Listening to
political talk this Sunday morning, I could not resist compiling a list of the GOP’s top five horse feather absurdities about
Obamacare. Here they are in no particular
order.
1.
“Obamacare has failed”
The logic escapes me. The most
fundamental parts of the law that insure
30 million left out of the system now have not even been implemented in full yet. Only the
consumer protection measures for those already insured are in effect. Enrollment in the exchanges, the programs by which insurance will be made affordable for
30 million uninsured, will not begin until October and will only become
functioning after Jan. 1, 2014
2.
“ Obamacare will hurt jobs because everyone
employed will have their hours cut to 29
per week in order for business to avoid having to provide insurance”
It did not happen in the one lab test, the Massachusetts system, after
which Obamacare was copied.
Under Obamacare, businesses with less than 50 employees are exempted from
mandates to provide employee insurance. .Part time employees will be
able to get affordable health insurance through the exchanges, anyway.
3.
“The GOP has a plan to replace Obamacare” . That
is not the current line uttered most by
the GOP; the GOP party line is just to kill it. However Sen.
Ted Cruz (R-TX)laid out his replacement plan on Sunday morning CNN talk:
“Separate access of
jobs from insurance”. Great idea.
Obamacare already goes a long way to doing it because if you switch jobs, you will not lose access to affordable
health care. It is available through the
exchanges.
“Cross state insurance competition will bring down rates
to affordable levels”. That is a farce. If you buy insurance in another state, you
will very likely run into the same insurance company, perhaps operating under a
different name but owned by Blue Cross,
United, or the other few national conglomerates. Insurers are not subject to anti trust laws, leaving them free to set prices and coverage across state lines. Profit driven, they can
continue denying those with pre-existing
conditions, using more than 20% of
premiums for overhead, setting life time caps on benefits, and charging high co
pays, all practices Obamacare forbids.
Consumers buying insurance in another state would be at the mercy of
regulators in that state, with little recourse
to to dispute their denial of coverage
or outrageous anti consumer practices..
Nothing ever proposed by the GOP
has provided a fundable method to subsidize those 30 million who
cannot afford insurance now nor is there any independent study showing cross
state purchase would lower rates enough for them to afford it.
The only free markets in health care are the Obamacare exchanges which give Colorado consumers, for
example, side by side, apples to apples, gibberish free comparisons and a
choice of over 500 plans from 18
providers.
4.
“The president should be impeached for high
crimes and misdemeanors”
What
for? For using his executive authority to delay implementation of two sub provisions
of Obamacare by one year at the request of business?
5.
“Obamacare will diminish the quality of our
health care system just as national health has done elsewhere”.
The system to which the GOP proposes to return, ranked
the US near the bottom by any measure… around 29th
of the industrialized nations, and all except us provide
coverage for everyone.
It is hard to see how health care would be diminished by Obamacare that requires co-pay free annual
checkups and cancer screening or provides thirty million uninsured the same
coverage as the already insured. Those 30
million now go without preventative care
and use emergency rooms when they are too sick to
treat themselves. In return they receive
bills that they cannot pay, leading many
to bankruptcy .
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