Seriously: what is the Republican plan to fix healthcare? They claim they'll get rid of Ocare....and do what?

The premise of your question is false, in my opinion. The federal government was never meant to be a healthcare provider.

In so doing, they've created a huge financial liability, a huge wealth transfer program and poor healthcare outcomes.

And, in case you haven't noticed, we're basically bankrupt as a country:

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

, so how are we doing to pay for this?

While it's probably not politically realistic to simply nullify the broken Obamacare program, I would have zero problem with killing it and not replacing it.

The Republicans have never had a plan for healthcare other than to repeal Obamacare. They lack the conviction and moral backbone to pursue the correct policy, which is radical free market reform. Trump says he wants to reduce the FDA's regulatory burden on the commercializations of new drugs and medical devices, which is an important part of radical free market reform, but I don't think this will actually happen due to the degree to which powerful pressure groups benefit from those regulations. Most likely, nothing changes fundamentally under Trump.

One of the keystones will be to allow insurance companies to compete in all markets. States would no longer be able to limit our options to just companies with the best lobbyists and biggest campaign contributions.

Block grand the money to each state and allow each state to come up with their own plan.

So if you are in a liberal state and you want to use the fed. money + state money to cover everyone- go for it.

If you are wanting to cut eligibility back to strictly only those that fall under Federal medicaid eligibility, you can do that too.

Do as I do wrote:

One of the keystones will be to allow insurance companies to compete in all markets. States would no longer be able to limit our options to just companies with the best lobbyists and biggest campaign contributions.

This is correct, but not the analysis. The regulation of insurance is largely left to the states. When an insurance company wrongfully denies a claim or fails to timely pay a claim, you have remedies under state law, not federal law. The purpose of allowing you to buy insurance in a different state is to allow insurance companies to all flock to the state with the weakest consumer protections.

The rest of the Republican plan is to offer tax credits for HSAs with massive deductibles that basically insure nothing except for disasters.

Precious Roy wrote:

Do as I do wrote:

One of the keystones will be to allow insurance companies to compete in all markets. States would no longer be able to limit our options to just companies with the best lobbyists and biggest campaign contributions.

This is correct, but not the analysis. The regulation of insurance is largely left to the states. When an insurance company wrongfully denies a claim or fails to timely pay a claim, you have remedies under state law, not federal law. The purpose of allowing you to buy insurance in a different state is to allow insurance companies to all flock to the state with the weakest consumer protections.

The rest of the Republican plan is to offer tax credits for HSAs with massive deductibles that basically insure nothing except for disasters.

good post. The end result of the GOP plan will be that some state with low consumer protection will host all the health insurance companies. So the insurance companies will deny claims and the policy holders will have little recourse.

and part two will be some kind of tax credit given to some people to buy health insurance. Which sounds good, but the policies will probably be crappy thin policies with high deductibles. So the GOP will point and say 'See! look how cheap these policies are! Look how many people are covered!" but the deductibles will be high and little will be covered.

So that leaves it to the states...will they do their own thing? Will CA, NY, WA, etc...team up and have a single payer plan?

Precious Roy wrote:

The rest of the Republican plan is to offer tax credits for HSAs with massive deductibles that basically insure nothing except for disasters.

Excuse my ignorance, but isn't this essentially the same principle of the ACA, tax credits for health insurance for the poor? Or is this one of those things where they expect someone making $40k before taxes to put $5k into an HSA?

I don't know why any citizens are expecting any solution from this congress. The worst of them are not even trying to hide their real motives behind 'serving the people' now that Trump won. This is the same group of congressman that just yesterday tried to make it illegal for anonymous whistleblowers to report ethics violations of congressmen to authorities. Does that sound like a good law for the American public?

There is no way for the government to "fix" healthcare other than to stop breaking it by being involved at all. The only governmenr policy on healthcare should be a Constitutional amendment making it illegal for the government to subisidize or regulate it in any way whatsoever.

agip wrote:

So that leaves it to the states...will they do their own thing? Will CA, NY, WA, etc...team up and have a single payer plan?

No they will not. What would happen is that if these states offered Canadian style government healthcare is that sick people would move to these states in droves and drive up the cost and break the system. Other states around them would cut their level of care and chase those with chronic conditions to these states that offer Cadillac plans.

Paper wrote:

There is no way for the government to "fix" healthcare other than to stop breaking it by being involved at all. The only governmenr policy on healthcare should be a Constitutional amendment making it illegal for the government to subisidize or regulate it in any way whatsoever.

yeah! keep your government hands off my medicare!

Paper wrote:

There is no way for the government to "fix" healthcare other than to stop breaking it by being involved at all. The only governmenr policy on healthcare should be a Constitutional amendment making it illegal for the government to subisidize or regulate it in any way whatsoever.

right - definitely saddle companies with the cost of healthcare. That will sure help US competitiveness against other nations where the gov't pays for healthcare.

What is the problem with some of you? This is about our advanced civilization and our citizens having access to healthcare. Arguing about how people shouldn't have healthcare is insane!!! You can apply the same rhetoric to education. We waste money on education. Thats the job of parents, not the government.

Why are we sending billions of dollars to foreign governments, billions of dollars worth of weapons and killing machines to the other side of the world.

These aren't the Christian values this country was founded on.

It's easy for you to say that you have no problem killing it and replacing it.

But millions will lose coverage for care that they currently have.

I am not sure why you have no problem with other people having problems.

Maybe you are just selfish.

Dismantling the ACA doesn't affect me, either.

I have employer healthcare.

But I want the nation to be better as a whole.

It's not an either or matter. Getting rid of Obamacare is an accomplishment for healthcare in and of itself.

stupid is wrote:

Paper wrote:

There is no way for the government to "fix" healthcare other than to stop breaking it by being involved at all. The only governmenr policy on healthcare should be a Constitutional amendment making it illegal for the government to subisidize or regulate it in any way whatsoever.

right - definitely saddle companies with the cost of healthcare. That will sure help US competitiveness against other nations where the gov't pays for healthcare.

The government has been saddling companies with the cost of healthcare (and making individuals unduly dependent on their employers) for 70 years.

as stupid does wrote:

stupid is wrote:

right - definitely saddle companies with the cost of healthcare. That will sure help US competitiveness against other nations where the gov't pays for healthcare.

The government has been saddling companies with the cost of healthcare (and making individuals unduly dependent on their employers) for 70 years.

yes, and that has hurt our companies' competitiveness. that's the point. Some poster said that government should not have a role in healthcare - I was mocking that, since that would mean companies would most likely have to take on even more health care costs.

Christian Values wrote:

What is the problem with some of you? This is about our advanced civilization and our citizens having access to healthcare. Arguing about how people shouldn't have healthcare is insane!!! You can apply the same rhetoric to education. We waste money on education. Thats the job of parents, not the government.

Why are we sending billions of dollars to foreign governments, billions of dollars worth of weapons and killing machines to the other side of the world.

These aren't the Christian values this country was founded on.

A little education is a good thing! Medicaid is for the poor, who truly can't afford health care, and Medicare takes care of the elderly's needs. Obamacare is for those who could afford health care, but would rather have two cars in the driveway, a thousand channels on their big screen TV and a trip to Disneyland every year. But hey, if some rich guy is going to give me charity to pay for my premium, then sign me up!

Paper wrote:

There is no way for the government to "fix" healthcare other than to stop breaking it by being involved at all. The only governmenr policy on healthcare should be a Constitutional amendment making it illegal for the government to subisidize or regulate it in any way whatsoever.

That sounds nice, and if the US had an actual competitive market we could certainly stand less regulation but we have no free market & mostly giant monopolies. What else do you buy that has absolutely no price information available, is generally sent to insurance before you see a bill, (and if you do ever see the bill, it's incomprehensible.) Its virtually impossible to find the price of any procedure at your local hospital and and compare it to a hospital in the next town. Shouldn't we be seeing ads like this? "This week only! Colonoscopy $150!"