Monday, March 3, 2014

GOP Health Care Reform? It’s a bankrupt vision that seeks to profit from human misery and death.

Republican health care reform sounds almost surreal. It doesn't reform as much as it lives out an ideological dream that has no connection to reality. 

The failed old system saw high insurance costs, profits, excluded pre-existing conditions and inflated drug prices. That's the “free market.” What happens when you expand our “freedoms?” The Wall Street Cheat Sheet described it this way and it ain't pretty:
Among House Republicans, there is little unity on a strategy, even though just a month ago lawmakers had rallied around a proposal made by Republican Senators Burr, Coburn, and Hatch. The Patient Choice, Affordability, Responsibility, and Empowerment Act is strongly reliant on market competition, with notable differences from Obamacare; it would likely cover fewer uninsured Americans, increase premiums for many older adults, shrink Medicaid, decrease subsidies for middle class Americans, scale back protections for people with preexisting conditions, and allow private insurers to escape many of the consumer-friendly requirements imposed on them by Obamacare ... it would not maintain Obamacare’s individual mandate. The bill’s authors noted: our proposal is roughly budget neutral over a decade,” ... it seeks to modestly reduce the amount of federal spending and taxation.
Wow, what great alternative?

But like I've been saying all along, if the GOP does gain control in 2016, they will repeal ObamaCare regardless of the dropped policies etc. They're even saying so...:
Representative Tom Price of Georgia, a physician, wants the Affordable Care Act repealed and replaced with he has called a “soup-to-nuts reform of healthcare.”

Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana has proposed a comprehensive bill that would first repeal Obamacare and replace it with regulations placing new limits on medical malpractice suits and expand access to health savings accounts.

Republican Representative Michael Burgess of Texas, an obstetrician, (says) Larger issues — like a repeal — should be postponed until after this year’s midterm elections, when the Republican party may hold a stronger position in Congress.

Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma … did admit that passing an Obamacare replacement would be “tricky” in the House, given the complexities of the American healthcare system and the dividing views in the Republican Party. But repeal and reform is not out of the realm of possibility. In general, market-oriented reforms have been among the most popular for GOP lawmakers.
Again, the free market approach to health care has no connection to reality. It’s a bankrupt vision that seeks to profit from human misery and death. That's the Republican Party in a nutshell. 

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