Looking Ahead, Republicans Examine Options in Health Care Fight

[alp227]

Source: NYT

Republican lawmakers who have spent two years railing against President Obama’s health care law are beginning to devise alternatives so they can be ready if the Supreme Court forces the issue of the uninsured back into the center of political debate.

“If Obamacare goes away, it doesn’t mean that the problem of how you deliver health care affordably and get good access goes away,” Representative Greg Walden, Republican of Oregon, said. “Those are the issues that are back before us.”

Republicans say they will have to make good on their pledge to replace the health care law if the Supreme Court strikes down any significant parts of it. They remain optimistic about the possibility of a court victory, even as they begin thinking more seriously about what would follow.

“Our wheels are beginning to turn,” said Representative Fred Upton, Republican of Michigan and chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which would have a large role in developing Republican alternatives to the Obama health care law.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/04/us/politics/republicans-examine-alternatives-to-obama-health-plan.html?pagewanted=all

[Skittles]

1. they didn't care about the uninsured before

why would they ever care?

[nxylas]

3. Nobody thinks they're suddenly going to start caring about the 99%

I think the article is saying that the uninsured will again become an issue, and the Republicans have to say something. Self-entitled as they are, even they must realise that actually coming right out and saying "we don't care how many people die as long as the corporations that pay for our campaigns continue to make a profit" will cost them votes.

[Skittles]

4. they deny there is even a problem

they still believe America has the best health care in the world!

[nxylas]

11. That won't work for them any more

Nobody is going to swallow that line now. They denied that global warming was happening until the evidence became incontrovertible, and then they had to change their line to "it's happening, but human beings aren't responsible, oh and Al Gore is FAT". I think we're at the same stage with healthcare now. They are going to have to put some new spin on it.

[SammyWinstonJack]

6. They want to gut Medicare which will increase the nos. of uninsured.

So yeah, we're suppose to believe they give a rat's ass about the uninsured?

[CBHagman]

7. They're also on record as supporting the Ryan plan...

...which, if implemented, would throw millions off Medicaid.

Don't forget too that this is the party that went after SCHIP and even smeared a family, including a 12-year-old who'd been in a severe car accident, during a legislative fight over that program.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/12/opinion/12krugman.html?_r=1

[safeinOhio]

2. Their only plan is to allow you

to buy insurance from (under the regulations of) any other state.

You may recall they did that with credit cards and all the companies moved to the least regulated states and rates went from 5 % to 28%.

They'll always find a way to let business screw us out of another buck or two.

[Monk06]

5. Another buck or a billion. That's why they are fighting so hard. They know the status quo

in unsustainable. So they, the Republicans, are carrying water for the insurance companies until the insurance companies get out of the business all together due to rising costs.

That is the costs of doing business, in addition to cost to the consumer of usurious premiums, co-pays and service charges until the consumer can no longer pay.

Then the insurance industry will get out of health insurance and the government will have to pay for the wreckage left behind..

In Canada we saw that private health insurance was unworkable from the beginning in 1948. We finally got the insurance companies out our lives with single payer in 1964. They are now trying to creep back.

In Canada if you lose your job you still have health care. The US is unique in that it is the only country that I know of where an employee fears to lose his or her job because they will no longer have health insurance. In Canada again, group health insurance, which is what you have in the US pays for extras; like breast implants. Basic care is single payer and the privates are not allowed by law to provide basic health services.

Plus the disguised slave system in the US, of company controlled health insurance must end. It must go the way of the company store and paying employees in company script rather than legal currency. These slave policies must end

Unfortunately American citizens will only see single payer when the country is bankrupt and can't afford to convert to a single payer system. But by then the insurance companies will have Chapter Sevened themselves out of their liabilities and moved their cash offshore.

I am not gloating about the predicament of my American brothers. Harper is trying to undermine the Canada Health Care Act and the Canada Pension Plan with the full cooperation of his US Republican allies. He's now trying to raise the retirement age to 70. Gee I wonder where he got that idea.

Single payer is a dead letter in the US for the next decade anyway. But if SS is changed to raise the retirement age to 70 in the US, the Republicans will disappear from the face of the earth.

Not even Nixon or Reagan were that cruel.

[MarianJack]

8. I notice that one of the options is NOT to...

...pull their collective head out of their collective ass.

PEACE!

[klook]

9. "Well, there's 'Don't get sick'...

Anybody got anything else? No? Well, let's just go with that. We'll refer to it as 'patient-centered health care,' and 'keeping the government out of doctor's offices.' It's always worked before."

[BeyondGeography]

10. Yeah, we know..."Own your own health care."

With no leverage whatsoever against the insurance monopoly.

Very exciting, guys. Keep them wheels turning.

[AlbertCat]

12. Republicans Examine Options

but don't plan on actually doing anything.... as usual.

[zipplewrath]

13. They're in a tough corner

There is little they can do to achieve the same levels of savings for the federal government over the next 10 years that ACA did. Their only possible solution that doesn't look alot like ACA, is to push more people out of medicare/caid. THAT'll be real popular.

My personal suspicion is that they'll retain many of the key features, from the donut hole to the 26 year old inclusion (they might actually extend that one to 30 or so). What they'll dump is the mandate, and replace it with something like Part D where if you don't get insured, about the time you show up, there will be penalties. Maybe higher premiums for 5 years, or higher deductibles and copays. What probably gets lost is some of the employer mandates. That will just leave more people "on their own" for getting insurance. The other area that will be tough is the expanded medicaid population. They'll probably reduce that since there won't be any "mandate" any more, they won't care about more people being uninsured. They have to be careful though, the subsidies and employer mandates were actually going to REDUCE the cost to the feds. It was basically cost shifting. If they get rid of those, the price back to the feds will go back up.

[Bandit]

14. This is a really easy one for them, Tax Cuts for the wealthy...

It is their ONLY trick as a one trick pony...

[Iliyah]

15. These GOP don't care

they only care about self and their own families, anybody else, eff you.

Something that the US Constitution is not. The founding fathers knew that a healthly country is a strong and happy country. The GOP have gutted almost everything that once was good for America all because of GREED.

[kenfrequed]

16. They don't have a plan.

Mandated insurance was something they actually could live with and it was originally part of their plan in the 90's. The only reason they are against it now is because the Democrats enacted it.

Maybe they would eliminate caps and regulations protecting people from being dropped or denied in order to "increase market based reforms." It doesn't matter. As problematic as President Obama's healthcare reform was the Republicans will always come up with something far, far worse.

[grantcart]

17. “Our wheels are beginning to turn,”

Ironically if they were in the private sector and only started to get their wheels turning after decades of deterioration, they would be bankrupt.

[ut oh]

18. I still think...

we need to find a way to take away Congress' 'Rolls Royce' health plans and make them join the 'plebes' insurance plans. We might actually get some honest work out of them if we did.