Breaking: ACA Not Repealed.
 

For seven years, Republicans have contributed nothing to society, and chanted, "Repeal Obamacare" as their only idea. They won the House, the Senate, and the White House. And. They. Failed.

Paul Ryan has pulled AHCA from the House. ACA is very popular, and constituents don't want it repealed.

Republicans had ONE IDEA and it was a stupid one.

I R Happy. And Amused. I know. I'm bad, but never look a gift elephant in the mouth

For now, I'm sure we haven't heard the last of this. They could still fix ACA's shortcomings, the deals that had to be made with the lobbyists to get it passed in the beginning, but they won't. They could still make it weaker, chip away at it, low profile damage, but we'll see.

That's the problem as I see it. The hyperpartisanship will prevent reasonable adjustments from being made. Ideally I'd rather see a single payer system, but I doubt we can do that with a broken government.

Our government if far from broken. Our democracy is broken, but our oligarchy/plutocracy is strong and vital.
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As I say: my health care is my business, not yours.

Repeal, don't replace.

Let me shop and buy across state lines and leave me be.

Initially I misread "Single Prayer System" :eek:

...but what about those for whom it is all too complex and overwhelming and costly and so end up without insurance? And without vaccinations? If we let them die in the street, who will pay to remove the bodies?

No, we have a multi-prayer system. :lol:

Hey Henry, have you seen this? You seemed interested in the subject.

"If we let them die in the street, who will pay to remove the bodies?"

An unrestrained market would have a fertilizer producer contract to haul the carcasses away for free.

Lots of phosphates and such in carcasses.

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Bruce, you got a point?

Hey, don't be dissing the shape of my head. :dunce:

Soylent Green is PEOPLE!!!!!!

The ACA does need improvement, I agree. And wholeheartedly agree that the single-payer system *already* in place for large swathes of our population could serve as instructivel models for a system that covered all americans. Medicaid and Veterans Administration, I'm looking at you.

Instructive, having elements that could be repeated, like Medicaid's structure to negotiate drug prices should be modeled. The sources of the problems with delivering heath care to veterans, whatever they may be, should not be duplicated. We *have* single payer systems already that are accepted and and acceptable. We'll never go to a completely free market system, nor should we, any more than we should go to a completely socialized system. Just because people covered by one of these programs gets their health insurance costs covered in all or in part by the government doesn't mean that there's no room for additional market based companies to compliment that coverage.

We have hybrid systems like this now, all over the place. Supplemental Medicare/Medicaid insurance plans are widely available. It can happen.

Yes my Medicare Part B costs me $110 a month and the Aetna supplemental policy which gets around a 16%? kickback from Medicare to do all the paperwork, is about $400 a month. That also includes drugs, which Medicare calls part D if you get it from them, but they're only the "drugs that mother gives you". :(

My point being that single payer is not an absolute exclusion of market based insurance. They can and do co-exist.

It's not the either-or socialist armageddon proclaimed by haters.

So was mine, they do coexist. Quite smoothly most of the time.

My experience as well, when I was helping my elderly cousin. You do get buried in mailed statements though, telling you what is not your responsibility to pay.

Oh yes, every month I get a statement of what drugs I bought, what they paid, what I paid, and some of the price is never explained. I guess that's what the druggist is eating. The purpose is supposedly for us to report to Aetna if the druggist is charging for shit we don't get. the last page(both sides) explains they don't discriminate, in a zillion languages, every damn month.

This morning I went to my GP, that cost $5. He sent me to the phlebotomist, no charge, and down to X-ray, $5. That's it , everything else is covered. Last three times in the hospital, one in ER, and two for surgery, it cost me $2 to park for four days. I can live with that.

We have the NHS paid for by taxation - but we also have private medicine. Many reasonably decent remuneration packages will offer some kind of private medical insurance as one of the perks. Other employers offer access to discounted private medical insurance (I could have chosen that in my job).

And dental care is a mishmash of NHS and private provision. Often the same dentist will offer NHS treatments and also private treatments for the things NHS won't cover - e.g deep sedation is not available on NHS so has to charged at the private care cost, along with cosmetic stuff like veneers. But that same dentist may also do a root canal at NHS price.

The private and public systems interact quite a bit. The doctors working in the private sector will also often do work in the NHS and will almost certainly have been trained within the NHS and their university studies heavily subsidised with public funds. Private hospitals may have NHS procedures carried out there and some wards in NHS hospitals are primarily for private care.

The lines have become much more blurred in recent years. That said, when I started working at a hardware sales company in the late 90s BUPA* cover was one of the perks


*one of the main and best known providers of private medical care in the UK

The hospitals are like airlines, they all have First Class and Coach. ;)

And that's fine in both cases of they get you to your destination.

Risk Corridor. This is part of the ACA that mitigated risk of losses to insurance companies and convinced them to sign on to the ACA. But Rubio killed it causing Insurance companies to start fleeing the plans. Very interesting. [/arte johnson]