Quote:http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/letters/ct-this-is-why-republicans-can-t-find-a-replacement-for-obamacare-20170106-story.html

A key reason the Republican Party is having such a hard time with the replacement part of “repeal and replace” is that Obamacare is virtually the same privatized mandate plan it pushed for since President Richard Nixon first proposed the National Health Strategy in 1971 then again in 1974. Then the GOP revived its privatized mandate plan again in 1993 with then-Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole helping to propose the Health Equity and Access Reform Today act or HEART as the alternative to the proposed single-payer plan Health Security Act of 1993 — commonly known as “Hillarycare“ — and then again when then-Gov. Mitt Romney proposed — and succeeded in implementing — the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2006 in Massachusetts.

Today's Affordable Care Act is very similar to the privatized mandate plan the Republicans pushed for 40 years. President Barack Obama — as a compromise to have basic health reform passed — used this same GOP blueprint with one significant change: adding a public option alongside the GOP’s privatized mandate plan (basically, Obama proposed adding an option to join a form of Medicare).

Eventually the public option was stripped out of the 2010 ACA bill in further compromise to attract bipartisan support for the bill, leaving in its place the very plan that the GOP wanted and pushed for decades. Unfortunately, the ACA did not receive a single vote from the Republican Party that created the plan’s primary concepts as alternative to a single-payer — “Medicare for all” — type of system.

As a result, the GOP’s repeal and replace position backs it into a challenging corner. It has no real replacement plan because the ACA is essentially the privatized mandate it has pursued for so many years. The only possible alternative to a 40-year-old GOP plan would be reverting to the old system, leaving millions of people without full coverage or proper health care. Even those with coverage — perhaps through their employers — could then once again have a cap on lifesaving treatments, such as those for cancer, and thereby reinstating the privatized insurance “panels” deciding the profitability of patient treatment versus patient outcomes.

Or, the GOP could go with the Democratic option — a single-payer system — the same plan that virtually every major western democracy has successfully implemented with significantly lower cost and higher life expectancy than America has, according to a recent Commonwealth Fund study, and with much better patient-centric results. (America ranks 37th in the world in patient health outcomes as reported by the World Health Organization.)


Since the Republicans will not likely propose a single-payer program, that only leaves tweaking the current Obamacare plan. However, if they instead repeal with no replacement they risk a collapse of the system as insurers pull out of the program with a result that could worsen the health of millions of Americans, dramatically raise health care costs and move America further away from the patient-centric health system that is so much more successful at a lower cost than those of 36 other countries.

(01-15-2017, 09:46 PM)bfine32 Wrote: There is absolutely no way that this could have been placed in this thread started by the OP yesterday:

http://thebengalsboard.com/Thread-Republicans-move-to-spend-billions-on-Obamacare-%E2%80%94-before-they-kill-it

This forum is quickly becoming a joke.

(01-15-2017, 09:46 PM)bfine32 Wrote: There is absolutely no way that this could have been placed in this thread started by the OP yesterday:

http://thebengalsboard.com/Thread-Republicans-move-to-spend-billions-on-Obamacare-%E2%80%94-before-they-kill-it

This forum is quickly becoming a joke.

(01-16-2017, 09:52 AM)Bengalzona Wrote: Some of us mentioned this eight years ago: Obamacare is essentially the same as the original Nixon-era GOP plan.

Most of the people on the Right didn't care to hear about it then and they still don't care. Why? Because, once again, Obama gets the last laugh.

(01-16-2017, 11:34 AM)michaelsean Wrote: But the Republicans never passed it which means they ended up not liking it so where's the confusion?

(01-16-2017, 08:29 AM)Emphasis Wrote: If the Republicans keep all of the technicalities in the existing plan, and re-name it "Trump-Care", that will seem like a favorable outcome for everyone.

(01-16-2017, 12:54 PM)Benton Wrote: In my opinion it wasn't because they ended up not liking it. Through the 90s they touted it as a solution, and even through the early part of the millennium. The only point they pumped the brakes was when Obama said "Hey, let's do that thing you guys want to do."

So, either they never supported it and trotted it out like abortion to gain voters; or they supported it up until it wasn't "their" idea anymore.

Either way, by not supporting their own idea the GOP came out looking bad. And in a couple years, if people are back to no healthcare, no GOP solution and stacks of medical bills, it's going to haunt the GOP. I think Trump's folks realize that, and realize the best way to keep his supporters is to modify — not trash — Obamacare. Turning it into Trumpcare lets the "Obama is bad" folks feel better about their healthcare while still giving them healthcare.

Pretty long game by Obama, but very well played.

(01-16-2017, 01:12 PM)michaelsean Wrote: Some people may have trotted it out, but obviously most didn't want it.   And where were the Dems that whole time?  Surely they would have supported it since it's so awesome.

Quote:[/url]
For as many years Democrats tried to graft healthcare onto Social Security and Medicare, and pay for it through the payroll tax. But Republicans countered that any system must be based on private insurance and paid for with a combination of subsidies for low-income purchasers and a requirement that the younger and healthier sign up.

...

In February 1974, Republican President Richard Nixon proposed, in essence, today’s Affordable Care Act. Under Nixon’s plan all but the smallest employers would provide insurance to their workers or pay a penalty, an expanded Medicaid-type program would insure the poor, and subsidies would be provided to low-income individuals and small employers. Sound familiar?



....

Thirty years later a Republican governor, Mitt Romney, made Nixon’s plan the law in Massachusetts. Private insurers couldn’t have been happier although many Democrats in the state had hoped for a public system.

In 1989, Stuart M. Butler of the conservative Heritage Foundation came up with a [url=http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/06/28/individual-health-care-insurance-mandate-has-long-checkered-past/]plan that would “mandate all households to obtain adequate insurance.”

(01-15-2017, 09:46 PM)bfine32 Wrote: There is absolutely no way that this could have been placed in this thread started by the OP yesterday:

http://thebengalsboard.com/Thread-Republicans-move-to-spend-billions-on-Obamacare-%E2%80%94-before-they-kill-it

This forum is quickly becoming a joke.

(01-22-2017, 06:44 AM)JustWinBaby Wrote: blah blah blah....

Just make it illegal to ask if you have pre-existing conditions.  Done.

(01-22-2017, 06:44 AM)JustWinBaby Wrote: blah blah blah....

Just make it illegal to ask if you have pre-existing conditions.  Done.

Quote:Two Republican senators on Monday unveiled one of the first ObamaCare replacement bills of the new Congress -- a state-centric plan they admit is imperfect but describe as a tangible start to overhauling the 2010 health care law on a bipartisan basis. 


“We recognize that our bill is not perfect,” said Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who introduced the 2017 Patient Freedom Act with Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, a physician and fellow Republican.

“We need comprehensive legislation,” Collins continued. “It’s still a work in progress. ... But if we don’t start putting specific legislation on the table that can be debated, refined, amended and enacted, then we will fail the American people.”

The senators introduced the bill amid a host of pending alternatives from fellow congressional Republicans, including from Georgia Rep.
Tom Price, Trump’s pick to run the Department of Health and Human Services, and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, also a doctor.

Among the highlights of the plan are measures allowing states to continue to offer ObamaCare, urging “price transparency” on medical procedures, keeping existing subsidies and tax credits provided in the 2010 law and extending coverage to 30 million more uninsured Americans.  


They said the plan would slow -- or “bend”-- the cost of such a plan to the federal government and allow young adults to stay on their parents’ policies. They suggested their plan would take about three years to be fully implemented.   


Cassidy made clear the bill -- particularly the option to stay on ObamaCare -- was created with the intent to win support from Senate Democrats, considering at least eight of them will be needed to join the chamber’s 52 Republicans to vote to pass such legislation.

“We think that gets us to 60,” Cassidy said.

President Trump, like other Washington Republicans, campaigned on promises, if elected, to swiftly repeal and replace ObamaCare.

(01-16-2017, 08:39 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: I have had the discussion before. The reason the GOP railed against the ACA was because now Obama was taking credit for their plan.