[quote] (CNN)Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul on Sunday unveiled the broad strokes of his Obamacare replacement package, a measure he again said Republicans must pass "on the same day as we do repeal."
"We've had six years to complain and we have complained -- I've been one of those complaining about Obamacare," he told CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union." "The replacement bill that we put together, our goal is to insure the most amount of people, give access to the most amount of people, at least the amount of cost."
Republicans have been at loggerheads over the timing and execution of their promise to repeal Obamacare and replace it with a cheaper alternative that will not disrupt the insurance market and leave millions of Americans without coverage. [/quote]
[url]http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/15/politics/rand-paul-obamacare-replacement/index.html[/url]
The real question is will any of these plans be acceptable or work as intended? Will premiums actually go down?
[QUOTE]"One of the key reforms that we will do is, we're going to legalize the sale of inexpensive insurance," he said. "That means getting rid of the Obamacare mandates on what you can buy. We are going to help people save through health savings accounts, as well as a tax credit."
Those less expensive options, which were prevalent on the market before the 2010 reform was signed into law, would offer less robust care but also, as supporters argue, be more neatly tailored to what consumers view to be their specific needs.
Under Paul's program, the bargaining power created by the state and federal exchanges would be replaced with a provision that allows individuals and associations like small businesses to create their own markets.
"There's no reason why (a business owner) with four employees shouldn't be able to join with hundreds and hundreds of other businesses that are small to become a large entity to get leverage to bring your prices down," Paul told Tapper.
He added that those negotiations with insurance companies could also be used to guarantee the availability of policies that "can't cancel you and guarantees the issue of the insurance even if you get sick."[/QUOTE]
I can't help but to interpret this as essentially allowing shady insurance companies to flourish again who offer discount insurance and have hidden clauses that essentially allow them to deny anything they want while locking customers into multi year contracts, and conduct the same discrimination against women and pre-existing conditions that the ACA was designed to stop.
It's all well and good to theorize that deregulation will encourage companies to make policies more available and fair but it certainly didn't fucking work before the ACA.
Additionally it seems to provide absolutely no thought for the unemployed or those who aren't able to work because [I]they're medically incapable.[/I]
He suggests fixing problems with the ACA by allowing very cheap plans and emphasizing Health Savings Accounts. However, neither of these really benefit the poor - the people most affected by rising healthcare costs. Poor people are forced to either go with the cheapest plans (with insane deductibles), or with no plan at all, and are the same people unable to put aside money into an HSA. Without the medicaid expansion, these people are going to be swept under the rug.
He also seems to want to entrench the employer-provided healthcare system even more, despite that being a huge issue - people can't leave their job, even temporarily, without risking their health or incurring huge personal cost.
Just from the excerpt in the article, it strikes me as a very pro-rich plan, which is no surprise at all. If that's a fair assessment, fuck you Mr. Paul. I have the great fortune to be rich, but that doesn't mean I want to drag the rest of the country down for my own minor gains.
[QUOTE=BlackMageMari;51676766]The real question is will any of these plans be acceptable or work as intended? Will premiums actually go down?[/QUOTE]
They won't. What we need is a universal single-payer system. We're not getting that here though, and despite the fact that this debate has been ongoing since the 1940s, it has come to nothing. Anything less is going to be inadequate. Paul's proposal here is no different.
[quote]Paul's plan did not directly address the future of states that signed on for expanded Medicaid offered as part of Obamacare. Kentucky, which had a Democratic governor when the law went into effect, was among those to accept the funds. The majority of the more than 400,000 Kentuckians insured under the law were brought into the fold by Medicaid expansion.
"That's the big question," Paul said of their fate. "And I don't think that's going to be in the replacement aspect."
The future of Medicaid expansion would then be decided during the repeal process, which will run through a budget reconciliation vote -- one that requires only a simple majority for passage.
"What we have to decide is what can be kept and what can't be kept," Paul said, suggesting that the states should raise taxes if they want to maintain their current expenditure levels.
He also described the current system as having come about as the result of "deceitfulness" by the Obama administration, which Paul accused of having misled the public about the federal government's ability to foot the bill.
"So I'd say that if you want to have more Medicaid you should say we're going to have to have higher taxes to pay for it," he said.[/quote]
Obama didn't "deceive" anybody. We [i]do[/i] have the ability to pay. We've got more than enough resources at our disposal, money wouldn't be a problem if we bothered to start cutting back on our defense spending (which has been out of control since the Bush Administration and the beginning of the War on Terror; we could cut close to $1 trillion over the next 10 years and invest that money elsewhere, [url=http://money.cnn.com/2011/01/05/news/economy/lawrence_korb_defense_spending/index.htm]which is something Obama actually discussed back in 2011[/url]).
Republicans have proven time and time again in recent decades that they are incapable of providing proper social welfare to Americans. What a bunch of chucklefucks.
[quote]"There's no reason why (a business owner) with four employees shouldn't be able to join with hundreds and hundreds of other businesses that are small to become a large entity to get leverage to bring your prices down," Paul told Tapper.[/quote]
This is literally what single payer is but he just won't let the government do it.
[QUOTE=Thom12255;51676869]This is literally what single payer is but he just won't let the government do it.[/QUOTE]
He would never support single payer because, to him, it's [I]literally[/I] slavery:
[QUOTE=Rand Paul]With regard to the idea of whether you have a right to health care, you have to realize what that implies. It’s not an abstraction. I’m a physician. That means you have a right to come to my house and conscript me. It means you believe in slavery. It means that you’re going to enslave not only me, but the janitor at my hospital, the person who cleans my office, the assistants who work in my office, the nurses.[/QUOTE]
So its basically what we had pre-2010 and favors the born lucky. Nice.
I almost, [I]almost[/I] want the union to break apart and the liberal states can form their own nation together so we can get with the times.
Let the deep red continue to dig their own graves.
[editline]15th January 2017[/editline]
[QUOTE=Thy Reaper;51676891]He would never support single payer because, to him, it's [I]literally[/I] slavery:[/QUOTE]
Single payer is nothing like that though, what the fuck was he smoking.
It's just one payer, the delivery of healthcare can continue to be private, he can still own his own practice privately, the fed will just foot the bill with its budget.
[QUOTE=LtKyle2;51676892]Single payer is nothing like that though, what the fuck was he smoking.
It's just one payer, the delivery of healthcare can continue to be private, he can still own his own practice privately, the fed will just foot the bill with its budget.[/QUOTE]
I wish I knew, it's completely bizarre logic to me. From reading the opinions of various libertarians, some think "healthcare as a right" means the government can compel labor, while others think that taxation is equivalent to slavery (and so healthcare as a right is also slavery?). Based on his wording, I imagine Paul sides with the first, but that doesn't mean it makes any more sense to me.
so basically hes saying small businesses and other people will be responsible enough to force coverage of pre-existing conditions.
what a fucking asshat, HSAs won't help you pay for chemo, and shitty insurance that doesn't cover chemo won't either
[QUOTE=Thy Reaper;51676859]
Just from the excerpt in the article, it strikes me as a very pro-rich plan, which is no surprise at all. If that's a fair assessment, fuck you Mr. Paul. I have the great fortune to be rich, but that doesn't mean I want to drag the rest of the country down for my own minor gains.[/QUOTE]
While I haven't really analyzed the proposal myself, I doubt that's the actual intent. Rand Paul has always been pretty clear about his stance on reeling in the rich, to my knowledge.
[QUOTE=Thy Reaper;51676891]He would never support single payer because, to him, it's [I]literally[/I] slavery:[/QUOTE]
So I think what he's saying with that is "health care is not a right on par with the right to life". He's defining rights as things you can rightly defend at any cost. Stuff like "right to life" or "right to freedom from torture" are things where nobody in their right mind will consider you wrong if you kill to protect your rights. If you define "rights" that way, and then insist healthcare is a "right", then yeah, the logical conclusion is that you can force doctors to treat you, or even force people to train as doctors and then force them to treat people.
That's a rather stupid semantic debate, because that's a very limited definition of "rights" that would also exclude things like right to free speech or right to a fair trial (can you conscript lawyers to defend you? No, you can't - public defenders are paid by the state). So it's technically self-consistent if you use that definition, but that's not at all the common usage, particularly for the right to health care.
It's also a very poorly expressed argument, as evidenced by everyone here misunderstanding it. But if I'm right, what he was trying to say is a lot less stupid than what everyone thinks he was trying to say.
[QUOTE=gman003-main;51677388]So I think what he's saying with that is "health care is not a right on par with the right to life". He's defining rights as things you can rightly defend at any cost. Stuff like "right to life" or "right to freedom from torture" are things where nobody in their right mind will consider you wrong if you kill to protect your rights. If you define "rights" that way, and then insist healthcare is a "right", then yeah, the logical conclusion is that you can force doctors to treat you, or even force people to train as doctors and then force them to treat people.
That's a rather stupid semantic debate, because that's a very limited definition of "rights" that would also exclude things like right to free speech or right to a fair trial (can you conscript lawyers to defend you? No, you can't - public defenders are paid by the state). So it's technically self-consistent if you use that definition, but that's not at all the common usage, particularly for the right to health care.
It's also a very poorly expressed argument, as evidenced by everyone here misunderstanding it. But if I'm right, what he was trying to say is a lot less stupid than what everyone thinks he was trying to say.[/QUOTE]
in his context he was implying that if the government were to make healthcare a right they would need to force doctors and every healthcare worker in the entire industry to work, presumably for free, to acomplish this.
ya hes a nutty libertarian so don't get your hopes up for anything constructive
[QUOTE=TWKUK;51677243]While I haven't really analyzed the proposal myself, I doubt that's the actual intent. Rand Paul has always been pretty clear about his stance on reeling in the rich, to my knowledge.[/QUOTE]
It may not be his outward stance, but I have to wonder why he focused on things that would be almost completely irrelevant to the poor. HSAs benefit people with spare income, or employers with good benefits. Cheap, high-deductible plans aren't really a benefit for anyone, they're more like a stopgap measure against devastating scenarios - the sorts of scenarios that are devastating even after the healthcare bill is covered. Allowing employers to group together to negotiate coverage is primarily a benefit to small business owners, not employees.
The one difference may be the tax credit, but I can't remark on how it affects anyone without seeing specifics.
[QUOTE=gman003-main;51677388]It's also a very poorly expressed argument, as evidenced by everyone here misunderstanding it. But if I'm right, what he was trying to say is a lot less stupid than what everyone thinks he was trying to say.[/QUOTE]
I think it's a purposefully disingenuous argument. Surely he's keenly aware of Medicare and Medicaid, which are already single payer systems, and virtually identical to a universal single payer system. Neither system involves involuntary servitude no matter how you twist the idea.
The only part of our system that can be construed that way might be mandatory emergency care - you actually do basically get to force a doctor to care for you, regardless of your ability to pay. Personally, I'd think a single payer system would be less awful than this in every way - even from Rand Paul's perspective.
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