How's that Obamacare Repeal Working Out For You?

[Fife]

Anybody who wants to get together a constitutional amendment saying that no American government at any level can interfere with or get involved in any way with health care has my vote.

If what we mean by the "for-profit insurance model" is the shit we have now, the as for ending the for-profit insurance model immediately? I'm all for that.

The for-profit health insurance model was here long before government got involved. Government got involved and made it worse because the existing model obviously doesn't work.

I see evidence of the beginning of the government's fuckery back right after WWII, beginning with wage controls. The incentive to employers struggling to retain workers was to find other ways to pay employees, and health plans became a thing. The insurance racket didn't miss that trick.

Just think how expensive health care is going to be when it's "free."

[Speaker to Animals]

Anybody who wants to get together a constitutional amendment saying that no American government at any level can interfere with or get involved in any way with health care has my vote.

If what we mean by the "for-profit insurance model" is the shit we have now, the as for ending the for-profit insurance model immediately? I'm all for that.

The for-profit health insurance model was here long before government got involved. Government got involved and made it worse because the existing model obviously doesn't work.

I see evidence of the beginning of the government's fuckery back right after WWII, beginning with wage controls. The incentive to employers struggling to retain workers was to find other ways to pay employees, and health plans became a thing. The insurance racket didn't miss that trick.

I think you are stretching things pretty far to try and make this a government problem. It's really just a flawed model. Health insurance doesn't really work that well when it is based primarily on for-profit insurers since they have a profit incentive to deny services and the for-profit insurance model is predicated upon minimizing risk, which means definitely not taking on sick people.

I could see for-profit insurance working as supplementary insurance to pay for the truly expensive shit that we can't possibly just hand out to everybody in some kind of not-for-profit or government-run system.

[DBTrek]

Can't get salty at me when you look at our comparative post counts, boyo.
If this place sucks we know whose shoulders that weight is placed upon.
(The guy the forum owner has had to edit, because his content is so leet)

My argument was clearly over your head so I'll write it in tiny words for you:
Profit is not the problem.

Now regale us with your solution . . . or continue with your bitching that never leads to a solution.
Whatever.

[Speaker to Animals]

Anybody who wants to get together a constitutional amendment saying that no American government at any level can interfere with or get involved in any way with health care has my vote.

If what we mean by the "for-profit insurance model" is the shit we have now, the as for ending the for-profit insurance model immediately? I'm all for that.

The for-profit health insurance model was here long before government got involved. Government got involved and made it worse because the existing model obviously doesn't work.

I see evidence of the beginning of the government's fuckery back right after WWII, beginning with wage controls. The incentive to employers struggling to retain workers was to find other ways to pay employees, and health plans became a thing. The insurance racket didn't miss that trick.

Just think how expensive health care is going to be when it's "free."

In addition to the earlier reply to this, the reason the health insurers lobby so God damned hard against a public option to take the pre-existing sick is that they know it would eventually cut into their profits. They didn't even want the government to pay separately for the people they refused to take on their programs. Instead they wanted to force everybody to pay for those additional costs, plus their hefty profits. But if we just took people they refuse to cover and put them on Medicare, eventually they would lose as increasingly more people shift to Medicare.

It's just not a viable business model.

[Speaker to Animals]

Think of it in terms of for-profit fire insurance. Does it make any sense at all for people to call up an insurer and get insured while their house is literally burning down? Of course not. If house fires were as common as humans dying, and if the government forced fire insurers to take on accounts even when the house is already on fire, then the fire insurers would go out of business in short order.

But people's access to health insurance depends upon their access to jobs which, in the wake of globalist offshoring treaties and unending mass immigration and colonization of our country, really is no meaningful insurance at all. It's not necessarily the fault of the sick person that they are uninsured, and forcing them to die or suffer unreasonably simply is not going to happen in a democracy. People will vote for some way to fund this shit, and if you don't get out ahead of this problem now you are damned well guaranteed to get some new horrible democrat solution.

[Martin Hash]

Nice

[pineapplemike]

damn one way or another it looks like trump is ready to take healthcare on. risky strategy, i would think he should focus on some non-partisan government cheese BS like an infrastructure bill

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
The Republican Party will become “The Party of Healthcare!”
9:58 AM - 26 Mar 2019

Trump administration backs total overturn of Obamacare, will support states challenging the law
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump- ... he-law.amp

The Trump administration on Monday told a federal appeals court that the whole Affordable Care Act must be abolished, setting for a clash between President Trump and 2020 Democratic candidates embracing “Medicare for All” system.

Justice Department attorneys filed a letter with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans asking to effectively strike down the ACA in its entirety, agreeing with the landmark ruling made by a federal judge in Texas last year.

"The Department of Justice has determined that the district court’s judgment should be affirmed. Because the United States is not urging that any portion of the district court’s judgment be reversed, the government intends to file a brief on the appellees’ schedule," the filing read.

[Fife]

HRAs?



Trump could revolutionize the private health insurance market

For decades, economists and health-care experts have warned about flawed incentives and rising costs in America’s system for employer-sponsored health insurance. That system, through which more than 150 million Americans get their coverage, has proven difficult to reform — until now.

Last week, the White House finalized a new rule that allows employers to fund health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs) that can be used by workers to buy their own coverage on the individual market. This subtle, technical tweak has the potential to revolutionize the private health insurance market.

Today, employer-based health coverage is a defined benefit. If — and only if — an employer buys group coverage for its employees, the value of that benefit is excluded from taxation. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates this tax break is worth more than $300 billion a year.

A big tax break may sound good, but this one creates perverse incentives. In the employer-based market, not only is a third party — the insurer — paying for health care, but another third party — the employer — is choosing and funding the insurance plan. Call it ninth-party health care.

In this system, workers almost entirely lack the tools they need to shop for low-cost, high-quality health care services. For the typical worker, 80 percent of health care is paid for through insurance. Without transparency into the price of health insurance, workers lack transparency into the price of health care.

The employer tax exclusion is also highly regressive, because those in higher tax brackets receive a larger benefit from the rule than those in lower ones. Silicon Valley programmers and Manhattan lawyers get a far bigger tax break for health insurance than do cashiers or truck drivers.

[Speaker to Animals]

I doubt the average American is better equipped to negotiate with insurers than a large employer. For the people working at small and mid-cap businesses, this might be a better deal, depending upon how shitty or responsible their employers are, but for people working at large-cap employers, most of them will never be able to get as good of a deal on their own than what is possible by their employer negotiating directly with insurers.

In general, the more money a negotiator is bringing to the table, the more leverage and even attention they have at their disposal.

Joe Blow Cube Hero, making 80k per year with his single healthcare voucher has really no negotiating power whatsoever.

In my estimation this would be a boon for insurers, and I'd expect premiums to go even higher as a result.

Shekel cuckery is cuckery. This is health care, dummies. The more "market-based' you make it, the worse your lives are going to become.

[Fife]

Ignoring completely what competition does to supply.

Anyway, I'm for total eradication of the state in all matters, not just "healthcare." Half-measures are interesting academically, I suppose. But whatever comes out of Washington is not designed to help out the working Joes, bet that.