You are wrong. There…are you happy? Seriously, you are not paranoid if everyone really is out to get you. And in Trump’s case that is not far from the truth. Did Obama spy on him? Ha ha…no. Is Trump taking his orders from Moscow? LOL absolutely not. So the game continues.
But this game could get really fun!!
I think the answer is to impeach Trump for some sort of made up crime. Then we can start fresh with Mike Pence. No wait…the press dislikes him as well he’s way too conservative. Impeach him too. Then we’d have Speaker Paul Ryan as President then the…oh wait he’s too conservative for the press and the dems as well. So let’s impeach him. Then we’d have Secretary of State Rex Tillerson as President. No, no that’s no good he’s also conservative plus everyone…and I mean everyone knows that the Russians own him. He did deals with them it must be true. Okay impeach him as well. It now goes to the Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin. Ah…still too conservative he must be impeached, plus I heard that he watched a Russian movie once so he’s out. Next…Ah here we go someone everyone can Trust Mad Dog Mattis. He’s not even a republican I think the left might accept him. Hmm…his nickname is “mad dog” that will probably disqualify him from the start,. The nick name is so not politically correct. Okay…next in line is the Attorney General Jeff Sessions. ha ha okay no one in the press or on the left likes him.
We could go on…
But…I’m done. Looks like the left has a tough road ahead of them regardless of whether their diabolical plans to get rid of Trump succeeds. I guess at some point they are going to have to suck it up and learn to live with a republican administration for the next four years regardless of who is President.
“By 2026, average premiums for single policyholders in the nongroup market under the legislation would be roughly 10 percent lower than under current law, CBO and JCT estimate.”
The argument I have heard from the far-right is that it doesn’t repeal enough, and doesn’t decrease enough, but not that it is more expensive.
I’m only trying to understand where you got that line of thinking. Mine came from the CBO report.
They are expected to go down on average. But when you take a look at the expected premiums for older/sicker individuals, @Mufasa is absolutely right–not only will they go up, they will skyrocket. This is a case where looking at ‘the average’ is a deeply misleading way to evaluate a proposed program.
Except in their ER, which is required by law (it’s called EMTALA) to evaluate everyone who comes in the door, and treat those deemed to be at risk for a significant impending medical event.
The answer I would propose would be a universal govt option that provides for basic medical care for all. This care would be rationed–death paneled, if you like–and there would be many things it would not cover. For example, it would not cover things like ‘do everything possible’ in medically futile situations. (‘I’m sorry, but your plan doesn’t cover initiating dialysis on your comatose 85 year-old grandmother with stage 4 breast Ca metastatic to her brain.’) However, individuals would be able to purchase (or their employers provide) supplemental insurance on the free market to cover anything above-and-beyond what’s covered by the govt option. (‘Yes, if you truly think this is what she would want, your plan does cover dialysis for your dying grandmother.’) For the uber-wealthy among us, they would also be able to simply pay out-of-pocket (fee-for-service) for their healthcare.
Elect me POTUS, give me a Dem House and Senate, and this is what I will do for you. EyeDentist 2020!
The premium amounts are based on expected participants of the program. If you add cost for “expensive” people (ie, old, poor, etc) you remove these numbers from the calculation, and drive the average cost down.
Person 1 - $1500 premium
Person 2 - $750 premium
Person 3 - $750 premium
Person 1 falls into the category of “expensive” so when they don’t enroll, as they can’t afford it, the average drops from $1000 to $750
I think that is fair, and if he said as much, I don’t disagree. I believe there are tax credits to help with that in the bill.
She works with a lot of cancer patients, definitely not ER. Still has patients run up crazy bills the hospital knows they will never pay and has to eat those costs.
I think your propopsed situation is interesting, and don’t know enough about healthcare to evaluate it critically. I have heard from most left-leaning folks that the only solution is single-payer.
Unfortunately, the tax credits as currently structured will leave older/sicker individuals with a vastly increased share of the cost as compared to their costs under Obamacare–like, $7-8K more. This is why so many are expected to simply drop off the rolls of the insured.
That’s what Medicaid is for–to help defray those costs. When it goes bye-bye…
To be blunt, they are incorrect (IMO). Single-payer is also, frankly, not consistent with American values (again, IMO).
I guess I tend to have high “Bull-Shit” meter when it come to Politicians and their promises and projections. They often operate in some Alternative Universe that is outside of where much of the real world Lives.
If the actual cost-drivers are not addressed…there is absolutely no way that insurers are going to reduce Premiums.
I will counter with an attempt to describe your method. Should go something like this…I was talking with a doctor the other day and he mentioned you are incorrect and against American values…
Joking of course.
I appreciate the insight, and am not going to pretend to know the details of how to make the system work. Your approach seems interesting, but I think the hardest part (and one that I think @ActivitiesGuy alluded too in the Zep thread when catastrophic care was mentioned) is where to draw the line between what is non-basic and what is basic, but that is just me parroting another conversation.
That would absolutely be the hardest part, and would be the subject of much political wrangling/wheeling-dealing. I would put the responsibility for drawing that line in the hands of a bipartisan committee akin to the sort that makes decisions on contentious issues such as military-base closings. The committee would be told ‘your budget for the next fiscal year is $$$–allocate it as you deem best.’
Once the coverage decisions were finalized, there would be indignant objections from all sides concerning how utterly ridiculous it is that procedure/disease X is covered, but not procedure/disease Y. There would be protests. There would be accusations of favoritism.
Yeah, sorry…dickish of me to drop a complaint without contributing.
Take your level of concern with the “bunker” and magnify it and that’s where I am. In addition to everything you list, Trump is increasingly refusing to even acknowledge, much less answer, the press when they ask him direct questions (note Tillerson is doing this too now).
As you’ve noted before, there have been so many instances where he could diffuse a situation with a single sentence/tweet and he misses the opportunity every single time. By all accounts, he’s further battening the hatches/digging in and prepping for war; I can’t imagine a scenario where this works in his favor.
In the meantime, we have increasingly dire situations that require the public to have some semblance of trust in our POTUS (N. Korea, Ukraine, etc.) and it simply isn’t there.
I suspect President Trump is one of those guys who cannot admit he is wrong because first he would have to look at himself in the mirror and he wouldn’t like what he would see. I don’t know how it is possible psychologically, but some people just seem to know subconsciously that if they admitted they were wrong about anything, then that first step towards rational thought would throw everything they think they know into question, so they argue with insults, snide remarks, and threats instead of real debate. He can’t even handle his intelligence briefings, apparently preferring to get his news from conspiracy sites and FOX commentary. I suspect he keeps flying off to campaign events and his mansion in Florida because life in the White House is miserable for him.
But for the record, I’m more ticked off at the media than at Trump. Trump’s job was to win an election and he did. The media, on the other hand, gave him three billion dollars in free air time by reporting on his nonsense, and then spent more time on Hillary’s email scandals than all the policy issues combined. If our political system is a circus, we shouldn’t have let ratings determine the reporting.
Is it REALLY the media’s fault, or ours for tuning in? The public has a hard time claiming huge moral outrage at the media while they continue to pull in millions of viewers a night and reaffirm they’re making the right moves.
People seem to forget that the media is just a bunch of businesses out to make money. Why would they kill the golden goose if we’re going to keep paying for it?
Respectfully, I don’t think that’s fair. Many (most?) MSM organizations recognize and appreciate the vital role they play in the process of governance. (And if they didn’t appreciate it before election, they damn sure do now.)
Not to say they don’t RECOGNIZE the importance of their job. But if push comes to shove, they’ll be forced to pick the almighty dollar over true integrity every time. They still have a board and owners to report to.
Edit: and I’m by no way judging individual journalists with my statement. Orders come from the top.
I don’t really blame him. I know it’s probably funny to you when the press makes stuff up about Trump, or puts a far left wing slant on everything that is reported. But it’s probably not all that amusing to Trump or anyone in his administration. When the mainstream liberal media decides to at least pretend to be fair as they were in the 80’s that’s when I think you’ll see President Trump answering questions.
