Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Politics In General GOP at war with itself on health care

You want to make some real progress on health care costs?

Institute some simple changes. Medical school is free but you have to work for a non-profit hospital or practice for 10 years at $50,000 per year. Doctors can make any salary but anything over $250,000 is taxed at 100%. Hospitals and medical groups have to be non-profits and all salaries are capped at $250K per year in the same manner. Drug prices have to reflect the cost to manufacture them plus 1000% profit. (So no more $100 per year drug cost with $65,000 price tag because you have a patent.)

I'm sure there are some other simple ideas. Somebody (or more likely several bodies) are getting rich as Croesus off medicine in this country. It doesn't have to be this way. Plenty of people would still want to be doctors with these restrictions, just fewer people who are only in it for the money.

I apologise that much has passed since I began this post, but I want to finish my thoughts.

Ma R, I've never seen you apologetic about anything. It is part of your charm.

What your argument ignores are these fundamental points of reality:
1) pre-ACA, nearly a third of all Americans were without health coverage.
2) Medicare and Medicaid provide a wide variety of choice and cover more than more than a third of all Americans.
3) the CBO numbers were correct prior to interference by Republicans and 19 Republican governors refusing to cover their own citizens with expanded Medicaid.
4) US medical outcomes are at the bottom of developed countries (and many third world and developing countries).
5) there is a national shortage of medical providers, which is doing more to drive up costs than any national policy.

Food for thought.

I have to chuckle NWP as the MA Republican is much akin to Sec Price in their respectively similar ideology. Neither gives a damn about health care of anyone else. So any appeal to statistics falls on deaf ears.

I listened to some of the Price townhall and in typical ultra conservative fashion he ignored questions and answered some with beliefs. If he had been honest, he would have told the audience he really didn't care if anyone got health care, but because liberals passed a law which tried to cover people and they liked it, conservatives had to devise a plan which appears like it does the same thing.

Nobody wants to come right out and say they want poor people to die. It would make reelection harder.

You gotta do that old political shuffle: One step forward, then two steps back...

It is a really simple equation here, the American people should not be forced to pay for their neighbor's health insurance at a federal level. You want socialized medicine, get it passed through your state legislature and raise state taxes to pay for it. The federal government is not capable of managing a simple trust fund, how will it be able to manage a huge entitlement? Hey, the previous guy promised that costs would go down and that I could keep my health plan. The skeptic in me would argue that he lied to us, but the liberal part of me argues that he had nothing but our best interests in mind when he added nearly 10% of all Americans to a government run monstrosity for free. He knew we wouldn't mind taking care of our neighbors and strangers. I mean, what would I have done with that extra $300 to $500 per month?

Look, I make no bones about it, this is about taking care of me and mine. The extra money that health insurance has cost me since Obamacare was forced upon America could have been used for the good of my family, even if was to take a family vacation. You can argue all you want what you insist is right or wrong, I don't care. America was founded and thrived on the thought that Americans took care of themselves. It has become painfully obvious that Obamacare will not work. America does not want to have their pockets picked to pay for other peoples largess. It all comes down to a simple question, why should my family go without? Why should I have to pick up the tab for somebody else? Obamacare has become the federal version of a gofundme account, except this gofundme account is mandatory and the money is being used to support a total stranger whose only need has been created by the federal government's need to impose its will upon the people who elected them.

I want my party to do NOTHING! Let's see what Obamacare will do over the next few years. Let's see if it was made to last or destined to fail. My guess, this thing will sink like a rock. Why throw good money after bad? Let it fail and see if something new can be created that would actually work and be sustainable. Obamacare cannot work, it never could have worked. All of the lies that we were told by its namesake, that costs would go down, that all would be good in the world, that it would free us from our worries and make is feel like we made a difference, and all of the other BS dogma that the last guy spouted, has come home to roost. Let Obamacare stand or fall on its own merits. Maybe it gets replaced, maybe it doesn't, but the experiment has been proven to be a failure. It cannot be saved.

Why should any Republican try to save Obama's masterpiece of disaster? Let it die, chalk it up to yet another liberal idea that didn't last because idealism and realism are opposites.

Once again, the liberal solution is force private business to give away their product. Free medical school? We can call it Obamaschool!

Nothing can save Obamacare. It is an unworkable solution. The real solution is to have the government nationalize all heath insurance companies. That wouldn't work either, but it would accomplish the liberal dream of state run healthcare.

Guys and girls, let's be honest for a minute. The way that this has been implemented is wrong. If there is one part of society that is unqualified to run a conglomerate it is Congress. They bend to the will of the public, they change policy every other year when election season opens up. Look what happened! They tried to implement something good, but something really expensive. The people complained, the states refused and the program is dying a slow painful death. Every time I read that another large insurance company is pulling out of a state I cringe. What is worse than not have something? Losing what you had. You make it seem like it is OK that they lost their insurance, everybody else will pick up the slack. You are wrong! People do not want to pick up the slack, they want things to be the way they were 8 short years ago. It is an uphill battle, and the left is losing. I hope that the Obamacare replacement legislation fails. That would just about ensure that Obamacare will fail under its own weight.

Crashing and burning has always worked to better the human condition - at least in the imaginations of those of us who know that we are exceptional, and we will prosper carefree when all the unexceptional people are marginalized to non-existence.

It is important to obstinately refuse to collaborate with others in seeking solutions. Compromise is a loser's play. The concept of "the general welfare" is evil and cannot be allowed to live. Case in point: where would Donald Trump be in the list of richest men if he stooped to paying the people he owes money to?

I intend to win this game of life, even if I die in the attempt...

I must remind you that Obamacare was passed on a straight party line vote, all requests for compromise were ignored and rejected. As for owing money, I pay my bills and honor my commitments. This commitment was never accepted by the right, and the right is by no means honor bound to uphold the disaster that is Obamacare.

The left made the commitment, if it isn't terminated now, it will become an entitlement, that is unacceptable. Maybe, after Obamacare is swept up in the trash bin of history, a real solution can be implemented, but a national solution being run by the fed is an unacceptable idea. It worked so well this time around, the next time will be worse.

Atta boy! NO COMPROMISE!! The Dems did it without R support (or so the myth goes), so now the R's should BLOW IT ALL UP WITHOUT A VIABLE PLAN!!

Then we can sift the the smoking wreckage and build up a NEW EXCEPTIONAL SOCIETY out of ashes and burnt ground.

Or we could do the sensible thing and agree that health is a wise general welfare thing and all work together to make it better? Maybe accept that paying taxes is a good thing, and mindlessly reducing taxes is a boneheaded race to dystopia?

I never said I wanted the Republican Congress to blow it up. I said I wanted them to do nothing. Let's see where this version goes, who knows, maybe it will become a great success?

Health is a wise and desired thing, but it should not be a national entitlement. It should be run by the individual states, and maybe partially underwritten by the Fed. That is as far as I would be willing to fund. I mean, hell, planned parenthood is being funded by the fed, I suppose that some kind of men's health network could be funded also.