Trump Threatens Coverage Of Millions If Democrats Won’t Negotiate On ACA Repeal

Imagine if you will.........

That retail giants Walmart & Target along with government and insurance conglomerates operated as healthcare industry does today.

Walmart and Target would collude on pricing, market share, regional market prices and reimbursement rates from insurers but not on an even basis, but what market will bear.

Prices will be marked up via prior agreement by 10X multiple with insured members getting 50% discount but shall be charged aggregate rates based on 10X multiple after deductible is paid.

Non insureds and government dependants shall be charged a 20X multiple with 25% discount for government dependants.

Walmart and Target having lions share of market shall control independent producers prices in support of 10X markup via "make it or break it" powers offered by favorable government policy purchased by campaign financing and other "donations"

Walmart and Target being able to hire the best accounting knew that the business model had a finite level due exponentials where private funds would not be enough to feed the 10X cost basis.

They would have government eek out the rest of publics funds via a so-called single payer system.

Walmart and Target went on building and hiring spree knowing full well government could not expropriat facilities and business via constitutional law. When Single payer instituted at behest of broke citizenry they stand to offer services at 10X multiple with 50% discount and 25% overhead and profit fee, saving 25% on published costs.

Walmart and Target at this point will have 100% of the market and will have achieved "to big to fail" making even more money until system collapse.


The above is what we are allowing with healthcare. Were it retail doing what's occurred public would burn down stores and run politicians out of town.

Healthcare industry has no immunities from law just as Walmart and Target are not immune.

Why are people blind to this? Why the refusal to demand action?

Instead folks ask for more of it.

originally posted by: spiritualzombie
a reply to: SBMcG

Whatever it takes. Healthcare should be a public service.

Or we can have this same argument over socialized law enforcement and fire department service. I don't need these. I never call the police, I never call the fire department -- thats for "losers" who don't know how to take care of themselves-- why should my tax dollars pay for other losers problems? But we don't have this discussion instead we proudly pay for these people who save lives.

It can be done and it should be. Enough of the failed health insurance system. Its only existence is to bleed people of their money.

What about food? Should we pay for other's food too? Auto insurance, dentists, how about massages, prescriptions, liposuction, Botox? An individual who is capable needs to be a productive member of society. If they don't...they bear the responsibility for that UNLESS other individuals WISH to help them out. THAT should NEVER be a requirement, especially without adequate policing for the cheaters and the lazy abusers.

Maybe you just want to turn our paychecks over to the government and have them take their cut, their salaries and give you what you need to survive. Tell you what you can and can't have. Hell...maybe they can feed it to you also. That is not a society I wish to live within. I pay my insurance, retirement, etc. I'm responsible for myself and my family...YOU DO THE SAME!

originally posted by: spiritualzombie
a reply to: Annee

I imagine it would. But would it or would they put focus on other forms of insurance? It's not like insurance as a whole would disappear.

Quality insurance would. Your Dr. may disappear, and (Obama) obviously you can't keep your plan. The government could then control you with the threat of fines and taxes...they could take your home if you don't pay whatever amount they want. Nope...not for me. I don't wish to be ruled.

Time to watch the movie, 'Elysium'.

a reply to: Xcalibur254

You mistakenly believe the working class likes Obamacare. They don't. They like a couple of the silver linings, but the working class is just that, working. Most employers of the working class offered insurance long before Obamacare came around.

While rather unscientific, I don't know anyone who likes obamacare. I have a number of liberal colleagues and they like a couple aspects of it, but as a whole they hate it. I've pressed them on it a few times and when presented with repeal or leave it, they've all said repeal. The believe a replacement would happen and if it didn't it doesn't affect them or those they know. (Should be noted, my state did not do medicaid expansion, so there's hardly any gain in coverage here).

originally posted by: [post=22127705]odinsway
[And? My tax payer money shouldn't go to subsidizing anyone. Sorry you are sick..Not my problem.

What a selfish, horrible, disgusting human being you are. Shame on you. Absolutely vile comment.

a reply to: fencesitter85

Not really...that is the view of many people. Personally, if a friend of mine was sick or otherwise having a hard time I would offer to help out. But don't require it of me. Only a liberal thinks it is find and dandy to force people to take their own money and spend it on others.

And where does it end? What if I had cancer and only a year to live but can't afford the treatments. Should you pay for my treatments? What about special or "weird" experimental treatments. How about this...maybe the rest of the country should be forced to build a new medical building and hire the smartest doctors in the world, with all the best equipment and cure my cancer for me? Why not? Spend billions to cure my specific cancer cause...it is only fair that you pay to cure me.

originally posted by: MOMof3
a reply to: SBMcG

We all should pay for a healthy nation just like a safe one, with roads, military and police.

ETA I don't believe in a net neutral budget. I have been living within a budget since 1969. The only way to get more is to add more.

Again, we're on two different planes here in this discussion.

You are predicating your position on "should"... I'm talking about what can be done within the legal, political, and realistic parameters of what we actually have to work with.

Advocates of single-payer/universal/socialized healthcare never seem to be willing to detail how it's legal for the Federal government to enact such a thing under our Constitution (which is why Obamacare had to be passed as a tax) or who will pay for it.

Obamacare is as close as we've ever come to a national healthcare system and it's a total disaster. I do not agree with President Trump's position on Obamacare. I think the Republicans should allow it to completely collapse. Not one Republican voted for it, the current Administration can in no way be held responsible for the Obamacare mess, and it would be a good lesson for the country to see the real-world results of liberalism.

originally posted by: WeAreAWAKE

originally posted by: spiritualzombie
a reply to: Annee

I imagine it would. But would it or would they put focus on other forms of insurance? It's not like insurance as a whole would disappear.

The government could then control you with the threat of fines and taxes...they could take your home if you don't pay whatever amount they want. Nope...not for me. I don't wish to be ruled.

That "take your home" is 100% correct..and your investment assets as well. That happens to Medicaid recipients upon their death right now.

Medicaid "Estate Recovery" Provision: www.medicaid.gov...

But since Medicaid is a program for the impoverished, there aren't normally any assets for the government to seize. With a Universal Healthcare system, the potential for heirs to be denied their inheritance is a very real, and sad potential outcome.

The Washington Times boils down the gist of this thread nicely... I didn't know that the Federal Government has been making these payments to health insurance companies Illegally the past 3 years. If Donald Trump wants to shut them off, it's totally legal and proper to do so, unless Congress officially appropriates these funds.

""President Trump is threatening to cut off critical Obamacare payments to insurers unless Democrats come to the table to negotiate a new health care bill, taking a tough negotiating stance that could force Democratic leaders into a government shutdown by month’s end.

At stake are “cost sharing” payments that Obamacare backers say are supposed to be made to insurance companies to cover their losses from low-income customers.

A federal court has invalidated the payments, saying the Obama administration spent the money even though Congress specifically stripped the funds from its annual spending bills.

The government is still making the payments pending an appeal of the case, but Mr. Trump hinted last week that he would halt the payments himself, forcing Obamacare into a quick death unless Democrats agree to negotiate over major changes to the Affordable Care Act.

“If Congress doesn’t approve it, or if I don’t approve it, that would mean that Obamacare doesn’t have enough money, so it dies immediately as opposed to over a period of time,” he told The Wall Street Journal.""

Full Article: www.washingtontimes.com...

a reply to: SBMcG

Obamacare is not a disaster, but it is incomplete and you can thank health insurers for that. They are bleeding the working class with higher premiums to gain support for a total repeal. A public option would destroy the health insurers leverage which is why they fought so hard to keep it out of Obamacare.

But after seeing how health insurers are willing to bleed the country like this for the sake of their profits-- I say f#ck them all. Skip the public option- go straight to single payer. Amend the Constitution if necessary. Health Insurance companies need to be made extinct.

originally posted by: Teikiatsu
We don't have any classes in the USA, we are not a caste system. But we do have people who make certain wages.

You must absolutely ADORE the taste of your feet. Happy rummaging the search returns in that link.

Good luck having anyone take anything you say seriously again.

a reply to: spiritualzombie

I would imagine that you're all for President Trump following through on his threat to cut off payments to Health Insurance companies? This would cause all of them to abandon the ObamaCare market...bringing America that much closer to a "Public Option" for those who don't get health insurance at work, or through VA, Tricare, Medicaid, etc..

a reply to: spiritualzombie

If Obamacare isn't a disaster, what do you think would happen to it if the Republicans did nothing about It? I don't know what you think is "incomplete" about it, but shouldn't Obama and the liberals have dealt with that in the first place?

Let's just let Obamacare run its course. Let it live its own life. Republicans had nothing to do with the creation of this idiotic and failing typical liberal boondoggle, why should they lift one finger to fix it?

The failure of Obamacare has nothing to do with insurance companies. They're in business to make money for their shareholders (like me). I want them to make money. They're not in business to give their product away for free.

Who will pay for your single-payer healthcare? Let's be honest, you really want free healthcare for yourself while someone else pays for it.

For there to be single-payer healthcare in this country, we would need at least another $1 trillion in revenue to cover it. When the bottom 60% of earners pay about 2% of the taxes and the top 20% pays almost 90%, who pays the extra trillion?

a reply to: SBMcG

SBMcG, what do you suggest President Trump do about those who will be left without any health insurance on 1.1.2018? On that date, the Knoxville, TN. area will have ZERO health insurance companies for those who don't have either insurance at work, or through a government program.

Ref: www.theblaze.com...

You just know that of the 40,000 Knoxville residents without health insurance on January 1st, a portion of them will be undergoing life-saving medical treatment.

Should President Trump/Congress intervene to help these citizens in need, if a new health insurance system isn't ready by then?

Anthem Blue Cross is also considering abandoning ObamaCare nationwide on 1.1.2018. The 40,000 Knoxville residents will then just be a drop in the bucket, because Anthem is the sole health insurance company available to millions of U.S. citizens.

a reply to: carewemust

It's not just 'dems' who oppose the replacement.
So one of the man's primary platform was to eradicate ACA, and come to realize he didn't know what the fack a health Care system should be or what provisions would need to be considered from the old bill.

Kinda like when he planned to do away with 2 old bills for every single new bills put in place, the trumpaholics were too busy looking for 'triggered' memes to reply to the sane ones who questioned such proposals, insteadof actually taking into consideration how idiotic or foolish even the idea of something like that is.

a reply to: SBMcG

Actually I am done talking about healthcare with my countryman. Opponents just want money for wars and killing. Screw all of you.

originally posted by: dukeofjive696969
Its ok, the republicans had the chance to prove to america that they are true patriots, but no cant even have that, so they will keep blaming the left while the middle class gets destroyed.

Enjoy your 4 to 8 years of the replicants doing nothing, that's all they seem to know to do.

You seem to be full of nonsense day after day. Trump is the first president in my lifetime to actually fulfill promises. At this point Im waiting on the ACA to fail on its own and hurt all the ones that praise it so much. So I can get on here and say I told you so. Every year we have had to switch insurance companies mid-year because of one pulling out. This year there were only 2 choices. Shouldn't be much longer at this rate. Thanks Obama.

a reply to: Xcalibur254

Letem, he gonna do what he is gonna do, yes he will hurt a lot o folks but the up tick is we get universal health care after a predicted punishing defeat.

a reply to: carewemust

Fair question, and Knoxville is certainly a prime example of the failure of Obamacare, but let me ask you this – what did those 40,000 low income folks do BEFORE Obamacare? They certainly weren’t being denied medical services. They weren’t dying in the streets en masse from unattended medical conditions.

I am quite certain that any low-income Obamacare recipients undergoing life-saving medical treatment on 01 January 2018 will go right on receiving that treatment, Obamacare or no Obamacare. The doctors aren’t just going to drop their scalpels and go out for a ham sandwich.

The larger issue is this: why should Trump and the Republicans fix or even replace Obamacare? Not one Republican voted for it, and obviously, the American people did not want it – the turnover in the House in the 2010 election was historic and forever doomed the larger Obama agenda.

Our medical system pre-Obamacare was the best in the world. One realistic option is to simply let things go back to the way it was before the Obamacare disaster. There would be an adjustment period, certainly some at the bottom of the income ladder would be inconvenienced at most, but I seriously doubt there would be similar negative effects to the enacting of the law to begin with.

If you’re asking my opinion of what should “replace” Obamacare, that’s it: nothing.

It should be allowed to collapse and die. This is 100% a Democrat-caused disaster just like the mortgage/banking collapse in 2007/08 and should serve as a reminder of what happens when these socialist boondoggles implode.

Again, the Republicans remain blameless in this. Repealing Obamacare and replacing it with something else WILL turn into a mess of their own creation. I strongly disagree with President Trump on his repeal/replace policy.

I am a constitutional conservative and tend to filter these matters through that lens. I don’t see any grant of power anywhere in the Constitution for the Federal government to provide healthcare to US citizens (let alone illegal aliens) and further see no right established for an individual to be entitled to healthcare provided by the Federal government.

That being said, the 10th Amendment grants the states the power to pretty much do whatever they want in regard to healthcare. I have no problem with the citizens of a state coming together and establishing whatever healthcare system they choose. The Federal government could block grant them money just as they do for Medicaid and provide basic standards and oversight with minimal intrusion.

So there is my answer. Nothing should be done with Obamacare. It should be allowed to collapse, the system should return to its pre-Obamacare configuration, and then the states should be empowered by the Federal government to enact whatever healthcare system they do or do not want.