I know its heresy, but until the electorate is shown that elections have consequences, they will keep electing the same shameless shills and wackos.
Fact- Many Members of the Koch/Rove party ran against “Obamacare”
Fact- Sitting members of the Koch/Rove Party have voted against it again and again.
Fact- The open and hidden media operations of the Koch/Rove party have spread lies again and again about Obamacare
I live in an area that has benefited greatly from the law, but due to lies and propaganda spread about it, people in this area (and in many other areas of the country) voted in people who have pledged against it.
Well, here is a radical idea.
Let it go.
The Koch/Rove Party controlling the House will vote to repeal as one of its first orders of business. They have to. Then the Koch/Rove members in the Senate will have to vote to repeal to keep their base happy. The Democrats will vote against the repeal. How about no filibuster?
Then the bill lands on the President’s desk. The controlling interests of the Koch/Rove Party are depending on the President vetoing the repeal and not being able to override. So they get a free vote with no consequences. And wth the current situation in the Supreme Court, major portions of the bill will be canceled, providing cover for Koch/Rove party members and their agenda.
So let them vote to kill it. The President Obama goes to Kentucky with Mitch, and declares, “You voted him in. You knew he wanted to deny Kentucky affordable healthcare and you still voted him in. Well, you get what you wanted.” Sorry Kentucky Care, its done.
then fight for the next two years for real National HealthCare. Make the Kock/Rove Party eat their vote and perhaps hurt the party for a generation or two.
Or maybe I’m dreaming.
But I’m serious about this. The Koch/Rove party must be destroyed before it damages America more.
And it started with all you Nadar voters out there.
Hope you are happy.
Ridge
Have to consider that Obama was re-elected because most of the PPACA didn’t kick in until almost a year ago and in 2012 a majority were willing to wait to see how it would work.
It does work well for those poor enough in the states that went with the expanded Medicaid. (What’s not to like about free?) And for those that were in the individual market and have 1) pre-existing conditions that either denied them coverage or coverage at exorbitant rates or 2) existing high cost medical expenses and reasonably high income. Also parents with adequate income and employer health insurance that let’s their kids remain kids until age 26. Less well for those that get subsidies but can’t afford the deductibles, co-pays or coinsurance. While the numbers that were helped (assuming medical resources exist to allow them to use their insurance) are in the millions, they aren’t a political constituency. (A NYTimes article profiled a KyNect beneficiary who likes it, but still planned to vote GOP.)
The numbers that get nothing from the PPACA are much larger, and it’s not strictly anecdotal that many are experiencing premium and co-pays/coinsurance increases. All the paperwork they have to deal with is just as voluminous and confusing. And getting rid of the DISH funds has already caused some small rural hospitals to close.
Repealing the PPACA would likely make things worse than they were before it passed. And even more difficult to tackle the problems. Another five years of effort lost as the supply of medical care hasn’t increased and the cost continues to increase. With or without the PPACA the US health care system will crash at some point because no economy can afford 20% of GDP for its healthcare system.
Let the GOP repeal it when they take back the WH. The mess that will create will be even worse than repealing it now. And then they will own that one.
Thank you for your response-
I live in an area where lies and propaganda have seperated a program which people depend on from the reality of who got for them in the first place.
The states of Illinois, Iowa, Arkansas, Michigan, West Virginia, New Hampshire, Delaware do not have state exchanges and will lose subsidized healthcare once the Roberts Court rules against it.
Several of those states have got Koch/Rove majorities in the Legislature or Governor’s office; so no exchanges will be set up.
Allowing the Court to do that gives legitimacy to their argument against the whole thing. I’m sorry but under current circumstances, its doomed to a ½ life of failed effectiveness and will prevent any further attempts for another generation
I don’t want it to go. It has been the best thing to happen to WV in generations, but the monied interests convinced the electorate to divorce that fact from those who would kill it. The only way I know to stop that from happening again and again is to force the confrontation. Why it wasn’t done during the election is the fault of very poor candidates, cowardice, and a national strategy of rumming away from your accomplishments.
R
Correction: Arkansas does have an exchange – a legacy left behind just before the state turned completely to the GOP. It may be poorly advertised (a feature, I am told, rather than a bug), it does exist.
Thanks for the correction. I was relying on a map showing exchange less states.
I see Booman is optimistic about the actions of the Roberts court. I’m not so sanguine. To further the political agenda of the Koch/Rove party, I can quite see a majority of members gutting ACA.
That will release the downward pressure on premiums and we will be back with the double digit inflation of rates, with attending profits. My agent has already told me that with the new enrollment period starting Jan 1, expect a raise. If the Federal exchange with subsidies is nixed, then that will be a big raise.
R
If you’re in a state with a state run exchange, your premiums shouldn’t be impacted by whatever SCOTUS does on the federal exchange.
What seems to get overlooked is that insurance companies are licensed and regulated in the states. And premium rates are supposed to be based on the profit/loss ratio within the state.
I do suspect that some (many? all?) carriers low-balled their original ACA rates to buy market share which makes it not too difficult to file rate increases based n experience. If their actual experience is near their real projections, they will probably look to recoup the shortfall over a period of three years and not hit their customers up all in one year.
Unfortunately- WV did not set up an exchange and the 10’s of thousands of those who got healthcare did so with subsidies or as an expansion of Medicare.
Recent elections and the “bribing” of a state senator to switch parties, giving a majority to the opposition, means that no exchange is likely to be set up.
I am not sure what the decision of SCOTUS will mean, but I can envision it as one more way to stab ACA and the American people in the back.
Another out come of the recent elections will be an attack on the EPA. The propaganda fed to the electorate that its the “regulators” who are stopping coal development; that, of course, is a lie as its really the market and the competence of the operators that determines who gets a contract and who doesn’t.
Right now its cheap Central Appalachia natural gas prices that is hurting more than EPA ever could.
Henry Hub (National avg. Natural Gas- $4.00 per mmBTU
Central App Natural Gas $2.00 per mmBTU
Coal $2.35 per mmBTU
R
If SCOTUS rules narrowly on the question of subsidies under the federal exchange and rejects their legitimacy, then WV residents will lose them. If the numbers are substantial, wouldn’t those residents demand that the state set up an exchange like KYNect? WRT to those that received coverage under Medicaid expansion, they shouldn’t be impacted.
Enlightened WV residents and an enlightened Democratic Party aren’t likely to be seen soon. The people and states (or countries) dependent on natural resource extraction don’t do well economically.
No worries. I can see how Arkansas would be easily lumped in with the rest of the Red states. Under different circumstances, there may well have been no state run exchange or Medicaid expansion. Folks there are lucky in that sense.
The extraction economy has hurt many areas of the country as well as helped. What has hindered southern Appalachia is the complete control of the land (and the politics serving it) by out of state corporations.
Only a very small portion of the wealth pulled out of the ground over the last 100 years has bled off to the communities or state. Most of it financed some of the schools, hospitals and roads of the NE US suburbs not the counties where the mining happened.
Studies based on actual courthouse records began in 1974 and really opened eyes. 10 out of state corporations own from 50-75% of the LAND in southern WV (vary county to county). Same rates apply in other states with similar economies. That includes the mineral and timber rights. The tax rates are so low for those corporations that they have held that land for generations. Thus no money for schools, roads, healthcare, etc….
Any thought of closing coal industry or diversify the local economies HAVE to take that into account. You will be battling county assessors, county commissions, local political parties…not just Big Coal or Big Timber.
See-
http://www.wvpolicy.org/who-owns-west-virginia-in-the-21st-century-2
R
That’s what happens when people are essentially wage slaves. That was a big issue around the time of the civil war and why people like Lincoln were interested enough to read Marx. It was also the issue when men like John L Lewis built up the union of mine workers. Today less than half of mine workers are union members and strip mining took away most of the jobs.
A shame that unions and democracy aren’t better and members and people don’t exert adequate control over them when times are good.
If the Roberts Court kills the Exchanges but lets stand Medicaid expansion that is a long range good. The exchanges only exist to preserve insurance companies and the false equivalence of health care and accidents.
If only Medicaid and Medicare are left then they care be expanded to provide a true national health care system with regulated pricing.
Almost all Medicaid programs are handled by insurance company administrators and not the states. Medicare Part C and D are handled that way as well — which is why they cost more.
Medicare is the most expensive (per beneficiary) health insurance program on the globe. If countries with UHC spent anywhere near that much on their senior populations, their programs would be bankrupt, but they’ve managed and done so with a much higher percentage of population seniors than exists in the US. And it’s only going to get worse as the US population gets older.
Parts A & B are reasonable and preferable to the “Bronze Plan” grift on the exchanges. Medicare sets limits on charges and so does Medicaid. On the exhanges and employer plans, individual negotiations set the cjharges and it is impossible to compare plans.
If I say you’re paying 250% of what I pay in country X and you’re getting the same thing or a lesser quality of the same thing, would you come back with, “Yeah, but we have price controls?”
The US spends 75-110% more of GDP on health care than wealthier countries with UHC. And leaves out tens of millions that receive little to no care. On all health outcome metrics, with a couple of exceptions, we fall below or far below those other countries. We’ve allowed a monster to be created and health insurance is not going to solve it.
Reform drug royalties. Reform hospital accounting. Reform medical school admissions and financing. These will lower costs by plenty.
BTW, Medicaid and Medicare may pay much more than European countries pay, but it is substantially less than private charges. Medicare is widely accepted because they pay promptly and even if a doctor doesn’t accept it, it is illegal to charge more than 15% more than the Medicare rate anyway for an elderly person, so why turn the business away? Medicaid is a different story. It’s hard to find a Medicaid doctor outside of the inner cities. I know. I’ve tried. And even when you do, you are subject to scorn from the staff. Putting half the people in the USA on Medicaid would end that. Like Medicare, it would be too much business to turn away from.
I said Europe. I hope your country X isn’t Mexico or Cuba. One reason German doctors, in particular, are willing to accept half the pay of American doctors is that Med school didn’t cost them a single Euro. That’s why I say reform the financing. As for the admission reform, the AMA actively tries to limit admissions to keep members pay high.
We’ve been “tweaking” the US health care system since WWII when employer contributions for health insurance were determined not to be income and therefore, not taxable. All we’ve managed to do is increase the aggregate and per capita cost and percentage of GDP at a higher rate than other countries. And a significant portion of the population still goes with little to no care.
Check out the OECD comparative chart. Keep in mind that those other countries have universal care/coverage and a larger share of their populations are over the age of 64.
But hey — don’t let me stand in your way of believing that the next fix with get the job done.