Walker on board: Republicans take the easy way to Health Care Reform, by destroying it!!!

Scott Walker said he won't do anything state wise to create our own health care exchange, where people can shop and compare prices. Forget comparing prices, the free market system that offers no group discounts and pits an individual against big insurance companies can only result in...lower prices?

Conservative tightwads, just think for a moment beyond the nonsensical "small government" talking point. Walker's typical non-answer, where he brags about how many people in Wisconsin had insurance once (under a Democratic governor who fought for it), completely ignores the fact that that was the result of our dramatically expanded Medicaid program (up to 400% of poverty). Using "big government" Medicaid coverage from the past, as a way to get rid of supposed "big government" health care now, is a con and down-the-rabbit-hole insulting:



Supreme Court May Kill the Affordable Care Act: This analysis by Motley Fool is right on the money, saying that even after American got their insurance on the exchanges with the included tax credits, coverage was still too expensive, forcing them to drop out. Can you imagine going back to the same old system? By the way, Republicans are trying to spin away from "going back to the same old system" by confusing the terminology with "patient centered" mumbo jumbo.

In order for the health reform law to be successful, it'll need people that enroll to actually continue paying their premium. This is the only way that medical care costs get spread out over a greater swath of the public, which is needed to control medical care cost inflation. However, between April and mid-October, for instance, around 1 million people stopped paying for their health insurance. The program will need to minimize this attrition in 2015 and beyond in order to be successful. 

Obamacare enrollments from week six (Dec. 20 to Dec. 26) continue to point toward the law bringing in more than the 9.1 million people (as) predicted. Based on data for just the 37 states operating under the federally run Healthcare.gov, nearly 6.5 million people have selected plans.

More Americans tighten belts, incomes decline, need ACA Tax Credits: Motley Fool also points out those getting tax credits to help pay for premiums has increased. While they say that's a problem, I say that tells us American incomes are not keeping up. In fact the government numbers say incomes have decreased again. And if the activist conservative Supreme Court strikes down the ACA and the tax credits...? 

Nearly 317,000 people window-shopped healthcare plans on Healthcare.gov and close to 1.4 million users were active on the site. The implication is that interest in obtaining health insurance is still high for many uninsured Americans ... a whopping 87% of people enrolled through Healthcare.gov (5.6 million people) between Nov. 15, 2014, and Dec. 15, 2014, were getting financial assistance, also known as a subsidy. This is up from the 80% of enrollees ... this seven percentage point rise could be a potential death knell for Obamacare based on a Supreme Court case expected to be ruled on sometime in June. Plaintiffs in the case argue that the language of the ACA is structured in such a way that only states running their own exchanges can divvy out subsidies to eligible individuals. Thus, if the Supreme Court finds in favor of the plaintiffs, it would mean that the 5.6 million people currently receiving subsidies via Healthcare.gov, the federally run exchange, would no longer receive those payments.