Walker has to keep fixing things he broke, like Health Care.

I was going to "Hulk Smash" Scott Walker's claim that thanks to him, insurance rates will be lower on the ACA exchanges, but then I found a few other wildly important points of interest.

First, Walker is again saving us all from himself and Trump's sabotage of the ACA-ObamaCare. Citizen Action:

Walker’s actions have increased premiums on individual market by at least 17%, and Donald Trump’s sabotage of the ACA has increased premiums by at least 18%.

And Walker's grand 4.2 percent savings in 2019 (a smaller increase)?

A Brookings Institution study estimated that absent federal policies disrupting the marketplaces, premiums would have dropped 4.3 percent nationwide in 2019.

Wow, thanks, Scott Walker.

Tens of thousands more would have health care and tax payers would have an extra $1 billion. That’s if Walker would have expanded BadgerCare," said TJ Helmstetter, Democratic Party of Wisconsin.

This is What Walker Calls Success??? Walker is spending all his time putting out the GOP fires he and Trump have created. Thankfully, you can now send that extra pocket change from Walker's tax cuts to insurers:

1. Minnesota’s premiums are decreasing for 2019; Minn-13% vs Wi-6%.

2. 45% more expensive in Wisconsin in 2018 to 59% more expensive in 2019.

3. $533 per month for premiums in Wisconsin vs. $335 in Minnesota for a 40-year-old purchasing the benchmark plan on their own without a federal tax credit.

Republicans we're Scaring Insurers: It wasn't the ACA so much as it was repeal-and-replace:

Larry Levitt, senior vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation (said) "There was a repeal-and-replace debate going on. President Trump was out there talking about the law collapsing," Levitt said. Congress and the president ended certain subsidies for low-income Americans. To prepare for that, and for just general chaos, insurers raised rates. But then things turned out to be not as terrible as insurance companies thought ... enrollment stayed remarkably stable this year.

And besides reinsurance...

One reason 2019 premiums will be lower? It has to do with how high they were in 2018. They increased by an average of 36.9 percent for 2018. "These premium decreases are really about returning excess profits," he said.

Here's audio from NPR's Marketplace that explains what happened, and why Walker is just taking credit again, for something that for the most part was happening anyway:

In fact, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, insurance company profits are higher than they were before Obamacare. And now some insurers are returning to markets they'd abandoned.

But all of this goes out the window if Walker, AG Brad Schimel, and Congress get the court decision they worked so hard to get:

Wisconsin is one of the lead states in the lawsuit that argues the ACA should be scrapped because Congress got rid of the penalty for not having insurance when they passed the GOP tax cut bill.

Walker's Reinsurance ploy likely won't get Trump's $150 million Funding help! Hello High Risk Pools!

After mentioning Scott Walker's supposed attempt to prop up the Affordable Care Act, my conservative Trumpian friend in Milwaukee said Walker's move to the middle was a bad idea.

But Walker isn't really budging from his radically right wing position.

To get reelected, grand illusionist Scott Walker is again saying he's trying to repair a problem Republicans in DC created, with his reinsurance plan, at the same time sending his AG out with a lawsuit to repeal the ACA...crazy right? That's what makes this a temporary election year ploy:

Reinsurance: What is it? A reinsurance fund helps insurance companies pay high-cost medical claims, to try to reduce premiums for everyone. In 2014 to 2016, the Affordable Care Act marketplace had temporary federal reinsurance, designed to stabilize premiums in the early years of the marketplace...premiums went up an average of 38 percent for the 225,000 Wisconsin residents.

"State" Reinsurance Con Game: It only looks like Walker is asking for the reinsurance funding Congress just stopped in its tracks. Here's the con: the "state" reinsurance program requires three fourths of money coming from Trump ($150 million)...so don't hold your breath. But it might get Walker votes and reelected.

What Walker is doing is setting up a move to bring back the states failed high-risk pools. Back in 2017...

Gov. Scott Walker, as part of his election-year health care plan, asked the state Senate to pass a pre-existing conditions bill approved by the Assembly in June amid some political maneuvering.

What’s the debate? The original bill, introduced by Democrats, banned lifetime caps on health insurance, which the Affordable Care Act also prohibits. Republicans stripped out that wording and inserted their own language. The new bill requires insurers to cover people with pre-existing conditions but allows the state insurance commissioner to alter protections, possibly by re-establishing a high-risk pool for such people. The bill is now in the Senate, where Sen. Jon Erpenbach, D-Middleton, introduced an amendment to remove the insurance commissioner provision.

Without the insurance commissioner, no high risk pools or lifetime caps. But nothing is stopping Republicans from passing this. So it's back to the way it was. Keep in mind, high risk pools are funded by you and me, taxpayer dollars. How effective was it? :

Wisconsin's high-risk pool insured about 21,000 people, with critics saying high prices kept tens or hundreds of thousands of others from accessing it. Those applying for the program had to wait six months before they were allowed into it and a lifetime cap of $2 million. Health Insurance Risk Sharing Plan lost $6.9 million in 2011, roughly a third of which was offset by a federal grant, according to the Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau. The same year, programs in the 35 states lost a total of at least $272 million.

 Here's the GOP health care reform scam:

The plan includes $10 billion per year in “state innovation grants,” which are a version of high-risk pools to help sick people get coverage and stabilize premiums but appear to allow for a broader array of uses for the money by states. Prior to the passage of the Affordable Care Act, however, many of these state plans ended up being so expensive, because they covered only sick patients, that they had to cap enrollment.

Also check this article out as well: