www.lifelineagency.com blog site of Jon Bouche

THE 2017 BATTLE OVER OBAMACARE – WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

BACKGROUND

What was the situation with health care in the United States before the PPACA (Obamacare) was passed in 2010 by the Democrats?

Leading up to the Democrats passing Obamacare into law, there are many videos of President Obama and the Democrats decrying that we had 30 million uninsured people in this country and that health care costs were out of control and rising every year.  The Dems insisted that “something” had to be done and they did not let this crisis go to waste.  The Democrats accepted zero GOP input on the PPACA legislation and then passed it into law without even one GOP vote. So in short……they own it.

Where we are today, 7 years after the PPACA (Obamacare) has been the law:

According to the CBO, we currently have 32 million uninsured Americans and this can be viewed here http://www.usdebtclock.org/.  During Bernie Sander’s presidential campaign in late 2016, he stated that we still have 29 million uninsured so it is obvious that the Dems are very much aware of the actual number of uninsured Americans we still have.

So even considering that the U.S. population increased from about 309 million in 2010 to 324 million in 2017, we still have over 30 million uninsured so what significant thing did the PPACA (Obamacare) really accomplish?  Also, since the Medicaid expansion accounts for more than 80% of the newly insured, why was this not the ONLY thing that was passed instead of this Leviathan known as Obamacare?  So, what exactly did the American tax payer get through the passage of Obamacare?

• The cost of Obamacare is hard to pin down but even the most conservative estimates are in excess of $2 TRILLION. These are tax payer dollars that are just gone.
• Americans have fewer carriers to choose from as some of the larger, established companies such as Cigna and Humana are gone.
• Americans have fewer plan choices as the carriers have been forced to eliminate HSA plans and catastrophic plans because they are not Obamacare compliant.
• Out of pocket costs including deductibles have increased.

What is the Democrat plan to fix Obamacare? 

• The publicly stated position of Democrats is to insist that the law is working and that anywhere from 20 to 40 million people are now insured as a result of Obamacare.
• The Dems also claim that the GOP has offered no plans to replace Obamacare.
• The Dems further claim that repealing the law will cost the tax payers “billions of dollars”.

Since it is well documented that we still have over 30 million uninsured Americans, the first talking point of the Democrats is very misleading as it does not tell the whole story.

The GOP has offered several plans to replace Obamacare over the last 7 years and these can be found online.  Here are a couple of them but there are many more.

• https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp-content/uploads/sites/47/2016/06/ABetterWay-HealthCare-PolicyPaper.pdf?tid=a_inl
• http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/GOPHealthPlan_061709.pdf

Once again, what the Dems are saying is just not true.

The third point the Dems make is that the cost of repealing Obamacare will cost “billions”. The Dems throw this number around without any sort of independent study or data to back it up.  It seems that the sole intent of this statement is just to scare people into leaving the law in place even though the law is obviously failing.

What we do know for certain is that Obamacare has cost the American taxpayers in excess of $2 TRILLION and we have more uninsured than we had before while the costs to the taxpayers are still rising rapidly.

So….what should we do?

Well, the fact is that the largest percentage of Obamacare participants (about 70%) are Medicaid eligible.  In other words, people are using the $800 million Healthcare.gov website as nothing more than an online signup portal for Medicaid, a program that we have had in place since 1964.  We already paid for that website so perhaps that should just continue to function as the Medicaid enrollment portal that it is.

If I were calling the shots, my health care plan would look like this….

1. Controlling Medical Costs – The companies that already exist to calculate “reasonable and customary” costs for insurance actuaries could publish these costs studies so that Americans would have informed consent when seeking health care.  The current plan of not knowing what you will be charged for services until you receive the bill is absolutely insane and is rife with graft.  A component to this website could be added to review doctors and facilities.  Just imagine being able to choose the doctor and hospital that you can afford and feel comfortable with.  Again, “free market” solution here. –  THE COST OF MIGRATING PRICING DATA TO A NEW WEBSITE WOULD BE MINIMAL.
2. Medicaid Patients – If Medicaid is something that the American people want to continue, Medicaid income eligibility levels should be established through Federal legislation and these should be tied to fluctuating inflation rates. Those with pre-existing conditions which preclude them from obtaining health insurance on the open market would still be eligible for Medicaid…..just as they have been since 1964. – THE ADDITIONAL COST OF THIS WOULD BE ZERO SINCE MEDICAID IS ALREADY IN PLACE.
3. Increased Competition – Insurers should be able to compete across state lines in a true “free market” model. The plans they offer will be based on consumer demand and costs just as a “free market” should work.  Even so, this will probably not drastically reduce premiums since actuaries will still use regional cost models to determine premiums.  However, it could level out premiums by increasing competition. – THE COST OF REMOVING ENCUMBRANCES TO COMPETITION WOULD BE ZERO.
4. Individual Responsibility – Those who are not Medicaid eligible because of their income levels will be responsible for purchasing their own health insurance. If someone chooses to go without health insurance and they experience an illness or injury requiring costly medical care, they will be responsible for those medical costs.  Those debts will NEVER go away until they are paid or negotiated with the providers. Again….this is how the “free market” and “individual responsibility” works. – THE COST OF THIS TO THE TAX PAYER WOULD BE ZERO.
5. State Controlled – States should have risk pools, a clinic system and a re-insurance program to address the 5% of medical occurrences that account for 50% of the health care costs each year. This would require a nominal tax increase but the money saved should more than offset the costs.
6. HSA Accounts – While I don’t like big government “solutions” at all, we should consider transitioning Social Security to an HSA format.  Just like SS, everyone would have it at birth but they would control their own accounts for life.  The accounts would have triple tax savings for contributions, earnings within the HSA, and qualified distributions just as traditional HSA plans do.  I would also suggest that these would be legacy accounts that stay in each family and can be transferred all or in part without penalty to family members or anyone they might designate.  When the holder of the account passes away, the account should just pass to the family. This is BOLD but makes more sense than the Ponzi scheme that is Social Security right now.
7. Building the Wall – For Illegals using our Emergency Rooms, we should treat them, identify them and their country of origin, deport them if they are here illegally and then bill their country of origin for medical costs and the costs of deportation.  The money saved could go to border security.– COST TO THE AMERICAN TAX PAYER IS ONCE AGAIN……ZERO.

And that’s it.  It really is this simple.