Republicans are accidentally paving the way for single-payer health care

Nice read.

I think it sounds about right. It is kind of why I have been pretty silent on this. Obamacare was always just "a foot in the door" to me. A pathway to more universal care.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...34b6d506b37_story.html?utm_term=.2a9c33c11046

Sooner or later, we will have universal, single-payer health care in this country — sooner if Republicans succeed in destroying the Affordable Care Act, later if they fail.

The repeal-and-replace bill passed by the House last week is nothing short of an abomination. It is so bad that Republicans can defend it only by blowing smoke and telling lies. “You cannot be denied coverage if you have a preexisting condition,” House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) said — true in the narrowest, most technical sense but totally false in the real world, since insurance companies could charge those people astronomically high premiums, pricing them out of the market if, as often happens, they let their coverage lapse. “There are no cuts to the Medicaid program,” Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said — a bald-faced lie, given that Republicans want to cut $880 billion from Medicaid in order to offset a big tax cut for the rich.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted that an earlier version of the American Health Care Act, as Trumpcare is officially called, would result in 24 million Americans losing health insurance over the next decade, with 14 million of those unfortunates losing coverage within the first year. Republicans rushed to vote Thursday on the final bill before the CBO had a chance to score it, doubtless fearing the projected decimation could be worse....

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I used to think it would be about 20 for a clear path to UHC to emerge. I think it is closer to 10....and I never thought of it this way...but the Republicans may inadvertently be paving the way.

year2late said:

Nice read.

I think it sounds about right. It is kind of why I have been pretty silent on this. Obamacare was always just "a foot in the door" to me. A pathway to more universal care.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...34b6d506b37_story.html?utm_term=.2a9c33c11046





I used to think it would be about 20 for a clear path to UHC to emerge. I think it is closer to 10....and I never thought of it this way...but the Republicans may inadvertently be paving the way.

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Quite right ... and that was the plan from the get-go ... Obama's on video saying as much.

bubbabgone said:

Quite right ... and that was the plan from the get-go ... Obama's on video saying as much.

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It was a foot in the door.

Obama was playing the long game.

year2late said:

Nice read.

I think it sounds about right. It is kind of why I have been pretty silent on this. Obamacare was always just "a foot in the door" to me. A pathway to more universal care.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...34b6d506b37_story.html?utm_term=.2a9c33c11046





I used to think it would be about 20 for a clear path to UHC to emerge. I think it is closer to 10....and I never thought of it this way...but the Republicans may inadvertently be paving the way.

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I'm not so sure it is accidental. Politicians love power and control. I believe the real purpose of Obamacare was to get one government foot in the health care door with the end plan to institute a single payer system. I don't see anything in what the congress has been doing that is any different. If they want to help and also fulfill their promise, they need to repeal Obamacare and move on. They certainly won't do that. That would be a reduction in power and control.

year2late said:

It was a foot in the door.

Obama was playing the long game.

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You bet. Even unspoken it wasn't much of a secret.

It's disgusting.

This is why Obamacare should never have been passed.

This is why Roberts utterly failed the American people by not throwing out the plainly unconstitutional garbage in its entirety.

This is why the Republicans should simply repeal the thing and be done with it. It does not need to be replaced with anything.

JayDubya said:

It's disgusting.

This is why Obamacare should never have been passed.

This is why Roberts utterly failed the American people by not throwing out the plainly unconstitutional garbage in its entirety.

This is why the Republicans should simply repeal the thing and be done with it. It does not need to be replaced with anything.

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If the premise for the opinion piece is correct...I hope they do repeal it.

year2late said:

If the premise for the opinion piece is correct...I hope they do repeal it.

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It's shameful the damage you and yours want to inflict on both healthcare services and individual freedom.

JayDubya said:

It's shameful the damage you and yours want to inflict on both healthcare services and individual freedom.

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Ah yes, access to healthcare is so shameful.

we're probably heading for single payer eventually, and, much like our current version of universal healthcare, we are doing it in the most inefficient and expensive way possible.

GOP House vote invested the Party in ACA-AHCA.

Single payer is now almost inevitable.

Everyone has always had access to healthcare in this country. Doctors are complicit in this scheme - it's called the Hippocratic Oath.

year2late said:

Nice read.

I think it sounds about right. It is kind of why I have been pretty silent on this. Obamacare was always just "a foot in the door" to me. A pathway to more universal care.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...34b6d506b37_story.html?utm_term=.2a9c33c11046





I used to think it would be about 20 for a clear path to UHC to emerge. I think it is closer to 10....and I never thought of it this way...but the Republicans may inadvertently be paving the way.

Click to expand...

Which is why it always amazes me that the left are so shrill and hateful with regard to republicans. At worst, republicans drag their feet on new entitlements; at best; they step in and make them more efficient. The actual differences between the two parties isn't nearly as vast as the heated rhetoric makes it appear.

year2late said:

Nice read.

I think it sounds about right. It is kind of why I have been pretty silent on this. Obamacare was always just "a foot in the door" to me. A pathway to more universal care.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...34b6d506b37_story.html?utm_term=.2a9c33c11046





I used to think it would be about 20 for a clear path to UHC to emerge. I think it is closer to 10....and I never thought of it this way...but the Republicans may inadvertently be paving the way.

Click to expand...

The Republicans don't have to do a thing for the ACA to destruct on its own. Today Aetna announced it is completely pulling out of the entire ACA market. Next year you'll have Knoxville and the surrounding 15 counties with no ACA health insurance companies at all. Unless another insurance company moves into the Iowa ACA market, Iowa, the whole state won't have any ACA health insurance company at all. Nine state will have a choice of just one. If one wants to call that a choice. Its a take whatever price that lone insurance company wants to charge as a premium along with how ever high a deductible and be happy with it or be fined.

To be honest, fighting to keep the ACA is asinine as it is self-destructing before our very eyes. But I agree with you that the ACA was just the first step to single payer. Perhaps it was designed to fail so single payer would be the last best option. I don't know. The Republicans have been very stupid, they shouldn't have offered a thing. All they had to do is sit on their hands and the the ACA implode. Instead they stepped into the pile of manure with eyes wide opened. How stupid can one be?

Fletch said:

Which is why it always amazes me that the left are so shrill and hateful with regard to republicans. At worst, republicans drag their feet on new entitlements; at best; they step in and make them more efficient. The actual differences between the two parties isn't nearly as vast as the heated rhetoric makes it appear.

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Trumpcare is basically Obamacare lite.

Perotista said:

The Republicans don't have to do a thing for the ACA to destruct on its own. Today Aetna announced it is completely pulling out of the entire ACA market. Next year you'll have Knoxville and the surrounding 15 counties with no ACA health insurance companies at all. Unless another insurance company moves into the Iowa ACA market, Iowa, the whole state won't have any ACA health insurance company at all. Nine state will have a choice of just one. If one wants to call that a choice. Its a take whatever price that lone insurance company wants to charge as a premium along with how ever high a deductible and be happy with it or be fined.

To be honest, fighting to keep the ACA is asinine as it is self-destructing before our very eyes. But I agree with you that the ACA was just the first step to single payer. Perhaps it was designed to fail so single payer would be the last best option. I don't know. The Republicans have been very stupid, they shouldn't have offered a thing. All they had to do is sit on their hands and the the ACA implode. Instead they stepped into the pile of manure with eyes wide opened. How stupid can one be?

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I think the republican administration is to blame for Aetnas decision because they are sabotaging the ACA and harming the certainty of the marketpace.

This is not a market failure caused by a death spiral, this is the republicans intentionally flying the plane into the ground.

Unitedwestand13 said:

I think the republican administration is to blame for Aetnas decision because they are sabotaging the ACA and harming the certainty of the marketpace.

This is not a market failure caused by a death spiral, this is the republicans intentionally flying the plane into the ground.

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How are republicans forcing Aetna out of the Obamacare market?

JayDubya said:

It's shameful the damage you and yours want to inflict on both healthcare services and individual freedom.

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Tell that to the industrialized nations that national health care.

Jay, tell us which nation is trying to copy our catastrophic system, either before or after ACA.

Fletch said:

Which is why it always amazes me that the left are so shrill and hateful with regard to republicans. At worst, republicans drag their feet on new entitlements; at best; they step in and make them more efficient. The actual differences between the two parties isn't nearly as vast as the heated rhetoric makes it appear.

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Hogwash.

If we were closer together, we could have had an affordable care act that was more affordable. If we were closer together healthcare insurance would be seen as a necessity rather than a luxury.

If we actually were closer together we could have sat down like grown ups and figured out how to make it work 8 years ago. Instead our politicians did what they do. Backroom deals to achieve a semblance of a goal.

Well, what we got was a foot in the door.

And you talk about hatred towards the Republicans? Were you a grownup in the Obama years? And the last election? It is a two way street. It really is. I hear nasty rhetoric coming from both sides. The hate and vitriol from the right can be downright disgusting.

Unitedwestand13 said:

I think the republican administration is to blame for Aetnas decision because they are sabotaging the ACA and harming the certainty of the marketpace.

This is not a market failure caused by a death spiral, this is the republicans intentionally flying the plane into the ground.

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The flaws were there at the beginning. The Republicans couldn't do a thing to the ACA. Passed in 2010, the Democrats controlled both chambers of congress and the presidency. From 2011-2014, the Democrats controlled the senate and the presidency. Nothing could be done by the Republicans to the ACA. Even after gaining the senate, from 2015-16, Obama was still president which would require a 2/3rds majority in congress to over ride any veto.

Now I am not saying the Republicans didn't allow the Democrats to fix the flaws or change the law. They just made the Democrats abide by what they passed. Although Obama took it on his own to make many changes, changes that he could make. Without those changes, delaying a lot of the law from being implemented until after an election as not to hurt the Democrats chances.

You can blame the Republicans, but it wasn't their law. The ACA or its better known name, Obamacare belonged lock, stock and barrel to the Democrats. Now when this law was first passed, without a single Republican vote, I wasn't on DP then. I was on Politico. But I said then that I thought this law, the ACA was designed to fail. Let it fail and go to single payer. That was the Democrats goal.

I have no doubt single payer is coming, probably faster now since the Republicans decided on their repeal and replace tactics. Why on earth the GOP would take the onus off the ACA and the Democrats with their Trumpcare, Obamacare lite, is beyond my comprehension. But I believe that depending on how it is done, single payer is probably the best way to go. The question is can the taxpayer afford it? With a national debt closing in on 20 trillion, I wonder.

Obamacare is indisputably ruining the American health care system. The standard Democrat tactic is to look for a "problem", propose government intervention as the "solution" and then, when that intervention makes the problem worse, blame the private sector for problems the government created or exacerbated. This is exactly what Obamacare was designed to do - crash the system - in order to create a clamor for a "single payer" system, which simply means a federally run nationalized health care system of some sort. For obvious reasons, nationalized/socialized health care has been the Big Kahuna for Leftists for generations.

Given the realities of their electoral majorities, Republicans face the following three choices:

1. Do nothing and let the evidence/blame against the Democrats pile up. This is (arguably) a savvy political move, but most Republicans agree that letting Americans feel the pain longer than necessary would be immoral.

2. Repeal Obamacare in whole, which would require a minimum of 60 votes in the Senate, assuming Republicans all stick together (which isn't a given in either chamber of Congress). Failing that, Senate Republicans could change the Senate's rules to eliminate the filibuster and/or the cloture rule as it currently exists. Either of these would require a united Republican caucus in order to succeed, far from a given. And Mitch McConnell has signaled that he is unwilling to change that "tradition" of the Senate.

3. That leaves using the reconciliation process to repeal as much as you can, requiring a sufficient amount of editing/bribery to secure enough votes for passage. This is not a repeal, though it is a replacement of sorts. It's really just a modification of Obamacare, but the GOP has elected not to go to the voters and say "this is the best we can do without 60 seats in the Senate". Instead, their messaging is a flat-out lie as Obamacare isn't being repealed in the least through this method.

The best path would have been something along the lines of #2, wherein Republicans go back to their voters and say "we tried" with an up-or-down vote and then run against the opponents of repeal at election time in 2018 (be they Democrat or Republican). Opting for #3 smacks of deceiving the voters, betraying the base and providing political cover for moderate Republicans who don't want to lose any graft their constituents have received under Obamacare.

A grevious choice, but Republicans haven't passed anything yet and haven't modified Obamacare by law one iota. This is completely on the heads of Obama, Pelosi, Schumer and their friends in the legislature.