You mean it would be a mess logistically and because people will vote stupidly and in low numbers? I agree those would be issues, but we already vote idiots into office as it is and then they make stupid decisions on our behalf.

No

Trump ran on very specific campaign promises to improve health care which included nobody losing coverage. So, yeah he is doing the opposite of what he said. to the extent what he promised was impossible but people believed it anyways, well, that also counts as duping

to the extent he has no idea what this bill will actually do (legit chance) then that still counts as duping people, bc he ran on something very specific that isn't being delivered

so if its not bc people vote poorly and turnout is low then why is it a mess?

Anyway, if the context isn't a mitigating circumstance in TQA's sentence, then you should ban me, too. Because Disko is clearly a scumbag and I don't want to post somewhere that we have to tapdance around his bull****.

Go read about it

My understanding is that people who were previously insured for the last 18 months won't lose coverage and that all the people who won't have insurance under the new plan are people who weren't insured in the past or ones who choose to drop out. Now, I understand that many people will drop out because they are price sensitive and prices may rise dramatically, but these people aren't losing coverage they are opting out of coverage even if it is for very understandable reasons. The fact that they will have coverage options, even if they are at much higher price points, is important and it allows Trump and the GOP to keep their promise of healthcare for all who want it and pay for it. He never said it would be free or anything.

wanna give me a link?

That's cool that they basically pay for your gym membership

No

My frustration yesterday was with the concept that it's not fair to compare the number of people who are insured under Obamacare to the number of people who are insured under RIPCare™. That bothers me. A lot.

The whole conceit of Obamacare is that universal healthcare is what any developed first world nation must provide. It's viewed as a civil right in liberal nations the world over. America should be able to get its **** together and provide the same.

But that proved politically impossible, so Obamacare was born out of MITT ROMNEY's healthcare solution in Massachusetts in order to bridge the political gap and try to provide something similar to universal healthcare.

The answer to the question why didn't Obama make the subsidies larger is that he could not because it had to somehow pass through Congress, who are, as a rule, basically morons.

The RIPCare™ solution is to repeal the mandate while still providing insurance markets that people can opt in to if they want to, while retaining the FREEDOM AND LIBERTY not to.

The reason it's FAIR to compare the numbers apples to apples is that it's simply a comparison of competing policies: one side values providing healthcare to everyone (and tried to given the circumstances), the other side abhors the idea and values allowing people not to subsidize other people and allowing them total freedom to choose insurance or not.

The central issue is that removing the mandate also destroys the fundamental notion of a functional insurance market for healthcare. Of course it's not OPTIMAL to force insurance to be the tool of universal healthcare, but it's even WORSE to retain insurance as the tool of healthcare for the poor but to undermine it by guaranteeing that it cannot financially succeed without jacking up premiums to pay for the predominantly sick population of insureds.

You can't separate those issues. Of course this reversal of policy will cause people not to be insured. SOME will do so by choice - the healthy people. OTHERS will do so because premiums are too high and they can't afford it - the poor people who cannot pay for insurance with a measly $4,000 tax credit. Still OTHERS will do so because premiums are too high and they don't want to pay for it because it's too expensive - FREEDOM LOVERS.

The healthy people who opt out due to their health are opting out by the design of RIPCare™. That's the goal.

The poor people who cannot afford health insurance under RIPCare™ are being forced out by the design of RIPCare™. That's also the goal.

The middle-class people who can technically afford health insurance but opt out due to the premium increases caused by healthy people also opting out are being forced out due to the economic inevitability of premium increases by RIPCare™ design.

The middle-class people who could afford health insurance but opt out due to the (insanely stupid) 63-day 30% premium increase PENALTY - let's say they lost their job for more than 63 days, for example - are being forced out by the design of RIPCare™. That's also on purpose.

It is entirely apples to apples to compare the two. They are two competing philosophies of healthcare in America. There's no sense in which comparing them directly is unfair or misleading at all.

Moreover, all of the above is mere postscript to the enormous tax cuts being paid for by gutting Medicaid. This, too, targets and penalizes the poor, who it should be mentioned again were the intended beneficiaries of Obamacare. Attacking the poor to finance tax cuts is the design of RIPCare™.

Why does he care about the technicality of keeping his promise, when effectively 0 of the people who "opt out" will see it that way?

He said it would cost people less. Granted it was nonsense among his other nonsense, but where are you getting "promise of healthcare for all whho want and pay for it" from his campaign.

I agree with everything in that hoya wordbomb. I especially agree that the structure is purposely designed in a manner that will result in people opting out because they're either healthy and don't need it (and would be overpaying), unable to afford it, or don't want to pay the higher prices.

Everything Trump said on his campaign that he called a promise, he's shown at every turn that he was shocked that the public took him seriously. And it's documented, from Trump himself, not just "sources."

Everything from "I just said that so they'd cheer" to "I was testing to see if they'd like it or not."

He never would have met with the Carrier people if the public hadn't raised hell about it. He was legit shocked that they expected him to do it. So he pulled off something halfass, and the Carrier rank and file now hate him.

There's never been any grand plan from Trump. Unless he luckboxes something, he's going to yet again be shocked that people demand to not be priced out of healthcare, and he is going to pull out something halfass to save face, and people are going to hate him. Only this time, it won't be just 4 figures of voiceless people.

he may or may not, but they will spin it in such a way that his promise was kept.

and it will cost some people less. I don't ever recall him saying that every single person would pay less though. Trump has blatantly lied about all kinds of things time after time, but on healthcare its been very clear that it would be more expensive for some people to remain insured.

I'm just saying that people who voted for him had all the info they needed to know that the healthcare reform was going to be detrimental to them if they were either poor OR heavy consumers of healthcare. If they still voted for Trump despite that then they deserve to get what they voted for.

You can't spin 20 million people who are affected that directly and to that degree

Sure, people who keep their Healthcare can be spun

The point is that 8 figures don't give a **** about the technicality, and presumably half of them will be people who will be upset at Trump for the first time in their lives

I agree with this

It can be spun as true. That doesn't mean people won't care. I fully expect it to be both spun as true and for people to be mad if this goes through. They aren't mutually exclusive.

No. He. Hasn't. I literally never saw him say such a thing--it was all "You're gonna get so much better healthcare for such a tiny fraction of what you're paying now, and it's gonna be so much simpler and so easy."

Have you not seen the clips from John Oliver about his insane medical promises?

Increased costs is one of the main Republican attacks against Obamacare. They talk about it all the time, pointing out the jump in prices on the exchanges, the death spiral, etc. It's brilliant politics, it really is. Fight tooth and nail against the ACA, make the Democrats own it completely, and then when prices inevitably rise, as they have since health care progressed beyond a shot of whiskey, a sharp knife, and some leaches, shout from every hill top about how the Democrats are to blame. Republicans are terrible at governing, great at politics.

But that's also precisely why they're ****ed now, and they know they're ****ed. They can't fix it either, but they have to own it. It's why it was so easy to shout about how terrible it was for the past eight years, but now that they've won everything and have gotten to the pesky replace part, they have no clue what to do. They aren't going to be able to get away with making health care more expensive and saying tada just like the Democrats weren't able to do it, except their plan will almost certainly actually increase the rate at which prices rise, while Obamacare was at least designed to try and tap the brakes a bit with the mandate and subsidies.

what info was missing that wouldn't have allowed them to understand costs would rise if the individual mandate was repealed? Its extremely straightforward. If they failed to consider that then its their fault.

I'm watching a Spicer press conference live for the first time. What a rambling mess. Are any of these stats that he's throwing out there legit?

I'm not watching, but I think it's safe to say no, or at best extremely cherry picked and misleading

I don't know, CDL, I don't understand these idiots at all. Of course it's ridiculously obvious, but that appears to be too high of a bar for them, possibly due to anger or emails or something.

Still has nothing to do with Trump actually telling them he'd lower their prices probably "by" getting rid of the mandate, somewhere in his stream of consciousness compulsive promislying.

Just stop letting this dude off the hook by imagining he's been consistent. If you think he's been consistent, you must've only checked once!

My dad absolutely thinks his premiums through his employer-offered plan will decrease, because obviously it was Obama who raised them

His employer hid pay cuts from their employees and it seems to have had great success