “collapsing” or in a “death spiral.”

While there are certainly issues with the current law (for example, high premiums and deductibles), the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in its first estimate of the Republican bill that both it and the Affordable Care Act would stabilize over the long run.

Mr. Trump asserted that there were no Obamacare insurers in parts of Kentucky and Tennessee.

“I was in Tennessee the other day and they’ve lost half of their state in terms of an insurer. They have no insurer. And that’s happening to many other places. I was in Kentucky the other day and similar things are happening.”

This is exaggerated. The competitive situation is not healthy in those two states, but Mr. Trump has overstated the current lack of insurers. But next year, he could be less incorrect.

Congress’s Joint Economic Committee reported, using data from the Kaiser Family Foundation, that 43 percent of counties in Kentucky had two insurers, and 49 percent were covered by just one.


Tennessee divides its marketplace into eight areas, three of which have two carriers and five of which have one, according its Department of Commerce.

With Humana pulling out of the A.C.A. marketplaces, 16 counties in Tennessee will no longer have insurers available next year, said Larry Levitt, a senior executive at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “It’s not half the state, but it is a real problem.”

Mr. Trump claimed triple-digit premium increases were common.

“Last year you had over 100 percent increases in various places.”

This is exaggerated. Only one state, Arizona, saw its premiums double (116 percent). Changes in premium costs ranged from a 3 percent decrease in Indiana to a 69 percent increase in Oklahoma (the second highest).

This year, premiums for the benchmark plan rose by 22 percent on average across the states that use the federal marketplace or have their own exchanges, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

Mr. Trump claimed high increases across the board.

“Many places 50, 60, 70 percent. I guess it averaged — whatever the average was, very, very high.”

This needs context. Six states — Alaska, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Tennessee — saw increases in the range Mr. Trump referred to.

As previously stated, the average increase was 22 percent — compared with a 7 percent increase in 2016 and a 3 percent increase in 2015. But looking at premium increases alone does not fully capture what people are paying. About 84 percent of enrollees qualify for tax credits that will help blunt the costs this year, meaning the government picks up the tab for any increase.

Premium increases affect just 3 percent of all Americans.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/24/us/p ... r=msft_msn

[Scot Dutchy]

Do people still believe 45?

[Brian Peacock]

Trumpcare? More like Trump doesn't care!

See what I did there? That's called satire.

[JimC]

Life expectancy in the US has started to drop. The ability of the wealthiest nation on Earth to care for the health of its own citizens is falling away.

Empires decline and fall, I guess...

[Tero]

It's all the toddlers with guns.

[Tero]

Obamacare survives, limping along past 2018

Lesson No. 3: Obamacare is still vulnerable.

Republicans have conceded that the ACA will be the law of the land for the “foreseeable future.” Republicans may also face political risks if they actively seek to “explode” the individual insurance market, as Trump has promised. Republicans hope that they can blame Democrats for future problems with the ACA, but this remains to be seen.

Republicans can, however, do much to undermine the ACA, especially its health insurance exchanges, whose stability in some states is precarious. For example, the administration could use its executive authority to weaken enforcement of the individual mandate or simply pull ads to encourage people to sign up for coverage. Moreover, any such action may be harder for voters to perceive, thereby creating space for Republicans to weaken Obamacare without a clear political price.

In short, the ACA evaded repeal, but its fortunes during the Trump administration remain uncertain. How far are Republicans willing to go to undermine the ACA through administrative and legal actions? Will the ACA’s insurance exchanges stabilize or unravel in some states? Will the GOP again try to cut Medicaid to help offset tax cuts and infrastructure spending?

We don’t know the answers to those questions. What we can say is that the health care debate is not over. More conflict over the government’s role in health care lies ahead.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/mon ... b7068703d8

[laklak]

It's only white men who are dying younger. This is as it should be. White men need to die earlier to make up for all those years of privilege.