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Sunday, July 30, 2017

When Premium Prices Sore on ACA Marketplace, you can thank Trump....

Insurance companies quaked with uncertainty and will probably raise premiums to cover their butts after this irresponsible Trump tweet:

Which prompted this reaction from Bernie Sanders, which by the way, should be everyone's reaction:
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., accused President Trump of wanting to “sabotage” the Affordable Care Act. 
“You know, I really think it’s incomprehensible that we have a president of the United States who wants to sabotage health care in America, make life more difficult for millions of people who are struggling now to get the health insurance they need and to pay for that health insurance.”
Not to mention increasing costs substantially for Americans on the exchange and in the individual market.

Sadly, Sanders still hasn't fine tuned the message around single payer; it's virtually impossible to create little independent single payer islands in the U.S.. He should have known better. It has to be all or nothing, maybe a system that utilizes insurance companies to administer the system like Medicare and Medicare Advantage. 

Attempts have failed in the past because the costs are too high when a state is working alone, and prices for care can't be standardized lower using the power of the entire U.S. population. And that's the big difference, which is why Jake Tapper didn't get it either and asked the following question:
Sanders said he planned to introduce single-payer health care legislation now that Republicans efforts at health care reform failed. However when pressed by “State of the Union” host Jake Tapper on how single-payer could be passed nationally after failed attempts in California and his home state of Vermont, Sanders admitted, “Politically, this is difficult.”
“Look, taking on the insurance companies and the drug companies, taking on Wall Street, taking on a lot of very powerful forces that make billions of dollars a year from the current health care system is not going to be easy. And it’s not going to take place until millions of people get involved in this struggle and appreciate the fact that whether you’re rich or whether you are poor, health care is a right.”

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