GOP plays small ball on ObamaCare (Stirewalt)

[corbe]

GOP plays small ball on ObamaCare

By  Chris Stirewalt   
 ·Published March 07, 2017
· FoxNews.com
 
On the roster: GOP plays small ball on ObamaCare - Russia tied group dumps purported CIA secrets - China threatens over U.S. missile system - Refugee ban does less, says more - You guys are no fun anymore

GOP PLAYS SMALL BALL ON OBAMACARE

The Republicans’ proposed replacement for ObamaCare does everything the existing law does, but in a way that even fewer Americans are prone to like.

The suggested replacement ends the much-maligned “mandate” that forces individuals to purchase coverage or face a tax penalty… but replaces it by allowing insurance companies to hit customers who let coverage lapse with a 30 percent surcharge.

It would end the expansion of Medicaid that covers an estimated 10 million middle-class Americans in 31 states… but not for four years and then substitutes a state-level block grant system to try to maintain some of the coverage.

The new GOP plan eliminates the means-tested federal tax subsidies that help people buy plans under ObamaCare… but replaces them with new subsidies partly determined by age.

The proposal also would prevent insurance companies from charging older customers as much as three times more than younger customers… and instead let them charge five times the amount.

These modest-seeming modifications to the law are deemed necessary because of what the new law keeps entirely: all of the most popular components of ObamaCare, which happen to be the ones most expensive to insurance companies.

If you want to force insurance companies to allow the adult children of their customers to remain on their family policies, to write policies for everyone regardless of health and set no limits on expenditures, then insurers will demand something in return.

In this case, it’s the aforementioned fees and regulations plus one other component formerly reviled by the GOP: Customers would not be allowed to buy bare-bones plans. They would still be forced to pay for comprehensive coverage.

Conservatives once mocked the idea that men and women beyond childbearing age would be forced to buy policies with coverage for obstetrical and gynecological care. Now, the GOP leadership proposes to ratify the idea.

President Trump announced today that there will be a “phase 2 & 3 of healthcare rollout” that deals with his call to end state-level restrictions on insurance and, presumably, other conservative favorites like setting federal limits on state medical malpractice lawsuits.

But that’s all somewhere out over the horizon.

As for now, Republicans can’t even answer their own questions about the plan. On the House’s Q&A page for the bill, one “Q” is “How are you paying for this plan? How much is it going to cost taxpayers?”

Good question! The answer, hilariously, begins thusly: “We are still discussing details…”

Oy.

Proponents of the plan will plead for mercy, saying they are just getting underway. And that’s a fair assertion…up to a point. There are many months of debate ahead for this plan, which is unlikely to look anything like this if Congress ever does pass an ObamaCare replacement.

And yet, Republicans have been knocking this ball around for seven years but never bothered to craft an actual replacement. In that sense, this represents one of the more jaw-dropping lapses of political foresight in recent memory.

It’s as if Churchill had warned for years of the looming Nazi menace and then simply shrugged when the Panzers crossed the Polish border. “I don’t know, lads. We’d better try to spiff up the old Attlee plan.”

Conservatives are bound to hate this reworked version of ObamaCare. Moderates will be inclined to resist because of cuts to coverage. It’s not as if these were unforeseeable events.

The looming question is Washington now is whether Republicans are frightened enough of the consequences of ObamaCare’s impending collapse to accept this patching of the plan or if they are so utterly terrified that they will end up retreating and just keeping the whole shooting match.

But as for the bold reforms promised since they started fighting the original legislation eight years ago: Not so much.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/03/07/gop-plays-small-ball-on-obamacare.html

[Frank Cannon]

GOP plays small ball on ObamaCare

Didn't know the GOP had any balls to play with?

[corbe]

        No need for concern @Frank Cannon The Schumers have it covered

   

[Norm Lenhart]

GOP plays small ball on ObamaCare

Didn't know the GOP had any balls to play with?

Can we launch a Kickstarter to get them equipped with Nuticles so they go somewhere and entertain themselves rather than govern like the Democrats they are? That way we'd all be better off.

Come to think of it their voters could stand getting a set of their own.

[Norm Lenhart]

        No need for concern @Frank Cannon The Schumers have it covered

   

I would not, at my drunken teenage horniest. I not only prefer my junk where it is and the same color, but I would not want to be mentally scarred by memory of the the encounter with a farm animal.

[mountaineer]

As for this whole Obamacare thing, I'm reminded of something my investment advisor said about it: It wasn't designed to be an actual form of health insurance, it's a cost-sharing plan.