TEA Party Solutions

[EyeKhan]

The TEA Party believes that now, before the uninsured get signed up for insurance plans, is the last chance to stop the ACA. I'm under the impression their ideology embraces leaving millions out of the health care system as better than a government roll in helping the working poor participate. Am I wrong in this? Is the reason the TEA Party presents no alternative to the ACA that their goal is to have no alternative? If not, then what is the TEA Party solution to rising health care costs and millions of un-insured?

Ok, if you're not a TEA Party enthusiast but you still oppose the ACA, feel free to chime in with the alternatives you support.

And if you really do support leaving the working poor out, feel free to defend that too.

[Loki]

The Tea Party seems to be concerned more with sticking it to Obama than with any larger ideological issue.

[Lewkowski]

Favorite ways to stop rising health care costs:

*Allow insurance to be sold across state lines, creating a larger market
*Tort reform - eliminates much of defensive medicine and the cost of malpractice insurance
*Encourage HSA (oddly enough being smacked down by Obamacare) coupled with high deductible catastrophic care insurance. (IE make health insurance, health INSURANCE, not a health maintenance plan. To compare it to a vehicle, you're insuring against the cost of an accident or theft not your oil changes, brake pads and tires).

For me personally the idea of the parents insuring kids up to 26 is asinine and just encourages young ADULTS not to work and mooch longer via student loans and mommy and daddy. I also favor mandatory deportations for illegal aliens who use service that they can't pay for. Its basically theft.

[LittleFuzzy]

It doesn't matter what alternatives one might support. Having passed ACA, no alternatives can possibly pass until the system is about to collapse from its own weight and monumental cost, with the US government and economy along with it. And even then, passing an alternative is iffy. Fifteen to twenty years from now, I hope you will take to heart that bad reform is worse than no reform.

[Aimless]

Are you guys preparing to migrate to better countries?

[Hazir]

It doesn't matter what alternatives one might support. Having passed ACA, no alternatives can possibly pass until the system is about to collapse from its own weight and monumental cost, with the US government and economy along with it. And even then, passing an alternative is iffy. Fifteen to twenty years from now, I hope you will take to heart that bad reform is worse than no reform.

Indeed, trying to stop ACA at this stage is most likely going to be as harmfull as getting of a train that has gotten up to speed. What many people don't quite understand is that with the new system coming in the old system is already winding down and would be in no position to pick up if ACA now by some congressional magic would disappear.

Which makes the rejection of ACA by people like Dreadnaught incredibly stupid; they seem to think that a system of health care insurance can be based on a tabula rasa every time we come up with a better idea. The perfect being the mortal enemy of the tolerable; we've seen it before and all it leads to is worse solutions not to some utopic perfect state.

[Hazir]

Favorite ways to stop rising health care costs:

*Allow insurance to be sold across state lines, creating a larger market
*Tort reform - eliminates much of defensive medicine and the cost of malpractice insurance
*Encourage HSA (oddly enough being smacked down by Obamacare) coupled with high deductible catastrophic care insurance. (IE make health insurance, health INSURANCE, not a health maintenance plan. To compare it to a vehicle, you're insuring against the cost of an accident or theft not your oil changes, brake pads and tires).

For me personally the idea of the parents insuring kids up to 26 is asinine and just encourages young ADULTS not to work and mooch longer via student loans and mommy and daddy. I also favor mandatory deportations for illegal aliens who use service that they can't pay for. Its basically theft.

Is there anything of those things you mention that couldn't be implemented within the structure of ACA ?

As for 'health maintenance'; I think that's really not the same as your easy example of car maintenance and car accidents. Given that the insurer will have to pay the full cost of the 'catastrophic' accident, the insurer has a very real interest in preventing it in a way the car insurer can't prevent a car accident. Preventive medical care can have significant role in 'keeping the car from crashing', it's not just in order to keep it 'driving smoothly'.

[GGT]

Hazir: currently, insurers aren't on the hook for "full costs of catastrophic care". It depends on what buyers choose in their policy coverage, weighed against costs of monthly premiums and deductibles. For example, you can opt-out of Organ Transplant coverage, in-patient Rehabilitation or extended Care facilities, to reduce premiums. One alternative is to increase auto or home-owner coverage to include Hospital costs not covered by health insurance (but that accident/injury has to be linked to driving or property liability).

But you're right on the preventive/health maintenance part. "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure".

[Ominous Gamer]

the health insurance my government employer offers us through humana doesn't cover the full cost. Twice in the past year I've seen 2 coworkers end up on the hook for more than 30 grand due to broken arms, both had catastrophic health insurance, better known as high-deductible health plans. Hell, the name alone tells you you're fucked if something happens.

[GGT]

The Tea Party seems to be concerned more with sticking it to Obama than with any larger ideological issue.

Loki and I agree on something!

...Is the reason the TEA Party presents no alternative to the ACA that their goal is to have no alternative? If not, then what is the TEA Party solution to rising health care costs and millions of un-insured?

Freeee Market Capitalism? Live Free or Die? Trade a chicken for a check-up? Hope Pray that faith-based Hospitals and charities will pick up the slack? But remember....Hands off their SS and Medicare!.

Ok, if you're not a TEA Party enthusiast but you still oppose the ACA, feel free to chime in with the alternatives you support.

While I applaud measures that regulate and expand access to health insurance....I don't think the PPACA went far enough to ensure universal health care. We will still have health/illness largely dominated by one private sector -- the Insurance Industry -- unless or until we have a decent Public Option.

One important proposal died in congress long ago, that might have changed things dramatically: ending "employer (tax funded) subsidized health care" for federal employees, particularly those elected to House and/or Senate. They'd likely re-consider the whole damn thing, and jump into action, if they faced the same constraints as the constituents who hired (voted for) them.

[Hazir]

I wonder how many of those people who are utterly against government programs are on social security, covered by medicare or medicaid and/or are recieving foodstamps.

[Dreadnaught]

I'm under the impression their ideology embraces encouraging a mass death system as better than a government roll in helping the working poor participate. Am I wrong in this?

Yes, I rewrote your quote. There are a lot of different ideas on the right with regards to reforming healthcare, but increasingly complex and large government meddling+subsidies isn't the answer. Just because you don't support Obamacare/socialism doesn't mean you want people to starve in the streets.

There are also a lot of different ideas on the right about how to best fight Obamacare. Personally I think the best approach is to let this thing become the mess it's supposed to be and, if anything, make the mess quicker and clearer to the American people. This fight about the budget has distracted Congress from protecting and extending the Sequester (PBUH) and highlighting how fucked-up Obamacare is going to be.

I think certain people live in quite a bubble about how unpopular this law is across the country and in certain sectors outside of the New York Times orbit. I was hanging out with some alternative medicine people last night -- folks who would nominally gravitate towards the left -- and all they could talk about was how they are pissed at Obamacare and worried it's going to kill their business. It was surprising and refreshing.

But that doesn't mean there isn't legitimate concern that, once this ball gets rolling, it will become Gospel to the Democratic party, who will defend it regardless of its fiscal, operational and moral failures.

[Loki]

The world would be a better place if alternative medicine people were out of business.

[EyeKhan]

Yes, I rewrote your quote. There are a lot of different ideas on the right with regards to reforming healthcare, but increasingly complex and large government meddling+subsidies isn't the answer. Just because you don't support Obamacare/socialism doesn't mean you want people to starve in the streets.

Single payer universal coverage would be better, but I'm a lefty. What's your idea?

I think certain people live in quite a bubble about how unpopular this law is across the country and in certain sectors outside of the New York Times orbit.

Yes, the bubble was made clear in the last presidential election.

On a side note, an artifact of checking in here infrequently is the shock of your on-going right-wing transformation. Sheesh. Cray zay.

[Aimless]

I was hanging out with some alternative medicine people last night -- folks who would nominally gravitate towards the left -- and all they could talk about was how they are pissed at Obamacare and worried it's going to kill their business. It was surprising and refreshing.

What. The. Fuck.

[Hazir]

What. The. Fuck.

Clearly some people think that drinking water should be covered by insurance. I am not one of them and I also would not think their interests should be normative in a debate about health care costs and/or insurance thereof.

And Dread; let health care become a mess because you have some ideological problems with the system of financing it isn't just politics as usual. It's also not fighting against people being pawns in a numbers game played by politicians. It's dumb and dangerous playing with actual lives.

[Dreadnaught]

Single payer universal coverage would be better, but I'm a lefty. What's your idea?

Yes, the bubble was made clear in the last presidential election.

On a side note, an artifact of checking in here infrequently is the shock of your on-going right-wing transformation. Sheesh. Cray zay.

I've been over this. Folks like me believe that our insurance system has been deeply broken by bad/corrupt regulations for decades. The solution isn't more bad regulations, but a regulatory re-write that decouples insurance from employment, makes insurance companies compete more and offers subsidies to those on the low end of the income scale (or those who would otherwise never be covered by insurance due to lifelong debilitating illness, incapacity, etc).

What. The. Fuck.

Why so surprised? The law is basically designed to discourage small medical practices and allows the government to decide what can be covered. If you're a small acupuncturist, chiropractor or physical therapist you should be worried. And the acupuncturist and the physical therapist I met on Saturday were pretty concerned.

Maybe you misunderstood what I meant by "alternative medicine"?

And Dread; let health care become a mess because you have some ideological problems with the system of financing it isn't just politics as usual. It's also not fighting against people being pawns in a numbers game played by politicians. It's dumb and dangerous playing with actual lives.

I agree, it's dumb and dangerous to socialize medicine in the manner being done in the US. People will die.

Does it feel good when to say people should die?

[GGT]

There are also a lot of different ideas on the right about how to best fight Obamacare. Personally I think the best approach is to let this thing become the mess it's supposed to be and, if anything, make the mess quicker and clearer to the American people. This fight about the budget has distracted Congress from protecting and extending the Sequester (PBUH) and highlighting how fucked-up Obamacare is going to be.

'Fighting' the ACA, or trying to make it fail, isn't the same thing as having an alternative plan for health reform. Those on the right tried "repeal and replace" (with no replacement), then fear tactics like SSSocialized healthcare, death panels and killing jobs. Now it's "de-fund and de-rail", despite the fact that it's not a discretionary spending item.

And the procedure/process for amending Laws doesn't include threats to shut-down government, or refuse to raise the debt ceiling. But that's what the far-right faction of the right wing is doing. You used to call them Wing Nuts, before you drank their Tea.

I think certain people live in quite a bubble about how unpopular this law is across the country and in certain sectors outside of the New York Times orbit.

That "bubble" goes both ways. You can find Tea Party base and conservative "polls and surveys" done in red states, repeated by their congressmen, taken up by Limbaugh/Beck, Fox News, etc. But living in that bubble causes false conclusions about How unpopular this law is across the country!

The 2010 elections ushered in a group of freshmen Tea Party People, thanks to gerry-mandered congressional districts, hell bent on a mission to make the Obama administration fail. But they lost the 2012 Presidential election, which was in large part a referendum on The ACA. If you dig deeper into any poll/survey, most people are either uninformed or confused about the law, what their options are, or how the Exchanges will work....that's an important part of its "unpopularity".

But that doesn't mean there isn't legitimate concern that, once this ball gets rolling, it will become Gospel to the Democratic party, who will defend it regardless of its fiscal, operational and moral failures.

It remains to be seen if there will be fiscal or operational 'failures'. Sure, there will be glitches during the Beta stage (like any other new program). But it's just as easy to assume (D) would want to make changes and improvements, rather than presume some nefarious intention. That last part of your post needs an explanation: how is expanding health insurance to the uninsured a moral failure?

[GGT]

I've been over this. Folks like me believe that our insurance system has been deeply broken by bad/corrupt regulations for decades. The solution isn't more bad regulations, but a regulatory re-write that decouples insurance from employment, makes insurance companies compete more and offers subsidies to those on the low end of the income scale (or those who would otherwise never be covered by insurance due to lifelong debilitating illness, incapacity, etc).

Agreed on the broken Insurance Industry, and de-coupling insurance from employment. But it seems your selective memory is at work again...because you're forgetting that those regulations were roundly rejected by Republicans, going back to the Clinton and Bush eras. Instead of reforming the Insurance Industry and Healthcare for everyone, the battle was aimed against Unions (whose members had Platinum employer-subsidized policies, just like federal employees and congressional staffers).

Dread, the ACA is basically a regulatory re-write, aiming to do exactly what you just said you want: more competition between insurers, subsidies for low-income workers, and including those with pre-existing conditions or debilitating illnesses in the greater pool (instead of kicking them out or denying coverage). Sounds like your objections are based on confusion or ignorance about the Law.

*But that confusion seems common among those who've relied on employer-subsidized benefits, as part of their employment pay/reimbursement package, and worry that extending the same coverage to others will somehow mean less for them.*

Why so surprised? The law is basically designed to discourage small medical practices and allows the government to decide what can be covered. If you're a small acupuncturist, chiropractor or physical therapist you should be worried. And the acupuncturist and the physical therapist I met on Saturday were pretty concerned.

Where are you getting this stuff? Where are your acupuncturist and PT friends getting their information? If they're accepting insurance from patients with that coverage, there will still be plans with that coverage! It might be the same policy they have now, or a new Platinum policy bought on the Marketplace Exchange.

I agree, it's dumb and dangerous to socialize medicine in the manner being done in the US. People will die.

Does it feel good when to say people should die?

Then you go and say stupid shit like that. Seriously, stop drinking that Tea.

[RandBlade]

The thing that I never see addressed is just how totally and universally f**ked up the American system currently is.

As I see it, it is reasonable to believe in either of the following depending upon your perspective:
1: People should take responsibility for their own healthcare, the state shouldn't pay.
2: Everyone should have access to healthcare, the state should pay and not individuals.

However the US has the worst of both worlds currently.
3: Access to healthcare is haphazard, individuals pay, companys pay and the state still pays too.

US Taxpayers pre-Obamacare pay more towards healthcare than UK taxpayers do. And that's without an equivalent to the NHS. Our NHS is CHEAPER to the taxpayer than what your taxes already pay for but then unless you're on medicare it seems you get nothing from those taxes your paying and either you or your company pays again too. You either pay twice, or pay once and don't get coverage. That's messed up.

[Loki]

What you're not mentioning is that the main impact of Obamacare is to raise healthcare costs even further.

[RandBlade]

I think my point is why is the US system so FUBARed already? From a right-wing POV it makes sense to believe in a private market and less taxes, but the USA doesn't have that. Its fictional even before Obamacare.

What is the existing high tax expenditure (higher than the UK has for the NHS) going on? Does ANYONE believe it provides value for money?

[Hazir]

I think my point is why is the US system so FUBARed already? From a right-wing POV it makes sense to believe in a private market and less taxes, but the USA doesn't have that. Its fictional even before Obamacare.

What is the existing high tax expenditure (higher than the UK has for the NHS) going on? Does ANYONE believe it provides value for money?

Interesting question; in Turkey you can get first class health care for prices that are still more or less affordable to middle class people. For those with no money the state system offers lesser quality health care.

[GGT]

What you're not mentioning is that the main impact of Obamacare is to raise healthcare costs even further.

The rate of rising costs has decreased since the ACA was passed in '10 (according to several sources). Or did you mean costs of health insurance?

I think my point is why is the US system so FUBARed already? From a right-wing POV it makes sense to believe in a private market and less taxes, but the USA doesn't have that. Its fictional even before Obamacare.

What is the existing high tax expenditure (higher than the UK has for the NHS) going on? Does ANYONE believe it provides value for money?

The thing that I never see addressed is just how totally and universally f**ked up the American system currently is.

As I see it, it is reasonable to believe in either of the following depending upon your perspective:
1: People should take responsibility for their own healthcare, the state shouldn't pay.
2: Everyone should have access to healthcare, the state should pay and not individuals.

However the US has the worst of both worlds currently.
3: Access to healthcare is haphazard, individuals pay, companys pay and the state still pays too.

US Taxpayers pre-Obamacare pay more towards healthcare than UK taxpayers do. And that's without an equivalent to the NHS. Our NHS is CHEAPER to the taxpayer than what your taxes already pay for but then unless you're on medicare it seems you get nothing from those taxes your paying and either you or your company pays again too. You either pay twice, or pay once and don't get coverage. That's messed up.

Oh, we've been complaining about how fubar our system is for decades. There's a weird philosophical/political divide that's gone on since Medicare, when some insisted it would be The End of America! vs others saying it was a Public Good (like Public Education).

That's how we ended up with #4: a mixture of private and public that's expensive, with disparate outcomes. That system reflects Two Americas, Haves vs Have Nots, two political parties that are polar opposites with growing 'extremism', and a vanishing middle/center.



edit: To top it off, the Tea Party people organized, and were incorporated into the Republican Party (because they were losing ground as a national party). They found funding from a few monied special interest groups, and the train left the station....chugging out the mythical mantra of the Self-Made-Man. A bootstrap mentality that not only demonized the poor/working poor, entire ethnic groups, AND government safety nets, but tied that to Patriotism!

It's McCarthyism and Communist fear-mongering revisited. IMO it's shameful and disgusting that Republicans allowed their party to be hijacked by extremists and radicals who'd rather destroy "teh evil gummit" from within, based on some delusional "freedom and liberty principle" that harkens back to the Wild West.....even if it hurts the Nation and hurls the Union backward.

/rant

[EyeKhan]

I've been over this.

So?

a regulatory re-write that decouples insurance from employment, makes insurance companies compete more and offers subsidies to those on the low end of the income scale (or those who would otherwise never be covered by insurance due to lifelong debilitating illness, incapacity, etc).

This sounds good to me - though single payer would be better. And the rising cost of actual health care services would still need to be addressed. Interestingly, that increase has dropped substantially since the ACA passed, though nobody seems to know exactly why....

[EyeKhan]

Does ANYONE believe it provides value for money?

Its a great question - how does a nation spend far more per-capita than every other nation in the developed world, fail at covering every citizen, and remain in the lower ranks of medical outcomes for those who are covered???? It's nuts. Who/ what is soaking up all the money???

[Aimless]

Don't you get it? It's because the US is subsidizing the healthcare of the entire world Americans are in fact the only ones actually paying fair free-market prices for their medical products and services. Or wait, was it government-broken-market-prices? I forget

[GGT]

So? This sounds good to me - though single payer would be better. And the rising cost of actual health care services would still need to be addressed. Interestingly, that increase has dropped substantially since the ACA passed, though nobody seems to know exactly why....

It's been attributed to constraints put on providers and intermediaries. Hospital federal funding was tied to outcomes, like tracking and reducing hospital-acquired infections and re-admissions. Insurers were also mandated to spend 80% of peoples' premium charges on actual care, not advertising or administration costs. (That's why they sent multiple million dollar re-imbursement checks to individuals or employers.)

Its a great question - how does a nation spend far more per-capita than every other nation in the developed world, fail at covering every citizen, and remain in the lower ranks of medical outcomes for those who are covered???? It's nuts. Who/ what is soaking up all the money???

The for-profit Insurance Industry, and the Financial Industry that trades healthcare like cars?

[Hazir]

Other countries have got a for profit insurance industry too, and they seem to be able to make both money and deliver affordable health care to the middle class. Seriously, why does the US have a system that delivers a product at a price that wrecks people financially or keeps care out of reach?

[GGT]

Ideological divides and political partisanship? First, on the role of government, then on whether healthcare is a right or a privilege. At least that's my take on it.