Republicans exempt their own insurance from their latest health care proposal

[lurchadams]

Funny you speak of intellect... You think W really had all that much to do with the "mess"? The workings of our government and economy are much bigger than the president.... but please, keep playing the little political sports game, go team! right?

So people who claim this country is a mess because of Obama are incorrect as well?

 

[celticwar17]

So people who claim this country is a mess because of Obama are incorrect as well?

When they say Obama caused our economic and debt troubles... yes they would be incorrect. It is much bigger than Obama, but he certainly did his contribution for future pain and sorrow. Deficits and government spending inject money into the system we don't have... we are sacrificing future growth for temporary gains.... But our immediate economic condition has little to nothing to do with Obama.

You could make a case those on how Obamacare has impacted small business's though. or how certain taxes and regulations have affected certain businesses.... those things Obama can be responsible for, but those sort of things impact slowly, because those that are hurt are new businesses more than existing ones.

 

[apdst]

https://www.vox.com/2017/4/25/15429982/gop-exemption-ahca-amendment

Repeat after me:

'Republicans really care about the American people'
'Republicans really care about the American people'
'Republicans really care about the American people'

Obamacare did the same thing.

Just wrong: Congress quietly takes ObamaCare waiver | TheHill

 

[Blue_State]

You have to offer the democrats inducements. AKA "Free stuff", then it's not such a bad idea.

You can expect congress will be screwing with Obamacare for the next twenty years.

Rest of our lives. It is the new Medicaid, Social Security.

 

[Socrates1]

https://www.vox.com/2017/4/25/15429982/gop-exemption-ahca-amendment

Repeat after me:

'Republicans really care about the American people'
'Republicans really care about the American people'
'Republicans really care about the American people'

Maybe they want the corrupt democrats to vote for it .:lol:

 

[ALiberalModerate]

Very Republican argument, there: "Why should I pay for poor people's food stamps or housing when they choose to work at Walmart?"

First, I applaud your daughter's efforts and wish her good luck at her meet.

But we're talking about insuring the American people. The entire nature of insurance is to mitigate risks by sharing them. I'm a healthy guy and I take pretty good care of myself, despite the occasional cheeseburger or donut. But I certainly don't have a problem sharing insurance risks with people who make different lifestyle choices: some healthier, some less so. It's still a benefit to me, because I can't afford an out-of-pocket bypass without that pool should I, god forbid, ever need one. The healthy pay for the sick -- that's the only way it can possibly work. By your notion, we might as well eliminate insurance and pay as you go, since that's what you're essentially imposing on those with the highest risks anyway.

And you are talking about micromanaging people, just through financial incentives instead of direct force. The difference between auto insurance and health insurance is inevitability. Most people don't rack up a string of accidents or speeding tickets. But everyone will need hospital care. Everyone will someday ride in an ambulance. Everyone will someday get sick and die.

I honestly am not quite getting your stance here. You want to tie health care access to some formula where risk is heavily factored, but only for those who fall short of some arbitrary standard of merit. I agree that your daughter deserves to have her health-care needs met. But I think my elderly neighbor who is on oxygen after smoking for decades deserves the same. Cultural norms and scientific understanding have changed our attitude toward smokers, but she made her choices in a much different context. We might discover tomorrow that your favorite health food supplement causes pinky cancer. Should the response be: "Too bad. You should have known better. Pay up?"

Unless your elderly neighbor is 120 years old, they knew for the last 6 decades that smoking was terrible for them. So why on earth, given the massive costs they would at some point place on the Medicare system because of it, should they have paid the same Medicare tax rate and Medicare rate as a non-smoker.

As to a supplement, that is apples and oranges. If the supplement is legally sold and deemed safe, then its not your fault if it later turns out to be terrible for you, you can blame poor regulation for that.

However, the fact remains that one of the biggest drivers of out of control healthcare costs are preventable diseases due to smoking, obesity, and sedimentary lifestyle. So when it comes to Medicare solvency, a critical program for seniors, should everyone pay significantly more, or should those whose poor choices are causing much of the problem in the first place pay more?

 

[ALiberalModerate]

But you're setting up a rhetorical black and white choice (exercise regularly, whole foods, versus eat poorly and don't exercise and are obese and smoke) and what I'm pointing out is in real life most of us will be in a gray zone of some kind. Where do you start drawing lines? Are we going to have our diets and exercise audited by BCBS twice per year, send in grocery receipts to see if we bought too much ice cream and not enough green veggies? Get signed slips from our exercise classes or submit bicycle/running mileage and pace off the Garmin?

I agree with you on the benefits of exercise and eating right, which is why I get up at 5:20am 4 days a week, and cook most of our meals from scratch, and bike or hike or run nearly every weekend, and we take hiking/biking vacations, etc. But putting that knowledge into public policy will create MASSIVE practical difficulties and result in often really unfair results. Just for example, obesity is highly correlated with poverty for known reasons (lack of exercise too), so are you really prepared to impose huge penalties on the poor because of a bad diet that is driven in part by the fact ****ty food is FAR cheaper than a whole foods diet, and that's in part what drives obesity for the poor?

I grew up in poverty, poor people eat crappy food for the same reason that everyone else does, they like it.

You don't have micromanage people's lives. It's this simple, if you are clinically obese or a smoker, then you don't get the preferred rate. Drop 10% of your body weight, which from a health perspective makes a huge difference in outcomes, even if you are still obese, then you get the preferred rate.

 

[ALiberalModerate]

What about someone who smokes but eats very healthily vs someone who doesn't smoke but eats McDonalds every day?

It's impossible to make value judgments over things like that. The best and cheapest way to do things is to just guarantee a basic level of care for everyone, then put a tax on cigarettes and the like.

We already tax cigarettes. You don't have to micromanage people's lives. You simply look at the major lifestyle risk factors which are smoking and clinical obesity. If you smoke or are clinically obese, you don't get the preferred rate. Lose 10% of your body weight, which is all it takes to make a huge difference in health outcomes, and you get the preferred rate regardless of whether you are still obese or not. Hell even life insurance often works like that, and we all die.

 

[WCH]

er uh W, I researched the real reasons. Its why I can clearly state Bush is completely responsible. And here's the rub. He's responsible by conservative standards. It happened 4 years into his admin. I know you are simply posting what you wish was true so you don't care what the facts are but here's some research for you



any chance you want to admit you were wrong about the mean ole dem congress giving itself an exemption to Obamacare?

Bush was responcilbe for not pushing government oversight legislation through a Dem controlled congress.

So who is to blame? There’s plenty of blame to go around, and it doesn’t fasten only on one party or even mainly on what Washington did or didn’t do. As The Economist magazine noted recently, the problem is one of "layered irresponsibility … with hard-working homeowners and billionaire villains each playing a role." Here’s a partial list of those alleged to be at fault:
The Federal Reserve, which slashed interest rates after the dot-com bubble burst, making credit cheap.
Home buyers, who took advantage of easy credit to bid up the prices of homes excessively.
Congress, which continues to support a mortgage tax deduction that gives consumers a tax incentive to buy more expensive houses.
Real estate agents, most of whom work for the sellers rather than the buyers and who earned higher commissions from selling more expensive homes.
The Clinton administration, which pushed for less stringent credit and downpayment requirements for working- and middle-class families.
Mortgage brokers, who offered less-credit-worthy home buyers subprime, adjustable rate loans with low initial payments, but exploding interest rates.
Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who in 2004, near the peak of the housing bubble, encouraged Americans to take out adjustable rate mortgages.
Wall Street firms, who paid too little attention to the quality of the risky loans that they bundled into Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS), and issued bonds using those securities as collateral.
The Bush administration, which failed to provide needed government oversight of the increasingly dicey mortgage-backed securities market.
An obscure accounting rule called mark-to-market, which can have the paradoxical result of making assets be worth less on paper than they are in reality during times of panic.
Collective delusion, or a belief on the part of all parties that home prices would keep rising forever, no matter how high or how fast they had already gone up.

Who Caused the Economic Crisis? - FactCheck.org

And, no. they tried to get an exemption.

 

[radcen]

https://www.vox.com/2017/4/25/15429982/gop-exemption-ahca-amendment

Repeat after me:

'Republicans really care about the American people'
'Republicans really care about the American people'
'Republicans really care about the American people'

This is repugnant, absolutely, no doubt whatsoever, and needs to be exposed (and thwarted, if possible), but... this type of thing is common for Congress in general, and on many differing topics, not just Reps.

 

[rabbitcaebannog]

I grew up in poverty, poor people eat crappy food for the same reason that everyone else does, they like it.

You don't have micromanage people's lives. It's this simple, if you are clinically obese or a smoker, then you don't get the preferred rate. Drop 10% of your body weight, which from a health perspective makes a huge difference in outcomes, even if you are still obese, then you get the preferred rate.

Actually, highly processed foods are very cheap. Those are very unhealthy and are linked to obesity. The reality is that eating whole foods and organic food is very very expensive. People that make good incomes have the choice to buy healthier, but those that live on a shoe string budget don't always get those same choices. In a perfect world, the highly process junk should cost much more and the healthy stuff would be cheap. I honestly believe you would see changes in how people eat if healthy food was affordable for everyone. There is much more to the story of the lower your income the more unhealthy you are likely to be.

 

[rabbitcaebannog]

We already tax cigarettes. You don't have to micromanage people's lives. You simply look at the major lifestyle risk factors which are smoking and clinical obesity. If you smoke or are clinically obese, you don't get the preferred rate. Lose 10% of your body weight, which is all it takes to make a huge difference in health outcomes, and you get the preferred rate regardless of whether you are still obese or not. Hell even life insurance often works like that, and we all die.

There is some unfairness to this argument. When you start leaving out other unhealthy life style choices like drinking alcohol (which is linked to many expensive health problems) you are picking on certain people. Is it just because it is easy to see people that look fat to slap higher prices on them rather than a thinner person that is a heavy drinker for instance. That means people that are overweight are basically wearing a scarlet letter while thinner people don't have to (even though they may have their own unhealthy lifestyle choices including hidden things like eating disorders).

 

[rabbitcaebannog]

Anyway, a lot of this is off topic because what congress wants to do is make people with pre-existing health problems pay more regardless of life style. I don't think there is a good argument for such a thing. Anyone?

 

[jmotivator]

Most states had high risk pools for two decades; we don't need to speculate what that system looks like. It didn't work then and it won't work now.

If Congress wants to throw their constituents back to the wolves, they and their families should have to sweat it out on a high-risk pool waiting list like anybody else.

LOL. "Wolves". Your scare tactics don't actually work so well even though you may feel they do. As it is many people in need of treatment can't get treatment because they can't afford their deductible.

Life expectancy is on the decline under Obamacare. To approach this statistic like an Obamacare defender I must conclude that Obamacare is killing people. :roll:

The GOP's across-state-lines proposal and state control over their markets are absolutely mutually exclusive. That's the entire point of it.

No, they are absolutely not mutually exclusive. With the health care policy power returned to the states and the federal government allowing sales across state lines there is nothing stopping states from entering into agreements on minimum coverage levels for the residents of the states and then having insurers market the same plan to all the member states regardless of where the insurer resides.

 

[Mach]

There is some unfairness to this argument.

If they are lifestyle choices, then would it not be a good incentive to have that clearly gives them information on what they need to do to statistically live longer? Some people only need a slap in the face to wake up. Further, it would give their doctor a way to approach it without pissing off the patient (I know a lot of these patients), they can just focus on getting the "insurance costs down", and to do that, well, we need to get your weight down...

Also, eating healthy IS hard, but should it be? Should it be hard in this day and age, in a nation that can do all of the incredible things we do on a daily basis in science and engineering and scale of business...its HARD to eat healthy in our society? What does that say about our population, that they basically demand of the market, unhealthy food? Freedom is all well and good, but freedom + ignorance is not much better than slavery IMO.

If there was ever a way to focus the intent of the population in at least one constructive way, maybe this is one such way. All Americans of sound mind and body should want eating healthy to be relatively easy, to have a relatively healthy lifestyle that results in a longer and higher quality life. And both of those things are entirely within our reach as a nation, almost trivially so. If this is one step in that direction, I say tally-ho

 

[rabbitcaebannog]

If they are lifestyle choices, then would it not be a good incentive to have that clearly gives them information on what they need to do to statistically live longer? Some people only need a slap in the face to wake up. Further, it would give their doctor a way to approach it without pissing off the patient (I know a lot of these patients), they can just focus on getting the "insurance costs down", and to do that, well, we need to get your weight down...

Also, eating healthy IS hard, but should it be? Should it be hard in this day and age, in a nation that can do all of the incredible things we do on a daily basis in science and engineering and scale of business...its HARD to eat healthy in our society? What does that say about our population, that they basically demand of the market, unhealthy food? Freedom is all well and good, but freedom + ignorance is not much better than slavery IMO.

If there was ever a way to focus the intent of the population in at least one constructive way, maybe this is one such way. All Americans of sound mind and body should want eating healthy to be relatively easy, to have a relatively healthy lifestyle that results in a longer and higher quality life. And both of those things are entirely within our reach as a nation, almost trivially so. If this is one step in that direction, I say tally-ho

To be fair you did not really address my argument. While it is easy to see people who are overweight, it is not so with thinner people who may also equally live unhealthy lifestyles. How do you get around it? I guess the answer is you really can't. That was my point.

 

[Mach]

To be fair you did not really address my argument. While it is easy to see people who are overweight, it is not so with thinner people who may also equally live unhealthy lifestyles. How do you get around it? I guess the answer is you really can't. That was my point.

I guess I didn't think that would be a real issue so I saw past it. I think they would check only a few things that were fairly reliable to spot. I don't think they could get away with checking things that could easily be inaccurate, and the data should show its inaccurate.
I don't know how drinking shows up in the blood stream or the liver, or if its only a question they ask and everyone could lie on. If so, that may not be something they can penalize you for until you present with a reliable indicator that you drink a lot. Exercise..that's a hard one, I suppose they can check resting heart rate, but again I don't know if that's one they would check necessarily.
I'd have to see the exact ways they intended to evaluate it, but if they have some reliable ways, and it's not 100 of them, but instead maybe 2-4 brackets, I'd be fine with it.

 

[rabbitcaebannog]

I guess I didn't think that would be a real issue so I saw past it. I think they would check only a few things that were fairly reliable to spot. I don't think they could get away with checking things that could easily be inaccurate, and the data should show its inaccurate.
I don't know how drinking shows up in the blood stream or the liver, or if its only a question they ask and everyone could lie on. If so, that may not be something they can penalize you for until you present with a reliable indicator that you drink a lot. Exercise..that's a hard one, I suppose they can check resting heart rate, but again I don't know if that's one they would check necessarily.
I'd have to see the exact ways they intended to evaluate it, but if they have some reliable ways, and it's not 100 of them, but instead maybe 2-4 brackets, I'd be fine with it.

It would become an issue if we are picking lifestyle choices as an indicator of what one should pay for heath insurance. I used alcohol as an example because it can lead to expensive health issues down the line. Many times it won't show up until health issues start to kick in as one ages. The same goes with eating disorders. You'd be surprised with the rise of them in younger people in both sexes.

 

[ALiberalModerate]

There is some unfairness to this argument. When you start leaving out other unhealthy life style choices like drinking alcohol (which is linked to many expensive health problems) you are picking on certain people. Is it just because it is easy to see people that look fat to slap higher prices on them rather than a thinner person that is a heavy drinker for instance. That means people that are overweight are basically wearing a scarlet letter while thinner people don't have to (even though they may have their own unhealthy lifestyle choices including hidden things like eating disorders).

What you are talking about is chasing pennies around dollar bills. In terms of costly preventable disease, alcohol use is not the primary problem, it's obesity and smoking. For example, one could say that free climbers are base jumpers are a big health insurance risk, so why shouldn't they pay a lot more. While that is true, there are not very many base jumpers and free climbers, so they are accounting for very little in regard to over all health spending. In contrast, there are still tens of millions of smokers and a huge percentage of the population that are clinically obese. They account for a huge amount of over all health care spending.

 

[ALiberalModerate]

Actually, highly processed foods are very cheap. Those are very unhealthy and are linked to obesity. The reality is that eating whole foods and organic food is very very expensive. People that make good incomes have the choice to buy healthier, but those that live on a shoe string budget don't always get those same choices. In a perfect world, the highly process junk should cost much more and the healthy stuff would be cheap. I honestly believe you would see changes in how people eat if healthy food was affordable for everyone. There is much more to the story of the lower your income the more unhealthy you are likely to be.

Have you ever shopped at ALDI? In any market they are in, they are well represented in poorer areas. You can buy whole foods at them every bit as cheap as you can buy processed foods. Frozen vegetables, rice, potatoes, sweet potatoes, chicken, turkey, frozen fish, legumes, even some produce like apples and oranges, are not that expensive. In fact, they are often cheaper than cooking with prepackaged processed foods.

 

[rabbitcaebannog]

What you are talking about is chasing pennies around dollar bills. In terms of costly preventable disease, alcohol use is not the primary problem, it's obesity and smoking. For example, one could say that free climbers are base jumpers are a big health insurance risk, so why shouldn't they pay a lot more. While that is true, there are not very many base jumpers and free climbers, so they are accounting for very little in regard to over all health spending. In contrast, there are still tens of millions of smokers and a huge percentage of the population that are clinically obese. They account for a huge amount of over all health care spending.

I'm going to disagree with you on the alcohol. https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/alcohols-effects-body
Also, a lot of obese people have eating disorders that are easily seen, but not so in those that suffer with the flip side, but with the same devastating health problems as one ages. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19526739

 

[rabbitcaebannog]

Have you ever shopped at ALDI? In any market they are in, they are well represented in poorer areas. You can buy whole foods at them every bit as cheap as you can buy processed foods. Frozen vegetables, rice, potatoes, sweet potatoes, chicken, turkey, frozen fish, legumes, even some produce like apples and oranges, are not that expensive. In fact, they are often cheaper than cooking with prepackaged processed foods.

Never heard of it. I usually shop at Whole Foods and Trader Joes.

 

[chuckiechan]

Maybe they want the corrupt democrats to vote for it .:lol:

Congress and both parties have carved out special rules from themselves since the beginning.

Congressmen all seem to become millionaires on salaries of 174K & 194K house and senate respectively. It is what it is.

 

[Removable Mind]

https://www.vox.com/2017/4/25/15429982/gop-exemption-ahca-amendment


Repeat after me:

'Republicans really care about the American people'
'Republicans really care about the American people'
'Republicans really care about the American people'

The U.S Congress is becoming more corrupt by the day.

A new rule quietly protects some lawmaker records from Congressional ethics inquiries

The new rule states that records created, generated or received by the congressional office of a House member “are exclusively the personal property of the individual member” and that the member “has control over such records,” according to a report by OpenSecrets.org.

While the rule change might seem relatively benign on the surface, it has severe and troubling implications for future ethical oversight and investigations of members of Congress as the Republicans fully take charge of Congress and the White House.

House GOP quietly shields lawmakers from ethics probes - Business Insider

 

[sangha]

Okay, congress originally exempted themselves, then after the public out cry, passed an amendment to include congress. Then takes a waiver to once again basically exempt them. One can use other words, but the bottom line is congress doesn't have to do what ordinary citizens do. To put it another way, Obama exempted congress.

I wonder how many times I will have to explain this before you stop tenaciously grasping onto this myth about how Obamacare exempted Congress, but lets see if two times works:

Obamacare *NEVER* exempted Congress. From the very beginning, PPACA required members of Congress and their staffs to buy insurance through the exchange. This requirement is still in effect and has not been changed since 2010 when PPACA was originally passed

They may have good reason to wonder if the politicians they elected are “feeling their pain”. That’s because the House and Senate have quietly taken a “Congressional waiver” from the administration that puts them above the law that was specifically amended to include Congress. The law says, “the only health plans that the Federal Government may make available to Members of Congress and congressional staff … shall be health plans that are – (I) created under this Act (or an amendment made by this Act); or (II) offered through an Exchange established under this Act (or an amendment made by this Act).”

Just wrong: Congress quietly takes ObamaCare waiver | TheHill

It amounts to the same thing.

Umm, that article is not about any waiver, though it dishonestly describes the OPMs rule as a waiver. Again, in spite of the desperation many on the right have to disparage ACA for something, ...anything, the fact is that Congress has not been granted any waiver from ACAs requirements

So please drop the false equivalency (ie both the dems and repubs exempted congress) and admit that when the dems controlled Congress, the bill they passed did not grant Congress any waivers from ACAs requirements and now that the repubs control Congress, the repubs want to grant Congress a waiver