The PPACA Thread Part IV - Repeal & Replace, or Something...

[Kepler]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part IV - Repeal & Replace, or Something...

"Finish them!"

[Rover]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part IV - Repeal & Replace, or Something...

New to this thread, so it may already have been covered. Trumpcare replaces premium subsidies with tax credits. First, not large enough tax credits, but I assume if you're someone paying little or no taxes anyway, these will do nothing for you. Or do they increase what refund you would get?

Depends on how they structure it but if I had to guess its only people who pay enough taxes will get it.

For example, if you deduct student loans or get the child tax credit, one reduces your taxable income and the other reduced the amount of tax you owe. However, if you already owe no taxes, no benefit. On the other hand I believe the EIC is money paid out to you as a low income worker even if you don't make enough to pay taxes.

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part IV - Repeal & Replace, or Something...

Paul Ryan may as well be a proctologist. Same thing.

[FreshFish]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part IV - Repeal & Replace, or Something...

There is no possible way to have health insurance without also having an insurance company. The only question we have is whether there is monopoly power concentrated in a single insurance company wholly owned by and run by the US government itself, or whether we have competition among several different private insurance companies.

and before someone trots out the hoary, false chestnut about Medicare having "lower administrative costs," that statistic is really misleading, because they omit several major costs from that measure (for example, losses to fraud, which are substantial, are not counted as an administrative "cost"; nor are the enforcement efforts to combat fraud counted; nor are the administrative costs that the government forces other entities to incur on its behalf included either).

[FreshFish]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part IV - Repeal & Replace, or Something...

I thought there was a substantial constituency in favor of "single payor"??

So, a plan is proposed under which the government will give money to everyone that can only be used to purchase health insurance, and those who claim to favor "single payor" are against it?

Is it really single payor that they want? or is the term "single payor" some code word for "command and control" instead??

[FreshFish]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part IV - Repeal & Replace, or Something...

New to this thread, so it may already have been covered. Trumpcare replaces premium subsidies with tax credits. First, not large enough tax credits, but I assume if you're someone paying little or no taxes anyway, these will do nothing for you. Or do they increase what refund you would get?

The proposal is similar to the Earned Income Credit; if you have low/no income, you actually get a cash payment which only can be used to purchase health insurance (or a dollar-for-dollar reduction in your income tax bill, if your income is somewhat higher; phasing out as income rises). Some states have been experimenting with this kind of design for Medicaid already and the early results are promising; more care for less money, because of a combination of competition in the marketplace and healthcare users being forced to pay more attention to what they are doing about their health.


The big difference is that you can go out and choose a health insurance policy from a wide array of different offerings; there will no longer be thousand-page long regulations that spell out every detail of every policy clause that must be included.

and all the bizarre cross-subsidies are out too: no longer will post-menopausal women be forced to pay for maternity coverage, no longer will young healthy people be forced to pay for a 60-year old's hip replacement.


One of the things they didn't do, which they had promised, was to cap the income tax deduction for employer-sponsored health insurance.

[dxmnkd316]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part IV - Repeal & Replace, or Something...

There is no possible way to have health insurance without also having an insurance company. The only question we have is whether there is monopoly power concentrated in a single insurance company wholly owned by and run by the US government itself, or whether we have competition among several different private insurance companies.

and before someone trots out the hoary, false chestnut about Medicare having "lower administrative costs," that statistic is really misleading, because they omit several major costs from that measure (for example, losses to fraud, which are substantial, are not counted as an administrative "cost"; nor are the enforcement efforts to combat fraud counted; nor are the administrative costs that the government forces other entities to incur on its behalf included either).

WHo gives a **** about competition when the only player in town is a non-profit and has absolutely no profit motive whatsoever?

They don't pay someone tens of millions of dollars while patients get fu_ked.

[Handyman]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part IV - Repeal & Replace, or Something...

I thought there was a substantial constituency in favor of "single payor"??

So, a plan is proposed under which the government will give money to everyone that can only be used to purchase health insurance, and those who claim to favor "single payor" are against it?

Is it really single payor that they want? or is the term "single payor" some code word for "command and control" instead??

Are you actually this stupid or are you the bot Kepler thinks you are? (or both)

[ScoobyDoo]

Are you actually this stupid or are you the bot Kepler thinks you are? (or both)

Bot.

[Kepler]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part IV - Repeal & Replace, or Something...

He seems nice.

[alfablue]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part IV - Repeal & Replace, or Something...

There is no possible way to have health insurance without also having an insurance company. The only question we have is whether there is monopoly power concentrated in a single insurance company wholly owned by and run by the US government itself, or whether we have competition among several different private insurance companies.

and before someone trots out the hoary, false chestnut about Medicare having "lower administrative costs," that statistic is really misleading, because they omit several major costs from that measure (for example, losses to fraud, which are substantial, are not counted as an administrative "cost"; nor are the enforcement efforts to combat fraud counted; nor are the administrative costs that the government forces other entities to incur on its behalf included either).

So you are fully ok with a company that sole job is to make a profit telling me how I can spend my healtcare dollars? They do NOTHING other than that.

BTW, I'm not sure if you checked- but for profit companies ALSO have to deal with fraud, and all of the parts that entails that. Given how inept we see companies run, I've never understood why people ASSume that a for profit company will inherently do a better job than a government run one. Most have incompetence, fraud, mistakes, and humans too. Many include massive greed, and some even massive criminal greed.

All we really NEED is a pool of money that we can all use to pay doctors and the professionals who actually do work on people.

The real problem is that people like you and flaggy who can't see the money situation as a simple control box- money vs money out. You pretend that giving $100 to entity X to get $90 back in services is ok if it's a for profit company and horrible if it's a government agency. Dude- it's just conservation of money- it does not matter where it goes, it's out of your pocket.

A single agency could easily be set up using the administration workers of all of the for profit companies, so there's the people who do the real work in companies. If management is needed, take them at a government pay rate. Not at the multi-millions in compensation that some of them get right now (did i mention how little service they actually provide, other than telling you what you can't spend money on?).

Again, I, personally, question the morality of someone making a lot of money basically doing nothing but rationing out the ability to get healthcare.

[alfablue]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part IV - Repeal & Replace, or Something...

He seems nice.

Uh, women don't usually get pregnant on their own.

[Kepler]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part IV - Repeal & Replace, or Something...

Tonight on That's Inevitable...

[Kepler]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part IV - Repeal & Replace, or Something...

Uh, women don't usually get pregnant on their own.

The entire Republican philosophy can be summed up thusly: "it's your misfortune and none of my own."

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part IV - Repeal & Replace, or Something...

Uh, women don't usually get pregnant on their own.

Not a Republican on this planet that believes that.