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Sanders, Warren tell Americans to demand health care bill transparency

Greenbeard said:
Experts. Those who know well the health care system, health policy, health economics. This is a three trillion dollar industry and no one who knows anything about it is being consulted.



The vote will be next week. There have been no hearings, no markups, and there will be no serious floor debate.
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You mean like Gruber? That expert? Let's wait and see what the Senate plan is. But, no matter how bad it might be, it's got to be better than a system with exponentially high prices, only one insurer in many areas, with the threat of some areas maybe having no insurers at all. That's what you want to defend to the death? You guys want to scream about all of those poor uninsured (who will now be able to NOT buy insurance if they don't want to) and yet you don't seem to care that there will be millions uninsured if there are no insurers left to insure anyone.
 
AlbqOwl said:
That's strange.
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It's incredibly strange. No bill (particularly of such import) is slipped through the Senate with so little public discussion or scrutiny. And yet the leadership has signaled a vote on their as-yet-unrevealed legislation will occur next week.

The Senate's timeline for the ACA, for comparison, was:

May 6, 2008: Senate Finance holds the first of dozens of hearings, roundtables, bipartisan meetings, and summits around the issues that later formed the core of the ACA.

July 15, 2009: Senate HELP committee approves the text of health reform bill after televised markup (and accepting 160 GOP amendments).

October 13, 2009: Senate Finance committee approves the text of health reform bill after nearly three weeks of televised markups.

November 20, 2009: Senate begins five weeks of televised floor debate of the ACA.

December 24, 2009: Senate passes ACA with 60 votes.
 
Moderate Right said:
A bit off topic but over the last several years I have seen an astounding amount of things wrong (grammar and spellingwise) in written stories by reporters. Many just show an astounding lack of knowledge in grammar and there are also glaring spelling problems that could have been caught by a spellcheck if they had bothered to use it. I mean it was obvious that these weren't even just typos. Many other times you could see they copied and pasted things or cut them and then never proofread to see that they had screwed up in doing so. I'm not really sure what exactly they learned in college because I learned all this stuff in high school.
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True, but reporters are often not all that great at spelling or proofreading their own work. Or they didn't used to be. I started out as a copy girl and then proof reader before I got my first real reporting assignment, but even with a lot of college, a lot of practice, and a lot of news stories, I still don't always proof my own work competently. But if the proofreaders are as bad as the reporters, then it surely will get pretty bad. And no reporter has complete control over what an editor will do with his finished copy either. It can get ugly.

But yes, especially the print media simply doesn't put the money into it that they used to. They take stuff verbatim off the AP or Reuters feed, maybe write a new lead for it, but there is very little investigative reporting being done these days. And when they do, they seem to be making a lot of stuff up. Of course they have to cut corners because their subscriptions are down. And that becomes a vicious circle because sloppy or irrelevent or incompetent content results in less readership.

I would be happy if the media was just a little bit objective. But most aren't. And no longer even pretend to be.
 
Moderate Right said:
You mean like Gruber? That expert?
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I mean like any expert. Anywhere in the country. If they want to bring me in to testify, I'll gladly do it. The point is they should be talking to someone. They are not.

Let's wait and see what the Senate plan is.
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All indications are that it looks stunningly like the House plan. Big fan of that are you?

But, no matter how bad it might be, it's got to be better than a system with exponentially high prices, only one insurer in many areas, with the threat of some areas maybe having no insurers at all. That's what you want to defend to the death? You guys want to scream about all of those poor uninsured (who will now be able to NOT buy insurance if they don't want to) and yet you don't seem to care that there will be millions uninsured if there are no insurers left to insure anyone.
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You don't seem to be getting this. The AHCA raises premiums. Gross premiums for the first few years (by double digits), and then as the older and sicker get weeded out and fall into uninsurance gross premiums fall but net premiums are still higher than right now. Meanwhile out-of-pocket spending on deductibles, co-insurance, etc increases substantially.

As for "no insurers left," get a grip. The only rating areas facing the prospect of no exchange-participating insurers are the ones with no people in them.

Currently, counties at risk of having no participating plan are largely rural counties with limited enrollment. Those counties had an estimated 34,000 people who selected an exchange plan in 2017, representing 0.3% of all 12.2 million people who signed up for coverage.
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Ironically most of the diminished competition in those areas and others is because of (1) GOP dismantling of the exchanges' risk mitigation mechanisms, and (2) uncertainty caused by the GOP's repeal push/awful replacement ideas and Trump's threats to withhold the CSR funding. And in all likelihood in most cases some insurer will be there to catch the stray enrollees in those empty counties after all.
 
BWG said:
Today is Wednesday. Very few has seen it AS OF TODAY!!!!!

There is no guarantee that everyone will see it on Thursday.

McConnell says so? McConnell is a known liar.

No false narrative here.

Naivety on your part to believe the liar McConnell.
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McConnell is one of the most dishonest old geezers to ever graze the halls of the capitol...
 
Greenbeard said:
I mean like any expert. Anywhere in the country. If they want to bring me in to testify, I'll gladly do it. The point is they should be talking to someone. They are not.



All indications are that it looks stunningly like the House plan. Big fan of that are you?



You don't seem to be getting this. The AHCA raises premiums. Gross premiums for the first few years (by double digits), and then as the older and sicker get weeded out and fall into uninsurance gross premiums fall but net premiums are still higher than right now. Meanwhile out-of-pocket spending on deductibles, co-insurance, etc increases substantially.

As for "no insurers left," get a grip. The only rating areas facing the prospect of no exchange-participating insurers are the ones with no people in them.



Ironically most of the diminished competition in those areas and others is because of (1) GOP dismantling of the exchanges' risk mitigation mechanisms, and (2) uncertainty caused by the GOP's repeal push/awful replacement ideas and Trump's threats to withhold the CSR funding. And in all likelihood in most cases some insurer will be there to catch the stray enrollees in those empty counties after all.
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Funny how you guys say it is all being done in secret and then you turn right around and claim that they are using no experts. If the proceedings were secret, how do you know they weren't using any experts? Why do you keep talking about the AHCA? That's not what the Senate is doing. That is what the House did. If the Senate had liked the AHCA they didn't even need to make their own plan. They could have just voted on the House plan. They made their own plan because they didn't like the AHCA. The president didn't even like the AHCA. But, anything to fit into your partisan agenda of resistance and obstructionism.
 
Moderate Right said:
Funny how you guys say it is all being done in secret and then you turn right around and claim that they are using no experts. If the proceedings were secret, how do you know they weren't using any experts?
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They aren't using any experts. A handful of Senators are haggling over how to make cosmetic tweaks to make it sound less bad when they package up the PR.

Why do you keep talking about the AHCA? That's not what the Senate is doing. That is what the House did. If the Senate had liked the AHCA they didn't even need to make their own plan. They made their own plan because they didn't like the AHCA. The president didn't even like the AHCA. But, anything to fit into your partisan agenda of resistance and obstructionism.
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I'm talking about the AHCA because all accounts that have leaked out of the Senate deliberations indicate their bill is a carbon copy of the AHCA with a few tweaks to help it survive the reconciliation rules.

Why aren't you talking about the GOP's vaunted seven-years-in-the-making "replace" plan that passed the House?
 
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Greenbeard said:
They aren't using any experts. A handful of Senators are haggling over how to make cosmetic tweaks to make it sound less bad when they package up the PR.



I'm talking about the AHCA because all accounts that have leaked out of the Senate deliberations indicate their bill is a carbon copy of the AHCA with a few tweaks to help it survive the reconciliation rules.

Why aren't you talking about the GOP's vaunted seven-years-in-the-making "replace" plan that passed the House?
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You don't know they aren't consulting experts. Your partisanship is showing. Why can't you wait until Thursday to show your partisanship instead of making yourself look like a fool now?
 
Moderate Right said:
You don't know they aren't consulting experts. Your partisanship is showing. Why can't you wait until Thursday to show your partisanship instead of making yourself look like a fool now?
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Given that you obviously understand the GOP's vaunted seven-years-in-the-making "replace" plan that passed the House is garbage, what is it you're hoping to see tomorrow morning?
 
Greenbeard said:
It's incredibly strange. No bill (particularly of such import) is slipped through the Senate with so little public discussion or scrutiny. And yet the leadership has signaled a vote on their as-yet-unrevealed legislation will occur next week.

The Senate's timeline for the ACA, for comparison, was:

May 6, 2008: Senate Finance holds the first of dozens of hearings, roundtables, bipartisan meetings, and summits around the issues that later formed the core of the ACA.

July 15, 2009: Senate HELP committee approves the text of health reform bill after televised markup (and accepting 160 GOP amendments).

October 13, 2009: Senate Finance committee approves the text of health reform bill after nearly three weeks of televised markups.

November 20, 2009: Senate begins five weeks of televised floor debate of the ACA.

December 24, 2009: Senate passes ACA with 60 votes.
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I wish it was illegal at DP to pluck a single phrase out of a post and make it look like something different than what the member posted.
 
Moderate Right said:
Where on Earth did you get that crap? Republicans plan on getting rid of subsidies and replacing them with tax credits instead. That's tax credits for those in lower income levels to help them buy health insurance. It has absolutely nothing to do with the wealthy.
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What good are tax credits to the 45% of Americans that don't make enough to pay Federal income taxes? I suppose you didn't think of that.
 
AlbqOwl said:
I wish it was illegal at DP to pluck a single phrase out of a post and make it look like something different than what the member posted.
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Indeed, your posts in just this thread alone suggest an incredibly authoritarian bent.
 
Moderate Right said:
Well, yes, the Democrats did flat out say they refused to even talk about healthcare if repeal was the starting point. They clearly said they would ONLY discuss improving Obamacare, nothing else. No matter what you think, even if you were correct, it doesn't change the fact that Democrats did refuse to talk about healthcare if repeal started out on the table. This is why Democrats have been shut out of the discussion, because they themselves refused to talk about any kind of repeal. They should have have at least said, we'll consider repeal and replace if we can come up with a better system but they didn't. Slightly off topic but, If I remember right, you were in the healthcare field in some fashion so I'm curious as to what you think of a single payer system.
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It makes sense to not talk about healthcare if repeal starts out on the table. Complete sense. You don't realize this.. few do.. but Obamacare is way way more complicated than simply Mandates and subsidies. The ACA resolved all sorts of issues with Medicare, with how hospitals were paid so on and so forth. It was a very comprehensive and far reaching legislation. If the republicans repeal it.. full repeal.. it means a huge disruption of the healthcare industry.. medicare and Medicaid. the amount of replacement legislation that would be needed if the ACA was repealed fully would be staggering.
Its why republicans railed about the ACA, and voted to repeal it tons of times.. and the minute that they actually had the control to repeal it? they didn;t.. and that's because it would have been a huge disruption of the healthcare system.. huge. And in particular medicare Some good.. some bad.

As far as single payer? Its a bad idea.. and its exactly where the republicans seem to be taking us.. running right at it. Its a common thread that republicans are against something when its democrats proposing it.. and when they do it its great.

Single payer is the eventual end game for the insurance companies and now it looks like that's what the republicans are going to drive us to. Before the numbnuts on this thread start talking about liberals and republicans and how republicans are against big government and democrats love it...

I refer you to the Medicare modernization act: the single biggest increase in entitlement spending in decades... republican president and republican congress.
 
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jaeger19 said:
It makes sense to not talk about healthcare if repeal starts out on the table. Complete sense. You don't realize this.. few do.. but Obamacare is way way more complicated than simply Mandates and subsidies. The ACA resolved all sorts of issues with Medicare, with how hospitals were paid so on and so forth. It was a very comprehensive and far reaching legislation. If the republicans repeal it.. full repeal.. it means a huge disruption of the healthcare industry.. medicare and Medicaid. the amount of replacement legislation that would be needed if the ACA was repealed fully would be staggering.
Its why republicans railed about the ACA, and voted to repeal it tons of times.. and the minute that they actually had the control to repeal it? they didn;t.. and that's because it would have been a huge disruption of the healthcare system.. huge. And in particular medicare Some good.. some bad.

As far as single payer? Its a bad idea.. and its exactly where the republicans seem to be taking us.. running right at it. Its a common thread that republicans are against something when its democrats proposing it.. and when they do it its great.

Single payer is the eventual end game for the insurance companies and now it looks like that's what the republicans are going to drive us to. Before the numbnuts on this thread start talking about liberals and republicans and how republicans are against big government and democrats love it...

I refer you to the Medicare modernization act: the single biggest increase in entitlement spending in decades... republican president and republican congress.
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I have to admit that my heart is not in debating healthcare anymore. Obamacare is a disaster. The House plan is a disaster. The Senate plan is a disaster. None of the three do anything to address the real root causes of the costs of healthcare and that's what we need. Both sides absolutely refuse to address the root causes. Both sides have their written in stone talking points which they will not budge from. A bipartisan plan would still not address the root causes of the costs of healthcare because neither side even talks about it. The left wants to argue and debate this crap that has no chance of passing anyway. The Senate plan will not make it out of the Senate and, even if it did, it cannot be reconciled with the House version. So, the left tries their best to get as much political mileage out of this as they can.

As a person who used to love politics, I'm getting to the point of considering abandoning DP because there really isn't anything to be gained here, just as gridlock will continue to get worse both in DC and in the electorate. There are no solutions to anything because the two opposing side's only game plan is to get more control in order to ram their agenda through next time. No one anywhere notices that that strategy is not working for either side. Trump was our only hope in saving the country from itself and that's why he was elected and yet both sides fight him tooth and nail and for good measure, Trump does what he can to screw it all up himself.
 
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Moderate Right said:
I have to admit that my heart is not in debating healthcare anymore. Obamacare is a disaster. The House plan is a disaster. The Senate plan is a disaster. None of the three do anything to address the real root causes of the costs of healthcare and that's what we need. Both sides absolutely refuse to address the root causes. Both sides have their written in stone talking points which they will not budge from. A bipartisan plan would still not address the root causes of the costs of healthcare because neither side even talks about it. The left wants to argue and debate this crap that has no chance of passing anyway. The Senate plan will not make it out of the Senate and, even if it did, it cannot be reconciled with the House version. So, the left tries their best to get as much political mileage out of this as they can.

As a person who used to love politics, I'm getting to the point of considering abandoning DP because there really isn't anything to be gained here, just as gridlock will continue to get worse both in DC and in the electorate. There are no solutions to anything because the two opposing side's only game plan is to get more control in order to ram their agenda through next time. No one anywhere notices that that strategy is not working for either side. Trump was our only hope in saving the country from itself and that's why he was elected and yet both sides fight him tooth and nail and for good measure, Trump does what he can to screw it all up himself.
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I see the Debate forums like this one as one of the solutions to the problem you have defined. The reason that we have gridlock etc.. is because the electorate is extremely uninformed. "obamacare is a disaster"... okay.. what EXACTLY is a disaster about Obamacare?

Can you name 10 things in Obamacare that are a disaster? and why?

I hope you can.. most people can't
Most democrats don't know whats in it either. a

And because the electorate doesn't know.. we can't hold our politicians to know either.

Places like this board are where.. probably the few places where you can actually get facts and learn the truth about what is going on in the world. You have to weed through a lot of stuff sometimes, but there is a lot of information here. For people that are willing to be objective on this board.. a person frequenting here regularly would end up being probably better informed than the vast number of politicians in congress.
 
In other words, the same people who NEVER bothered to read the Obama care bill before passing it, and who RUSHED it through Congress without allowing any discussion or debate, are the ones who are calling for "transparency" and complaining that the Democratic process is being undermined? These are the very people who knowingly created a bill that forced millions of people to lose their insurance, after lying to 330 million Americans when they said "you will be able to keep your insurance".

Yep, sounds like democrats! BTW, have the mainstream media reported their hypocrisy and criticized them for this, repeatedly, over and over, every day? No? Well that's strange! I thought they were objective and unbiased. That's what many people here claim....
 
jaeger19 said:
I see the Debate forums like this one as one of the solutions to the problem you have defined. The reason that we have gridlock etc.. is because the electorate is extremely uninformed. "obamacare is a disaster"... okay.. what EXACTLY is a disaster about Obamacare?

Can you name 10 things in Obamacare that are a disaster? and why?

I hope you can.. most people can't
Most democrats don't know whats in it either. a

And because the electorate doesn't know.. we can't hold our politicians to know either.

Places like this board are where.. probably the few places where you can actually get facts and learn the truth about what is going on in the world. You have to weed through a lot of stuff sometimes, but there is a lot of information here. For people that are willing to be objective on this board.. a person frequenting here regularly would end up being probably better informed than the vast number of politicians in congress.
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That would be true if the public read these boards. As it is, only political enthusiasts read them and they are a minority in the electorate. I do blame the electorate for the mess we are in politically, however.
 
Winston said:
If you get hung up on every thing a Senator or House member says you'll go crazy. Republicans make horrible public statements via social media, see Clay Higgins, "Kill them all." Or, see Donald Trump any time he talks about minorities, ever. Do you expect me to condemn their rhetoric and hold them accountable for every little controversey and dust-up? Or, would you like to step back and recognize that rhetoric is an influencing factor, but, ultimately people have free will to make their own choices.



Sanders and Warren have always been outspoken opposition. The only thing that has changed is now, they actually have an audience that isn't 65+. Personally, I'm glad that the Republicans are taking heat for the AHCA. The heat is righteous, every congressman who voted for the bill should have to answer for its flaws. And McConnel's manner of conducting business should not be normalized.
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A republican an make exactly the same complaints about the democrats. Government is dysfunctional and probably because of the political parties.
 
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