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Senate GOP tries one last time to repeal Obamacare

JasperL said:
Just about everyone who supports the ACA gets this. I've never seen anyone on the left on this place deny any of the problems. But it's just a bunch of talking points that pretend that there aren't any difficult trade-offs. Here's an example: "Voters rejected it because it didnt allow people to keep their Dr or insurance as was promised, and it led to huge premium and deductible spikes that made buying a policy on the exchanges pointless."

First of all, it didn't lead to "huge premium and deductible spikes." Second, what's the alternative? There isn't any free lunch so if a policy has lower premiums and/or lower deductibles, then it's got a "death panel" that means a bunch of treatments are just not covered, or maybe the policy just cuts off coverage in the middle of a cancer treatment. Here are the ACA EHBs. Can you tell us ahead of time which ones you don't need, this year or in the next 20 years?

Ambulatory patient services (outpatient care you get without being admitted to a hospital)
Emergency services
Hospitalization (like surgery and overnight stays)
Pregnancy, maternity, and newborn care (both before and after birth)
Mental health and substance use disorder services, including behavioral health treatment (this includes counseling and psychotherapy)
Prescription drugs
Rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices (services and devices to help people with injuries, disabilities, or chronic conditions gain or recover mental and physical skills)
Laboratory services
Preventive and wellness services and chronic disease management
Pediatric services, including oral and vision care (but adult dental and vision coverage aren’t essential health benefits)
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And if you need those things, how much coverage do you need? For example, if the policy has a $100k lifetime limit, is that enough to cover the cancer or heart disease that you don't know you'll get 8 years down the road? Or that your child will get, or your spouse - how much will their care cost?

The point is it's fine to criticize the trade-off inherent in the ACA - good coverage for higher premiums. But if you want low premiums that are possible with more limited coverage or low annual or lifetime limits, then you're just saying you're good with "death panels." And if your policy doesn't cover hospitalization and you need heart surgery, or your child's cancer treatment after you've exceeded your policy's lifetime limit, well that's too bad, guess you or your child will just have to die.
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I work in the health services industry, so I understand some of what you're referring to above. The dance between health services and insurance still baffles me as far as how they've been able to get away with so much for so long. What gets me, however, is how people who don't like Obamacare have remained stuck on the individual mandate while ignoring the fact that before Obamacare people were getting cheated out of health services and their money.

Obamacare is a complex piece of legislation, no doubt, but if people took time to understand: 1) the mechanics of the law, 2) that it had "pay-fors" throughout (meaning it would have paid for itself if all 50 state participated and the taxes remained in place) and 3) the coverage was much better with it than without it, I think people would stop hating on it so much and accept the benefits more.

As I've said before, it's not the best law the people could have gotten from Congress, but it was the best we were going to get when one side all but refused to work with the majority party at the time.
 
Moderate Right said:
Why not? They could if they truly wanted to. They just don't want to pay for it. They want the feds to pay for it because they can't raise the taxes up any higher than the mountain of taxes they already levy, just like true liberals. Spend someone else's money.
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I love when people who don't have the first clue what they are talking about keep yapping.

Sent from my LG-H910 using Tapatalk
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
No, I am making an arguement.

This is what the marriam-Webster's dictionary says about conservatism.



https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conservatism

This arguement for smaller government is a radical departure from the established tradition of American government that has developed over time. In fact one might dare call it radical .

Conservatism is defined as opposition to radical change, but isn't reducing the scope of federal power back to 18th century levels the sort of radical change that conservatism naturally opposes
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You need to ask conservatives what conservatism means, not Merriam-Webster.
 
JasperL said:
OK, so that stupid talking point, "I don't recall any....interest groups on board with [ACA]" was proved hilariously wrong, so you move the goal posts on me. Don't strain yourself!
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I said conservative interest groups. You're changing my words.
 
JasperL said:
But the point of hearings is not to persuade other members - or at least that's not the only purpose. The main on is to inform members of Congress and the public about the effects of a bill, which the ACA hearings did. Dozens of hearings in several committees just DID affect the legislation as originally drafted and the hundreds of amendments adopted to that initial draft. Hearings also inform the public, so we can make an informed decision to support of oppose legislation, and this also matters to Congress.

Essentially, the alternative to hearings is ignorance on the part of Congress and the public.
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Spin, spin, spin. Whatever furthers your liberal agenda.
 
Fiddytree said:
I love when people who don't have the first clue what they are talking about keep yapping.

Sent from my LG-H910 using Tapatalk
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I don't. It's damned annoying listening to you guys spout the same BS talking points over and over that clearly show you don't know what you're talking about.
 
Moderate Right said:
I said conservative interest groups. You're changing my words.
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No you didn't. I said:

Fact is the Democrats did care about the DOZENS of hearings in several committees in the House and Senate, and we know that because those hearing affected the initial bill drafts and the many changes to the bill as it went through the process to get key members and interest groups on board with the final product.
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You said,

I don't recall any Republican key members and interest groups who were on board with it,....
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Either way you're moving the goal posts. I wasn't referring to Democratic or liberal interest groups, but the broad category of interest groups affected by the legislation.

Your trolling is getting boring.
 
JasperL said:
No you didn't. I said:



You said,



Either way you're moving the goal posts. I wasn't referring to Democratic or liberal interest groups, but the broad category of interest groups affected by the legislation.

Your trolling is getting boring.
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I meant Republican key members and Republican interest groups. I suspect that you knew what I meant. I see you totally ignored my post stating that you guys call Big Medical and Big Pharma and Big Health Insurance the evil enemies of the people and then you turn around and tout them as heroes because they backed Obamacare because it would make them even more money.
 
Moderate Right said:
I meant Republican key members and Republican interest groups. I suspect that you knew what I meant. I see you totally ignored my post stating that you guys call Big Medical and Big Pharma and Big Health Insurance the evil enemies of the people and then you turn around and tout them as heroes because they backed Obamacare because it would make them even more money.
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As I said, if you meant "republican" interest groups, you moved the goal posts at that point - that's clearly not what I was referring to in my post.

And I never called them "heroes" or anything like that. You said no interest groups were on board, and so I posted a list of HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS who supported the ACA.
 
JasperL said:
As I said, if you meant "republican" interest groups, you moved the goal posts at that point - that's clearly not what I was referring to in my post.

And I never called them "heroes" or anything like that. You said no interest groups were on board, and so I posted a list of HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS who supported the ACA.
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I said no Republican or conservative interest groups. And, you are making heroes out of the very interest groups the left constantly rails against, just because it suits your agenda.
 
Moderate Right said:
I said no Republican or conservative interest groups. And, you are making heroes out of the very interest groups the left constantly rails against, just because it suits your agenda.
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Hmmm..... I don't recall me or liberals in general "constantly railing" against the...American Medical Association or the American Heart Association or the American Diabetes Association or the Mayo Clinic..... I'm pretty sure you're making that up.
 
MTAtech said:
That's the disconnect. Many GOP legislators represent voters that have benefited from the ACA and Medicaid. I use West Virginia as a prime example. WV voted 70% for Trump while having a third of their residents on Medicaid. They benefit enormously from the ACA, which is responsible for reducing WV's uninsured rate in half since 2013.

One would think that GOP Senators and Congresspeople representing WV would be on the frontline of stopping other GOP Senators and Congresspeople from taking away coverage for their voters. But no, they think they can fool these voters by putting off the effective date until after the 2018 election. Meanwhile, these voters think that liberals look down on them and think they're stupid?
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GOP voters have been voting against their own interests for decades...what makes you think they will change now?
 
Moderate Right said:
I don't. It's damned annoying listening to you guys spout the same BS talking points over and over that clearly show you don't know what you're talking about.
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I’m pretty sure few, if any, posters have been raising the same concerns I have been over the last several months, but okay.


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Puigb said:
GOP voters have been voting against their own interests for decades...what makes you think they will change now?
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I wrote this here:
Modern conservatism uses the smoke-screen of self-reliance, individualism and character to mask policies which are self-serving, bigoted and cruel. The cadre of conservative billionaires don't want to pay higher taxes that will be used to help "those people." Thus, they invent a myth that the best way to help the poor is to NOT provide them any help at all. This way, according to them, their misery will give the poor the incentive to become educated and industrious. As I said earlier, this has never worked in all of human history.

Their objective is to keep taxes on the rich low and keep government out of their hair. But these people's numbers are small, so they need to fund propaganda groups like the Heritage Foundation to create false data and spread the message to middle-class conservatives, who are generally stupid enough to swallow their lies. Thus the pro-life conservative-leaning worker who listens to Rush Limbaugh will repeatedly vote for the party that is less likely to protect his safety, less likely to protect his job, and less likely to benefit him economically.
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