• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Obamacare repeal officially dead , Trump rage on twitter [POLITICO]

mAcOdIn

Member
Do you know anyone who actually uses it? Basically ridiculously high premiums with trash tier plans that have high deductibles and only covers a fraction of costs for anyone who's not dirt poor? It covers a small fraction of people really well but if you are not someone with a preexisting condition or poor then you are basically subsidizing people who are.
All of us are on the ACA just we're not all on the exchanges.
 

Zertez

Member
They didn't have a plan because they didn't think they would be in a position to enact one. Not that they could have come up with one that isn't terrible. Is is literally impossible to come up with a Republican plan that is not wildly unpopular.
Hard to disagree with anything you said, but most rational people would think they would at least have the framework in place to replace a bill they have hated for close to a decade now. Laying out a plan would have required possibly upsetting insurance companies, voters, health organizations, etc but at least they could have had something instead of the farce they have now. It will be close to impossible to please all Republican senators especially the few tea party members. Tired of both parties talking a big game but fail when they have a chance to make changes.
 
As a non-American...i gotta ask:

This is your President? His portrait will be included in the same pantheon as Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Benjamins?

If aftelife/heaven exist, i wonder what these past presidents are thinking..LOL
 

Shauni

Member
As a non-American...i gotta ask:

This is your President? His portrait will be included in the same pantheon as Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Benjamins?

Yes

If aftelife/heaven exist, i wonder what these past presidents are thinking..LOL

Majority of them are probably burning in hell, so I doubt they care much. Ones who made it to heaven probably don't either, for other reasons.
 
As a non-American...i gotta ask:

This is your President? His portrait will be included in the same pantheon as Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Benjamins?

If aftelife/heaven exist, i wonder what these past presidents are thinking..LOL

I think it's a positive thing if only to dispelled the American exceptionalism myth a bit. Not that such delusion can be cured completely.

If it instills the will to participate in the democratic process in young people, just by the sheer shock of how one election can change things, then there's at least one silver lining to what will undoubtedly become the biggest political embarrassment for the US internally and internationally.
 

Greecian-

Member
I love McConnell's use of the word "failing" when describing Obamacare. So what you're saying is that you failed to repeal a failing program? Multiple times? While controlling all the branches of government? That's pretty fucking sad.
 

commedieu

Banned
Do you know anyone who actually uses it? Basically ridiculously high premiums with trash tier plans that have high deductibles and only covers a fraction of costs for anyone who's not dirt poor? It covers a small fraction of people really well but if you are not someone with a preexisting condition or poor then you are basically subsidizing people who are.

This isn't the whole picture. Some people get screwed, but that's because we have for profit healthcare. A lot of people got help, and needed medication, who never had healthcare.

The plan needed to be improved with effort. It wasn't the ps2 out the gate. You have to factor these things in. Then oh yeah, Republicans gimped it every chance they could.

Generally speaking, you're going to subsidize poor and preexisting conditions if you don't have dire health needs, in a for profit system.

We should all just be paying a tax, as it's a human right to have free health care. Or hell, maybe we can stop building aircraft carriers since our biggest enemy to spend trillions against, is now our best friend. We've got money.
 

G.ZZZ

Member
Do you know anyone who actually uses it? Basically ridiculously high premiums with trash tier plans that have high deductibles and only covers a fraction of costs for anyone who's not dirt poor? It covers a small fraction of people really well but if you are not someone with a preexisting condition or poor then you are basically subsidizing people who are.

While we're at it why are poors using streets that are paid by my taxes? Why can't we simply mass sterilize them, they're useless.
 
obama-laugh.jpg

I truly believe there is no greater image for this.
 
Haven't they said this same thing before? They're going to keep trying until every horrid Republican is willing to vote for the contents of the bill.
 

JettDash

Junior Member
Republicans more or less invented Obamacare.

And when did they try to implement this?

Republican voters sure as hell DO care about healthcare, and that is the actual only reason why the GOP hasn't been able to repeal and replace with something worse. They're worried about taking a huge hit within their voting base the next time around.


If Republicans cared about improving heathcare more than their fanatical anti tax position, why didn't they the last time a Republican was president? Why did the GOP Congress refuse to work with Clinton and Obama on it?


If the current Republicans cared about improving healthcare why haven't they even considered doing that? Instead of repeal bills that pay for tax cuts with health spending cuts.

And no a few Republicans being too scared to make healthcare much worse does not mean the party cares about improving things.

Seriously, Republicans do not care about making the healthcare system better. When they are in power, they do nothing. Or try to make things much worse. And when Democrats are in power and work on it, Republicans only care about making sure the Democrats don't succeed.

Donald Trump may be the only Republican I've ever heard say he wants to cover everyone. But he's a lying piece of crap who has no idea what he is doing.
 

thefro

Member
Haven't they said this same thing before? They're going to keep trying until every horrid Republican is willing to vote for the contents of the bill.

They lose reconciliation once they pass the budget (has to be in September).

They'll have another next year, but they want to use that for tax reform.
 
This isn't the whole picture. Some people get screwed, but that's because we have for profit healthcare. A lot of people got help, and needed medication, who never had healthcare.

The plan needed to be improved with effort. It wasn't the ps2 out the gate. You have to factor these things in. Then oh yeah, Republicans gimped it every chance they could.

Generally speaking, you're going to subsidize poor and preexisting conditions if you don't have dire health needs, in a for profit system.

We should all just be paying a tax, as it's a human right to have free health care. Or hell, maybe we can stop building aircraft carriers since our biggest enemy to spend trillions against, is now our best friend. We've got money.
I don't disagree, and the expanded Medicaid is indeed subsidized by all of us as well, which I don't have a problem with. My problem is that people who have had employer-paid plans in the past aren't the ones who are paying extra for the ACA to cover the people with preexisting conditions and other added benefits, it's the people who are healthy but either unemployed or in jobs that didn't pay for their healthcare, many of which are low paying, due to the individual mandate. It's basically as unprogressive of a tax as it can get.

While we're at it why are poors using streets that are paid by my taxes? Why can't we simply mass sterilize them, they're useless.
Not sure what point you're trying to make. Most of the people using the exchanges would be considered poor too, just not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid, and those are the people suffering the most from their shit quality and high costs.
 
They can't write a decent bill for the life of them, so I wouldn't be too worried.

All it takes is for them to write a bill Evil enough to entice those that think it goes too "far left" and write a bill that doesn't upset constituents who think the previous bills went too "far right." Who the hell even knows what constitutes a republicans idea of going too far in any direction at this point...
 

Shauni

Member
All it takes is for them to write a bill Evil enough to entice those that think it goes too "far left" and write a bill that doesn't upset constituents who think the previous bills went too "far right." Who the hell even knows what constitutes a republicans idea of going too far in any direction at this point...

I mean, that's basically the ACA, hence the issue
 

Number_6

Member
Do you know anyone who actually uses it? Basically ridiculously high premiums with trash tier plans that have high deductibles and only covers a fraction of costs for anyone who's not dirt poor? It covers a small fraction of people really well but if you are not someone with a preexisting condition or poor then you are basically subsidizing people who are.

Are you sick/injured/in the hospital? If you aren't, then you are subsidizing people who are. That's called health insurance.

Were you in a car accident? Is your car being repaired right now from an accident or incident? Was your car stolen? If your answer is 'no', then you're subsidizing the people who answered 'yes', that's called auto insurance.

Are you ____ or _____ or ______? If not, then you are subsizidizing the people who are. That's called ______ insurance.

Difference being that people more or less have to pay in under the ACA. I don't see a huge problem with that aspect, it's people's lives. Taxes already pay for other people's kid's school, other people to get rescued by firemen, helped by police officers, etc. Just like with health insurance, you might just need that help someday, so you pay to keep the whole thing alive.
 
Are you sick/injured/in the hospital? If you aren't, then you are subsidizing people who are. That's called health insurance.

Were you in a car accident? Is your car being repaired right now from an accident or incident? Was your car stolen? If your answer is 'no', then you're subsidizing the people who answered 'yes', that's called auto insurance.

Are you ____ or _____ or ______? If not, then you are subsizidizing the people who are. That's called ______ insurance.

Difference being that people more or less have to pay in under the ACA. I don't see a huge problem with that aspect, it's people's lives. Taxes already pay for other people's kid's school, other people to get rescued by firemen, helped by police officers, etc. Just like with health insurance, you might just need that help someday, so you pay to keep the whole thing alive.
Read my post above, my problem is with much of the burden to shoulder the load to enable the ACA to have many of its benefits being placed on people who are least able to afford it. Quite frankly I think if they repeal the individual mandate and make everyone else shoulder the burden (via an increased premium for everyone across the board) that would be a lot more fair. And I'm speaking as someone who's always had employer healthcare.
 

WedgeX

Banned
Do you know anyone who actually uses it? Basically ridiculously high premiums with trash tier plans that have high deductibles and only covers a fraction of costs for anyone who's not dirt poor? It covers a small fraction of people really well but if you are not someone with a preexisting condition or poor then you are basically subsidizing people who are.

I used the ACA's exchange. Had a silver plan. The deductible was higher than my previous job had offered, but far cheaper overall than my school offered. The premiums were half of what my job paid to offer similar insurance. The co-pays were very reasonable. Hospital expenses were capped at a hard dollar amount, making any catastrophic emergency event relatively affordable and avoiding any situation where I'd have to declare bankruptcy.

I think people don't realize how heavily employer insurance is subsidized and how the funding for the exchanges has been denied and gutted to make it comparable. Also how much less we get paid for HR reps to choose unfavorable healthcare plans so they can go to fancy conferences and get kickbacks from insurance companies.

Read my post above, my problem is with much of the burden to shoulder the load to enable the ACA to have many of its benefits being placed on people who are least able to afford it. Quite frankly I think if they repeal the individual mandate and make everyone else shoulder the burden (via an increased premium for everyone across the board) that would be a lot more fair. And I'm speaking as someone who's always had employer healthcare.

The problem is that people always assume they will be healthy right up until they have a catastrophic medical event. And so will, if given the chance, go without insurance. And without covering pre-existing conditions, people are locked into one job forever. Pre-ACA anything related to simple allergies for me ceases to be covered once I left my parents insurance. The economic way to keep costs down is to acknowledge that people are really bad at choosing their own level of future health and mandate insurance for everyone. The kind thing from there is to subsidize insurance for people who have not yet gotten sick. Otherwise insurers hike up costs, kick sick people (that is, everyone who eventually gets sick) off insurance, and the markets either collapse or only the rich and long-time employed remain insured. Like was happening pre-ACA.
 

skybald

Member
I don't see the 'rage' in Trump's tweet. So I thought there were more tweets and went to look at them. There are no other tweets.

Utterly stupid tweet but I don't see the rage in it.
 

hobozero

Member
Read my post above, my problem is with much of the burden to shoulder the load to enable the ACA to have many of its benefits being placed on people who are least able to afford it. Quite frankly I think if they repeal the individual mandate and make everyone else shoulder the burden (via an increased premium for everyone across the board) that would be a lot more fair. And I'm speaking as someone who's always had employer healthcare.

The individual mandate exists because insurers cannot penalize for pre-existing conditions.

If you remove the mandate and increase premiums, people will simply cancel insurance until they need it, then buy it when they get sick. This will reduce the number of healthy people paying into the system, and the remaining people's premiums will increase, causing more people to cancel insurance until they get sick, and so on.

This is called a Death Spiral and can easily happen in a mis-managed or mis-regulated insurance market.

The larger the risk pool (# of people paying in), the lower everyone's premiums, and the healthier the market. It's not an attractive fact, but the truth is for your insurance markets to function properly, you need healthy people paying in. This is why single-payer countries like the UK and Canada can spend far less on healthcare as a % of GDP for similar results.
 

BitStyle

Unconfirmed Member
WINNING
WINNING
WINNING
WINNING
WINNING
WINNING
WINNING
WINNING
WINNING
WINNING
WINNING
WINNINGWINNINGWINNINGWINNING
WINNINGWINNINGWINNINGWINNING
WINNINGWINNINGWINNINGWINNING

Nice. Let's not relent though. These fuckers never stop at their attempts to fuck us over.
 

aeolist

Banned
Do you know anyone who actually uses it? Basically ridiculously high premiums with trash tier plans that have high deductibles and only covers a fraction of costs for anyone who's not dirt poor?
that sounds like my employer's plan. health insurance being shit isn't the ACA's fault, it's capitalism's fault.

It covers a small fraction of people really well but if you are not someone with a preexisting condition or poor then you are basically subsidizing people who are.
yes that is how insurance works.
 
Do you know anyone who actually uses it? Basically ridiculously high premiums with trash tier plans that have high deductibles and only covers a fraction of costs for anyone who's not dirt poor? It covers a small fraction of people really well but if you are not someone with a preexisting condition or poor then you are basically subsidizing people who are.

Yeah sadly it didn't change anything for me. Living in Virginia we are one of the states that refused the extra funding so even through the ACA I am still looking at $300+ a month for the lowest tier plan with a insane deductible. I simply cannot afford that and have remained uninsured.

I am glad it helped some people but it didn't do anything for me other than making me worry I might have to pay a fee for not having insurance every year.
 

Turbo

Neo Member
Well, we did expect this turnout after all. There is no form of cooperation between the house and senate republicans on ACA and it's replacement.

But they just won't stop at this though, and that is incredibly frustrating. I once heard that they spend quite the amount of money and time to repeal and replace. If this is so and every repeal just stacks up, can the democrats sue or do something to the republicans for the waste of money and time.

It doesn't have to be now, but maybe after democrats get the house or senate?
 

Diablos

Member
As a non-American...i gotta ask:

This is your President? His portrait will be included in the same pantheon as Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Benjamins?

If aftelife/heaven exist, i wonder what these past presidents are thinking..LOL
I think Reagan (the Republican Lord and Savior), if he were alive today would be thoroughly disgusted with Donald Trump and outraged at the sick reality of what the Republican party has become.

Pretty sure all of the living Presidents do not approve of him either.

Jimmy Carter must feel so giddy knowing there is now a President viewed as being more incompetent than he was. Plus, Carter actually had good ideas.
 

Kill3r7

Member
It's almost staggering how little they've actually accomplished in six months.

Obama has the entirety of the federal government literally cease functioning for almost a year and obstruct him left and right for 5 more.

Trump and the GOP have the senate, and the house, and soon the SC.

And still. Can't. Accomplish. Shit.

Their incompetence is truly staggering.

It shows that the system works. Control of congress and Presidency does not yield automatic results.
 
They lose reconciliation once they pass the budget (has to be in September).

They'll have another next year, but they want to use that for tax reform.
They really don't. Next year they'll be wanting to save themselves in the mid terms. The goal was to do this and tax reform in 2017. This time next year isn't going to be the best time to try and get unpopular stuff done.
 

Diablos

Member
They really don't. Next year they'll be wanting to save themselves in the mid terms. The goal was to do this and tax reform in 2017. This time next year isn't going to be the best time to try and get unpopular stuff done.
I can see them going for some tax reform next year. Maybe not as sweeping as they'd like, but some tweaks (like reverting back to top tax rate under Dubya).

And really, this is the Republican party we are talking about, they could pass the most horrendous things after big losses in 2018 (or any time, really) just because they can. Never count on Republicans to fully learn their lesson and do the more sensible thing. The party proved in 2016 that it's a shell of its former self with no principles whatsoever.
 

JettDash

Junior Member
Well, we did expect this turnout after all. There is no form of cooperation between the house and senate republicans on ACA and it's replacement.

But they just won't stop at this though, and that is incredibly frustrating. I once heard that they spend quite the amount of money and time to repeal and replace. If this is so and every repeal just stacks up, can the democrats sue or do something to the republicans for the waste of money and time.

It doesn't have to be now, but maybe after democrats get the house or senate?

The more time they spend on this, the less time they spend on the rest of their agenda, like tax reform. They are already behind.

Republicans wasting time not passing anything is the best possible outcome.
 

Oersted

Member
Hard to disagree with anything you said, but most rational people would think they would at least have the framework in place to replace a bill they have hated for close to a decade now. Laying out a plan would have required possibly upsetting insurance companies, voters, health organizations, etc but at least they could have had something instead of the farce they have now. It will be close to impossible to please all Republican senators especially the few tea party members. Tired of both parties talking a big game but fail when they have a chance to make changes.

Both parties? You are seriously pulling a both sides?
 

Chichikov

Member
It shows that the system work. Control of congress and Presidency does not yield automatic results.
Yep.
They have a lot of power that's for sure, but passing unpopular legislation is still very very hard, and that's democracy in action, even if it does not involve going to the ballots.

And when did they try to implement this?
People point out Romneycare in Massachusetts and the fact that ideas like the mandate and the exchanges were supported by conservatives in the past.
But the ACA is more than those things, there are certainly elements in it like the expansion of medicaid and some of the regulation and taxation which were never really popular in conservative circles.
 
The appearance of success is what matters to the president, not policy or people. Of course we already know that, but it's worth reflecting on the absurdity when he says this in his own words in no uncertain terms.
 

xfactor99

Member
I mean what it boils down to is that health insurance is just not a Republican issue. It's not something they really care about beyond an instinctual distaste for rich people being taxed to subsidize the poor.

Compare and contrast this to Democrats, who really care about making sure poor and sick people don't die because they can't afford health insurance. Every Democratic senator and a bunch of representatives voting for Obamacare in 2009 despite knowing that it would end their careers.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-perriello-aca-lost-seat-20170329-story.html

There was never a clear vision of what BCRA was meant to accomplish. First it seemed to be to abolish the taxes on the rich, then it was to permanently end Medicaid, then it was to make sure healthy, well-off people didn't have to subsidize poor, sick people. Trump's ignorance on the issue and impatience to just get a political win is representative of Republican thinking on healthcare.

I expect them to be more unified on tax 'reform'. We'll see though.
 
So what happens now? Obama care does have some problems. Do they just let it keep going? The uncertainty that congress will act has caused people's rates to shoot up. Congress is hurting people just as bad as the insurance companies.
 
I have concern that a straight repeal could gain some traction and even have a chance to get through. Without the pressure of presenting a replacement, they could pass it off as a win, "we did what we promised to do" while continuing their empty promises of coming up with something better within two years of the expiration.

More importantly, as the replacement is being drafted over those 2 years, Democrats will be unwilling to support or help any bills as they'll still be upset about the repeal of Obamacare, which will then give the Republicans an out. Right now, the onus is perceived as being on the Republicans, but if they can change that message to, "Well, we've been coming up with ideas since the repeal but the Democrats are refusing to work with us, even though the deadline is coming up and will leave millions uninsured," they can spin the message to make the Democrats look like the cause of the problem (and their base and moderates will probably lap it up).

I would hope that enough Congress members would stand up against a nebulous promise of "We'll come up with something, trust us," but I also could see them so desperate for a short-term "win" and also petty enough to do something like this.
 
Top Bottom