Why Trump Should NOT Repeal or Replace ObamaCare (Just Let It Die)

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

http://www.dailywire.com/news/13519/why-trump-should-not-repeal-or-replace-obamacare-john-nolte#


Interesting perspective.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

As we learned yesterday, Trump -- God bless him -- has already murdered ObamaCare by issuing an Executive Order that, through a lack of enforcement, effectively repeals the fascist mandate. And yesterday, with the announcement that it will pull out of the exchanges at the end of the year, Humana just moved the ObamaCare death spiral

into Defcon 1.
[/size]Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
[/size]ObamaCare is already doomed, so…
[/size]Why should Trump and the GOP deal with the headaches? Why take the political hits? Why face two years of the Left rioting and the national media calling you a Nazi?
[/size]To finish off the destruction of ObamaCare, all Trump and the GOP have to do is a whole lot of nothing….

[jmyrlefuller]

Nolte (once of Breitbart fame) has already come up with the rationale for leaving Obamacare in place.

Laws never die (without sunset clauses or court strikedowns, and in the latter case SCOTUS has explicitly refused to deal with it). The mandate is still in place. Nothing short of an immediate halt to it will do (and, since less than 1% of the U.S. population actually entered an actual insurance pool because of the mandate, it won't have a major impact).

[Just_Victor]

Nolte (once of Breitbart fame) has already come up with the rationale for leaving Obamacare in place.

Laws never die (without sunset clauses or court strikedowns, and in the latter case SCOTUS has explicitly refused to deal with it). The mandate is still in place. Nothing short of an immediate halt to it will do (and, since less than 1% of the U.S. population actually entered an actual insurance pool because of the mandate, it won't have a major impact).

That's my thought too.  If they don't pull it up by the roots it will come back with a vengeance.

[Jazzhead]

Complaints about the "fascist mandate" would disappear if the government would simply allow hospitals to turn away non-paying individuals at the emergency room.   Pass a law insulating hospitals from lawsuits for refusing to provide uncompensated care.    Free riders count on the rest of us picking up their costs when they get sick.   Let 'em die.  Saves on Social Security costs, too.   

  

[Smokin Joe]

Complaints about the "fascist mandate" would disappear if the government would simply allow hospitals to turn away non-paying individuals at the emergency room.   Pass a law insulating hospitals from lawsuits for refusing to provide uncompensated care.    Free riders count on the rest of us picking up their costs when they get sick.   Let 'em die.  Saves on Social Security costs, too.   

 

Where does Social Security pick up the tab at the ER?

[Just_Victor]

Where does Social Security pick up the tab at the ER?

I think the point would be that people who die for lack of funds to pay for health care won't be drawing SS.

[Smokin Joe]

I think the point would be that people who die for lack of funds to pay for health care won't be drawing SS.

Considering that Medicaid, Medicare, private insurance, and even private payment cover a lot, letting someone die of medical neglect in the lobby because they didn't have an insurance card with them is going a bit far.
Then, too, it could have been something which could have been fixed, but failure to do so will leave someone able to draw Disability for the rest of their life. Net savings? No.

My other objection is this: You can be crossing in the crosswalk and get hit by some jerk, or be driving and have the same thing happen. Are you going to be left to die because someone else hit you if you don't have insurance?  @Jazzhead Funny that someone who would force a Christian florist to provide flowers for a homosexual wedding would let people die in the ER. I guess butthurt matters more than human life to some people.

[Just_Victor]

Considering that Medicaid, Medicare, private insurance, and even private payment cover a lot, letting someone die of medical neglect in the lobby because they didn't have an insurance card with them is going a bit far.
Then, too, it could have been something which could have been fixed, but failure to do so will leave someone able to draw Disability for the rest of their life. Net savings? No.

My other objection is this: You can be crossing in the crosswalk and get hit by some jerk, or be driving and have the same thing happen. Are you going to be left to die because someone else hit you if you don't have insurance?  @Jazzhead Funny that someone who would force a Christian florist to provide flowers for a homosexual wedding would let people die in the ER. I guess butthurt matters more than human life to some people.

For the record, I did not say that I agreed with the point.

[TomSea]

Complaints about the "fascist mandate" would disappear if the government would simply allow hospitals to turn away non-paying individuals at the emergency room.   Pass a law insulating hospitals from lawsuits for refusing to provide uncompensated care.    Free riders count on the rest of us picking up their costs when they get sick.   Let 'em die.  Saves on Social Security costs, too.   

 

I can see how pro-choicers might see it that way.

In some states, a lot of the ERs are bogged down with illegal aliens and ER visits that really aren't emergencies. This would be another benefit of a mass deportation.

[Jazzhead]

Funny that someone who would force a Christian florist to provide flowers for a homosexual wedding would let people die in the ER. I guess butthurt matters more than human life to some people.

I had hoped that the li'l devil icon would suggest to the reader that I was being tongue-in-cheek.  Everybody ought to have insurance that covers emergency room visits. Maybe we'll need single payer to accomplish that;  obviously there are lots of determined free riders out there that consider addressing the issue through the private insurance system to be "fascist".

But the fact is that the rest of us who have the good sense to have insurance are forced to pay more for it in order to compensate hospitals for the uncompensated care they provide to the free riders.     

[Jazzhead]

In some states, a lot of the ERs are bogged down with . . .  ER visits that really aren't emergencies.

That's another problem that the ACA was intended to address.   Insurance policies cover routine doc visits and encourage individuals to forge a relationship with a family doctor.   That keeps folks out of the emergency room. 

[skeeter]

I can see how pro-choicers might see it that way.

In some states, a lot of the ERs are bogged down with illegal aliens and ER visits that really aren't emergencies. This would be another benefit of a mass deportation.

Check out nearly any ER in California. You'll see them full of fully grown day laborers with flu symptoms, children with runny noses waiting, entire families waiting for care. Several old hospitals in the Bay Area have had to close and I strongly suspect this is a big reason why.

[TomSea]

I had hoped that the li'l devil icon would suggest to the reader that I was being tongue-in-cheek.  Everybody ought to have insurance that covers emergency room visits. Maybe we'll need single payer to accomplish that;  obviously there are lots of determined free riders out there that consider addressing the issue through the private insurance system to be "fascist".

But the fact is that the rest of us who have the good sense to have insurance are forced to pay more for it in order to compensate hospitals for the uncompensated care they provide to the free riders.   

Perhaps for illegal aliens whom appear to be a drain on our social net; they should be turned away. That's a proper idea. They are not citizens of this country.

[skeeter]

That's another problem that the ACA was intended to address.   Insurance policies cover routine doc visits and encourage individuals to forge a relationship with a family doctor.   That keeps folks out of the emergency room.

I doubt that will help. Why go through the trouble of finding one of the diminishing number of doctors who'll take insurance through 'Covered California', for example, when you can get care immediately and without the copay and premium.

That is, if ACA requires low income people to pay anything for coverage at all. I honestly don't know.

[Suppressed]

That's another problem that the ACA was intended to address.   Insurance policies cover routine doc visits and encourage individuals to forge a relationship with a family doctor.   That keeps folks out of the emergency room.

The problem is that many "conservatives" want to do away with the ACA, but don't have any answer for the problems we had without it. If the mandate is gone, you either have hospitals or taxpayers covering ER care, or you have people dying without care.

ER for sniffles shouldn't be covered, though.

[Jazzhead]

Putting aside the animus many feel toward Obama, the Dems and the ACA,  what are folks general thoughts about addressing the access issue by means of single payer vs. a private insurance system supported by "fascist mandates"?   

Wouldn't an ACA that's fixed so it actually provides affordable options be superior to single payer?  Why or why not?   

[IsailedawayfromFR]

Let it die?

Hell, the GOP won from a court the court case and the right to stop making illegal payments to Obamacare insurers and will not even stop the payments.

How will they let it die when they will be illegally making the payments still and now own Obamacare?

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/feb/21/house-republicans-beg-court-for-more-time-to-resol/

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

Putting aside the animus many feel toward Obama, the Dems and the ACA,  what are folks general thoughts about addressing the access issue by means of single payer vs. a private insurance system supported by "fascist mandates"?   

Wouldn't an ACA that's fixed so it actually provides affordable options be superior to single payer?  Why or why not?

You will never get people to sign on to the penalty aspect of it.


Nor will you ever get people to sign on to the huge taxes that come with single payer (rightly so btw).


Americans just aren't good lil' socialists.

[TomSea]

I am personally against anyone being turned away from a hospital ER but it should be up to the state's and hospital's choice on whether to do this.

[Victoria33]

Considering that Medicaid, Medicare, private insurance, and even private payment cover a lot, letting someone die of medical neglect in the lobby because they didn't have an insurance card with them is going a bit far.

@Smokin Joe

The system is screwed.  The only times I have been to an emergency room, happened in the last three years.  I was taken by ambulance to the emergency room twice, stayed about an hour or hour and a half, each time, and each time the hospital cost was in the many thousands for those brief stays.  There is no way the cost should have been that much. 

The first time, a car hit us on my side of the car, just in front of my door.  After the hit, I couldn't turn my neck due to pain.  I stayed still which I had to do anyway, since my door wouldn't open.  The ambulance got there, and got my door open.  I told him I couldn't turn my neck without severe pain.  I also told him I was an EMT.  He put a neck brace on me, they got me out and he told the other EMTs, "She is an EMT so she knows the drill."  At the hospital, they did an ex-ray of my knee that was bleeding, and an MRI of my neck.  The neck wasn't broken, thank God.  They did nothing about the bleeding knee that was bleeding on the sheets of their bed.  When they let me go, and I got home, I cleaned up my knee.  I wore a neck brace for a number of days before that pain left.  When I got the bill, I was shocked to see it was many thousands of dollars for one x-ray and one MRI.  That was ridiculous.  Also, the separate doctor bill was over a thousand.

Two years after that, in the dark, I walked to our mailbox, had my Yorkie in my arms, got the mail, and was walking up our sidewalk and the next instant, I was slammed down on a big rock, the left side of my face slamming down on the rock.  I was stunned for a few seconds, realized my skull around my left eye could be broken, and I didn't move.  I called for help, and a man walking on the sidewalk came and I had him call 911.  The ambulance took me to a trauma hospital (same one I was take to before) due to the likelihood of broken facial/skull fracture.  The left side of my face was turning black and my eye was full of blood.  An MRI was done and my skull/facial bones were not broken.  My Bob got to the hospital, he was not home when this happened, and he said I looked like a devil, with a black face and eye full of blood, with a blue eye in the middle.  I thanked him for telling me that. 

My eye had a scratch on the cornea.  I had to put certain drops in the eye for a number of days and the blackness finally left.  Then, I got the bill - many thousands of dollars for that hour and a half in the emergency room and one MRI.  That was also ridiculous.  Once again, the separate doctor bill was over a thousand.

Bills for medical service have gone out of sight since Obamacare.  I had Medicare and supplemental insurance for those two times, so I paid nothing, but others who didn't have such insurance, would have been devastated by having to pay those.  Plus, under Obamacare, people have huge deductibles, so they would have had to pay those thousands.  Due to the deductibles, people aren't going to the doctor.  They have a piece of paper that says they have insurance, but they really don't due to the high deductibles.   

[skeeter]

Putting aside the animus many feel toward Obama, the Dems and the ACA,  what are folks general thoughts about addressing the access issue by means of single payer vs. a private insurance system supported by "fascist mandates"?   

Wouldn't an ACA that's fixed so it actually provides affordable options be superior to single payer?  Why or why not?

What would be the matter with expanding Medicare to cover the means-tested CITIZEN poor, and leave the rest of us the heck alone in a market driven private insurance system?

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

@Smokin Joe

The system is screwed.

Agreed, and this is why it's a mistake to say the US health care system is "the best in the world". It has it's good points, but a lot of bad ones too.

[Smokin Joe]

What would be the matter with expanding Medicare to cover the means-tested CITIZEN poor, and leave the rest of us the heck alone in a market driven private insurance system?

I'd even go for that, and patching up critical care patients who weren't citizens (and sending the illegals home from the hospital).

[Maj. Bill Martin]

That's another problem that the ACA was intended to address.   Insurance policies cover routine doc visits and encourage individuals to forge a relationship with a family doctor.   That keeps folks out of the emergency room.

Except it hasn't worked out that way -- Massachusetts found that out.  There are still a ton of people who go to emergency rooms despite having coverage, simply because it takes no planning and is the easiest thing for them to do.

My stepdaughter is an emergency room nurse, and they are routinely flooded by people who come there for non-emergency treatment despite having coverage.  The staff even has a name for it -- "Hispanic panic."