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A Republican bill to allow insurance companies to continue to offer their old policies is gaining Democratic support.

A Republican bill to allow insurance companies to continue to offer their old policies is gaining Democratic support.

This bill once again proves that the Republicans are the stupid party. This bill is a travesty. It will not solve any problems, but will transfer the disaster to the federal budget. Under Obamacare the insurance companies can’t afford those old health plans since Obamacare now requires them to give insurance to everyone, even the sick who do not have insurance. Thus, they need to charge more to pay for those sick customers. If the old plans are forced on them, they will need significant subsidies from somewhere to stay in business, and this bill gives it to them out of the U.S. treasury. Moreover, the bill only adds more complexity and confusion to the whole mess.

If the Republicans had any brains, they would simply demand repeal at this moment. Repeal is the only real solution, so that we can start over and deal intelligently with the problems of the health insurance industry. It is also the smart political move. If the Democrats refuse to cooperate, they once again will be forced to endorse Obamacare as it collapses. If they go along, the Republicans get what the country needs, while winning politically.

And there’s this: It’s a trap!

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On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
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17 comments

  • Cotour

    I am hopeful that the current confusion and misdirection will ultimately result in a market based solution to the problem. And when I say market based, I mean a properly regulated system by government, not run by or “owned” by government, without the undue influence of the industry on the laws that will have to be passed and be enforced. Standards, profit margins, across boarder purchasing ability and reasonable limits on liabilities, individual responsibility for individual owned health savings accounts and catastrophic elements for those accounts.

    These are just a few of the details that may be able to be arrived at after this experiment in Marxist socialism goes down the drain. Anything other than allowing Obamacare to self destruct is a trap designed to salvage what they can of it.

  • joe

    I agree with the redstate article, there is no upside to this, the only thing that can work is free market insurance system that is allowed to make a profit, An insurance company will not sell insurance to a homeowner to cover his house if is on fire! I do not know what is correct for an individual that has a preexisting healthcare problem, but making coverage too expensive to young people and people with no health care issues is not the cure, people will opt out.

  • Cotour

    The semantic difference is that we are no longer talking about “insurance” although they (the media, the government) are talking about it like it is insurance. What is actually being talked about is universally offered health care via a government controlled system. “insurance” describes a business cost and profit model that calculates risks over a population.

    Obamacare is not insurance, its a perverted model that is attempting to force a model to look like insurance.

  • joe

    correct, insurance is a business, I used to think it was consentual communism, I was wrong, insurance is reassignment of risk, nothing less and nothing more. the federal government has no business in business.

  • Edward

    Ted Cruz is right. The Obamacare law is fundamentally flawed – even beyond the unconstitutionality of the insurance mandate (which turns healthcare insurance from a right into a duty).

    The law cannot be fixed because it is built on bad foundations. It is like trying to build a house or a skyscraper without an adequate foundation. Each time the earth sags a little under the structure, the structure becomes damaged or in danger of damage.

    Several portions of Obamacare have already been abandoned due to unworkability. All of the unintended consequences of the law demonstrate that the law was poorly thought out when it was created. The “social engineers” in Congress have no idea what they are doing. They don’t know how society, business, or the economy work or even why they work, but they are willing to monkey around with the clockworks anyway. Each time they do, they wreak havoc and leave a mess for us (and now our children) to clean up or live with. Then they forbid the cleaning process.

    Free markets have worked since the beginning of the first trade. Free markets result in each trader being better off (otherwise he wouldn’t have traded, or by definition, it wouldn’t have been a free trade). Free market health insurance left some people unhappy because they could not find a company freely willing to make an affordable trade. Somehow that was seen as unfair by some people, who believe in coerced trade – thus we have mandated health insurance, not free market health insurance. This is one of the fundamental flaws in the Obamacare system. It removes the fairness of freedom of choice and results in coercion into something that we cannot afford.

    The Obamacare system’s subsidies are another sign of another fundamental flaw. If it were affordable healthcare (as the official name suggests), then subsidies would not be necessary – it would be affordable rather than unaffordable. The result is that money flow in the economy is drawn away from places that it would otherwise – freely – be spent.

    Thus, the people hurt by Obamacare include those who receive less income due to the diverted money flow in addition to those who become poorer due to the increased premiums, and those who become scofflaws instead of law abiding citizens when they refuse to buy expensive Obamacare insurance, as well as those who no longer have the healthcare that they wanted but must choose from the limited available turds – er – policy types.

    Since it cannot be fixed, it must be repealed in its entirety so that a proper foundation can be laid for a system that works.

  • Cotour

    Your using a lot of words to explain a simple thing. The American Constitution is not designed to compel through law the free citizens of America to purchase anything!

    By using all of those words you give the false impression of validity to the simple violation of the Constitution that is Obamacare.

  • Pzatchok

    All they had to do was expand Medicare/Medicaid to automatically cover all of those not covered by private insurance for ANY reason.
    Just raise the tax to cover the expenses.

    They could have just had the state insurance commissions to force pass a rule making it illegal to drop the insured or change the coverage for any medical reason.

    They could have also ordered all doctors and hospitals to accept medicare/medicaid payments as payment in full if they accept state or federal benefits (like tax breaks) or funding in any form.

    They could have also started to create more doctors by offering free education. By forcing educational facilities to accept federal tuition payments(like Mcd/Mcr makes payments) as payment in full. Any students taking the funding would agree to federal service like military officers do now. After their period of service they can go into private practice.

    See. Small simple steps that allow time for change to be accepted and agreed upon.
    All while allowing free choice for the citizens. How very American. And constitutional.

  • Edward

    Sorry to disappoint. My writing teacher insisted that we explain our statements, preferably with examples from life experiences. Otherwise it comes out: “Obamacare bad, free market good,” and no one knows why I think so. On the other hand, such a brief statement is difficult to argue with, you can only use contradiction (which Monty Python pointed out is not argument) and then is just sounds like a schoolyard disagreement.

    The law is flawed by more than just the coercion to purchase. It changes the way we work so that many people now have to work two part time jobs (neither with overtime when more than 40 hours are worked) in order to pay for the coerced purchase. It compels the insurance companies to only offer certain policies, not the ones they preferred. It compels people, companies, and organizations to act in ways contrary to their values. It damages free markets, and changes the economy for the worse. Doctors are coerced into practicing medicine as the government insists (statistics may say that one method is best for the most people, but then statistically the “average American” is a hermaphrodite), not as is best for each patient. And cetera.

    Joe is correct that insurance companies only work when they are allowed to make a profit but does not explain why this is so, thus anyone who does not believe this just scoffs and continues to believe: profit bad, spreading wealth (theft) good.

    However, the desire to be profitable drives each company to improve the prices, quality, and capabilities of its goods and services to attract more customers, causing its competition into similar strategies. Over time, even as quality and capability improves, the price drops below the original price, yet profit is still made. The customer has more money left over to buy another product, and this improves the economy and lifestyles — or lifespans, when the product is medical — as more goods and services are offered. Unless socialists understand this basic economic concept, they will continue to think that profit is bad and spreading the wealth is good.

    Not only is it better to teach a man to fish than it is to give that man a fish, it is better when that man figures out that a net works better than a rod and reel, and when the man and his teacher figure out that working together with an even larger net is better still. Then there are enough fish to also feed the doctor, the blacksmith, and the carpenter, and their society has more prosperity and a greatly improved lifestyle.

    Obamacare, on the other hand, is the equivalent of stealing the fish from the fisherman and giving it to the man who would have been the inventor (the government only gives it to him if he does not work), and the other three have to spend their time fishing, too, instead of healing or making the things that improve life.

    But I have become too wordy, again, thereby giving the false impression of the validity of yet another something, perhaps communism.

    BTW: George Bush said that he destroyed the free market system in order to save it. I am still waiting for it to be saved.

  • Cotour

    Again, we disagree on the method and some of the logic, but agree on the conclusion. I sometimes have trouble seeing how you get there, but there you are.

  • Edward

    *Sigh*

    I am wordy in an attempt to be clear with my logic and bring readers to see how I draw my conclusion so that they, too, will agree with it.

    Apparently I need more practice to become “perfect.”

    At least we both agree that people and companies should have more, not less, freedom.

  • Don’t take Cotour’s comments too much to heart. I think you express yourself quite nicely, in a detailed and educational manner. It is often up to the reader to glean what they can from what they read.

  • Cotour

    Edward,

    Don’t take Mr. Zimmermans last comment as a reason to not, better refine, organize and boil down what you want to say. He has pointed out to me several times that people do not want to spend too much time reading something in a comment box. I took his suggestions to heart and attempt to refine my thoughts before I hit the submit comment button.

  • Garry

    I for one enjoy reading different points of view, and if they’re too wordy I can always skim or skip entirely; in any case I like to have them available. If anything, as a whole we don’t comment enough on this site; Bob posts a lot of thought-provoking material, and there are a lot of people here who have a lot to contribute to the conversation.

    I think some people get frustrated because they want to emphasize one or two main points, and fear that covering too much ground will make us all forget the crucial points (our so-called political “leadership” is often guilty of this).

    That’s certainly a valid point of view, but not the only valid one, especially among people like us who have little direct power to influence society at large.

  • Edward

    Saint Exupery said, “Perfection is attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away.”

    “I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had time to make it shorter.” ~Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

    Since timely responses are read more than late ones, we often hit “submit” because we do not feel we have time to make them shorter to attain perfection.

    Strangely, my college writing instructor gave me high marks even though I did not write as many words (e.g. 1,000) as she assigned. Later I understood why, but became wordier anyway (as in this paragraph).

  • Cotour

    I don’t know if you have noticed but I can tend to stir the pot every now and then.

    But your logic does seem circuitous at times and sometimes evades me. I am however willing to accept your conclusions, no matter how you arrive at them.

  • Edward

    “your logic does seem circuitous at times …”

    I always had trouble doing proofs in geometry. “And then a miracle occurs” was accepted by the teacher less often than I expected. ;-)

    Good feedback. I will work on it.

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