Comments about ‘Replace Obamacare’

All the Republicans have said they want to repeal and replace Obamacare. So far, we have seen several efforts to repeal, not one single effort to replace.

Mr Anderson needs to review what the "Free Market" has done to health coverage. 40 million people uninsured, inability to qualify for insurance because of preexisting conditions. Rapidly rising costs of 20 to 30% per year. Many employers not able or willing to provide coverage or passing on more and more of the premium costs to employees whose real wages have been stagnant for more than a decade. The Affordable Health Care Act, which for political advantage Republicans love to label "Obama Care", may not be perfect but it is a step in the right direction. The Republicans will just take us back to the old discredited system where they and their rich friends will continue to make obscene profits on the back of sick people. Nevertheless The Affordable Health Care act is nothing more than common sense regulation of the health insurance industry long overdue.

Re: "So far, we have seen several efforts to repeal, not one single [Republican] effort to replace."

Maybe you've spent too much time complaining, not enough time actually looking.

See House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's [co-sponsor - Democrat Ron Wyden] newest proposal.

It's a reasoned, comprehensive approach that leads us to a sustainable solution for all Americans, leaving the current system in place for those over age 55.

The author sounds like a parrot from Capitol Hill. The Squawk is deja-vu all over again and yet no substance as to how we can improve things. There is only one way to grasp the costs of healthcare and that is with a single payer system that includes all citizens from Obama to the homeless. Healthcare for profit works only for those that can afford it and with 50% of our citizenery close to the poverty line it is time to reign in the for profit insurance companies that are not in business for anything but making money. Don't tell me can't do it because every substantial nation on earth is doing it.

When your child is violently ill or has been injured in an accident, do you shop around for the best price?

When your spouse is diagnosed with cancer, do you wait a few months to see if a cheaper treatment becomes available?

When consulting with your doctor regarding an imminent heart surgery, are you both exchanging information from equal positions of knowledge?

This is the essential problem with health care - "free market" conditions simply do not exist.

Moreover, between VA, Medicare and Medicaid, something like a third of all Americans' healthcare is already provided entirely through a single-payer system.

Solving our rapidly growing healthcare finance crisis through "free market" solutions is a costly fantasy.

Cancel the health insurance programs given to all state and federal elected representatives and their families and force them to find health insurance on their own.

If we do that we'll have a German or Canadian style health care financing system so fast your head will spin.

Yet how long have Republicans failed to even TRY to find a workable health care insurance plan?

How long have they caved in to pressures from their Corporate lobbyists and campaign contributors?

Obamacare may not be perfect, but it is a heckuva lot better than anything the GOP has ever offered.

Mr. Anderson would be singing a much different tune if he had not been lucky (yes, LUCKY) enough to have avoided the incredible harm that comes to Americans when they are unable to obtain health insurance. Or when the company to which they've paid premiums for years suddenly decides to cut them off.

Eliminating Obamacare without an adequate, affordable replacement is nothing short of pure idiocy.

Most of the provisions of "Obamacare" will not be enacted until 2014 so I'm wondering how the writer knows what it's impact will be ...or has been? The free market system has left 15% of our population without insurance. Many can't afford it or are denied access to it because of pre-existing conditions. Many simply choose not to purchase it and rely on hospital emergency services as there primary care doctor - emergency services that the rest of us pay for with higher premiums. Those are some of the issues that the Affordable Care Act have addressed.

But the insurance companies have done their best, and been successful at convincing the American people that these few changes will be bad. And opinions have been formed before the bill has been fully implemented.

The fact is that health care as a "for profit" business is morally wrong in a country that prides itself on providing opportunities for individuals to succeed. Should a person or a family be forced to bankruptcy or financial ruin because they or their loved ones contract a chronic disease? Is that the kind of country we want to live in? The "free market" can't or won't solve every problem. Sometimes we have to roll up our sleeves and work together for the betterment of all.

What do Mitt Romney, Charles Grassley, Orin Hatch, Bob Bennett, Newt Gingrich, and Barrack Obama all have in common? You guessed it, they have all at one time supported the conservative idea of personal responsibility called the "individual health insurance mandate"! The problem is that the conservatives are moving to the right so fast, that are now disavowing their own ideas! One of keystones of Obama's "socialist agenda" was dreamed up by the ultra conservative, think tank, Heritage Foundation.

Maybe some of the people don't want insurance. ER has to take people. What happened to individual responsibility? AS for what other countries do did people immigrate to this country so we could be like other countries? What a slap in the face. WE have the best health care system in the world.

Coveting takes away responsibility and makes someone else pay for something you use. Since money can't grow on trees what will happen when that money runs out?

The Insurance "health" industry is not about the health and welfare of the clients, it's all about the returns on the investment to their investors.

If you are required to pay $500.00 per month for a premium, then you have a health emergency and get refused the service you've been paying for, then that is fraud. You give them $6000.00 per year, you get nothing in return.

Health Insurance has become nothing more than legalized Fraud.

More empty rhetoric and not one single idea. That's all the GOP sells. What are they doing to fix anything?

Political and societal culturals are made up of stories. Stores that tell us what we think the past was and what the future should be. Par of the republicans story about the economy is that if you just leave the economy alone competition will flourish and prices will sink to a manageble low while providing as much quality as is feasible. Problem is reality. Reality has shown us that when you leave the economy alone and the stakes are high enough competition is destroyed by smaller players banding together to accumulate market share and drive out competitors. That's how we got banks that were too big to fail. Sure there are still credit unions, and small regional banks giving the illusion of competition, but where it counts there are only 5. 5 banks that if allowed to fail would have destroyed the world economy.
Enter free market health insurance..actually, we all ready have health insurance monoplies and all this talk about competition etc. is just smoke and mirrors to cover their tracks. The monoply is employer based health insurance and..United Health Care, Blue Cross, and Blue Shield, Puritan, and a couple of more.

To "ECR | 7:29 a.m." unfortunately the health insurance industry is not really a free market. Each state controls which insurance companies are allowed to sell insurance. Then, on top of that, between the federal and state governments you have over 2,000 mandates that must be complied with. Each mandate adds to the cost. Insurance is a prime example of what happens to costs when government is highly involved.

Right now there are only 2 ways that the government can make insurance less expensive.

1. Take over all hospitals, clinics, labs, and doctor offices, and eliminate the need for insurance and provide all services directly.

2. Cut the number of mandates back to the 1980's level, turn medicare over to private insurance companies, and allow for interstate competition between insurance companies.

You and your ilk would have us turn more control over our healthcare over to government. Just look at Europe to see what happens when you do that. Look at the number of deaths that are due directly to government controlling healthcare.

The question is, do you want to be responsible for your healthcare or do you want to turn that responsibility over to the government?

Free market Fantasy Land, meet Reality.

One of the largest market distortions in healthcare is the requirement for ERs to provide care for anyone, regardless of ability to pay. This incentivizes people to not have insurance, or provide bogus information when they show up to the ER in an emergency.

When the Republicans advocate repealing THAT law, we'll know they're serious about the free market in healthcare.

And the incompatibility of the brutal forces of the market with the charitable and humane mission of healthcare will be revealed.

In the meantime, it's easier, but intellectually lazy to rail against Obamacare.

Here's some "reality" for you!
#1: Over have the states have filed suits against Obamacare because they know it can't work, is unafordable, kills jobs and gives the government way too much power over freedom loving Americans.
#2: Obamacare will insure the defeat of Obama in Nov. and will be the key issue that will give the Republicans control of both houses of congress.
#3: It is unconstitutional as we will see from the upcoming Supreme Court ruling!
And still Democrats want to ram it down down our throats, against our will and govern like the dictators they hope to be!

The argument that market competition will solve the cost problem is problematic.

Despite the regulations everyone complains about we already have the most free market health care system in the advanced world.

That has given us the most expensive health care system in the advanced world.

The two are correlated. Adding free market-based solutions to an already free market-based system (yes, with some restrictions) is unlikely to produce cost savings.

The lesson from other advanced economies is that a mixed approach of some sort produces quality care (we are not the only nation with good care) that is less costly and is generally available to more people.

The British and Canadian systems are not the only models. There are many well-tested models we can look to that allow more options.

BTW, the concept that we should be able to purchase insurance across state lines would inevitably result in more federal control.

Currently, if you have an insurance problem, you go to your state insurance commissioner. Where do you go if the company is not registered and regulated by your state? A federal regulator would have to be created to regulate companies across state lines.

higv and Sean Hannity repeat ad nauseam
"WE have the best health care system in the world."
Saying it doesn't make it so, repeating it makes you party to the lie.
We have the most expensive health care system in the world.

We need a public option, we no longer live on the frontier, we are a society.

Redshirt: I'm pretty sure Blue Cross/Blue Shield is in every state so I don't believe competition across state lines will help anymore than associating your income with the amount of damages you can sue for, when someone causes you harm.

'Obamacare must be repealed, dismantled and replaced with something...' - Letter.

It's 2011, soon to be 2012.

Where is that 'something?'

Abstracts are not solutions. The Republican party has NOT offered any solutions to the Healthcare crisis.

People cite 'examples':

'See House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's [co-sponsor - Democrat Ron Wyden] newest proposal.' - procuradorfiscal | 4:24 a.m. Dec. 29, 2011

And then don't tell us WHY it is 'better' than Obamacare! Just that we should 'read' it...

and that is is.

That is not, information..or a solution.

Remember the 'good old days?'

*'Wellpoint Drops Coverage For Some Women With Breast Cancer' - By Mary Ellen Egan - Forbes Magazine - 04/23/10

'Yesterday, an investigation by Reuters revealed that Wellpoint routinely drops coverage of women with breast cancer. According to the report, Wellpoint used a computer algorithm that automatically targeted...'

*'Uninsured ER patients twice as likely to die' - AP - 11/16/09

The REASON 'Obamacare' (which was based on 'Romneycare') passed...

was because no one did anything to solve the problem on a national level previously.

Everyone how has TRIED Obamacare, likes it.

*'Some families win under new health care provisions' - By Carla K. Johnson - AP - 09/23/10

Replace it w/ what? The plan they have in Massachusetts?

@ Happy Valley Heretic | 8:46 a.m. Dec. 29, 2011

If the health care system is so good here? Why did A Rod who can afford it go to Germany?

Health care is not an enumerated duty of the Federal Government; therefore, it is a matter to be left to the States and to the people.

Just because there is a "need" and just because a lot of people are frustrated with health-care costs, does not give the Federal Government authority to force us to buy health insurance.

Health insurance is not sold across State lines because Congress has authority to interfere in Interstate Commerce. If an insurance company sells across State lines, Congress has the right to regulate those sales. Unless the Constitution is amended to prohibit Congress from making laws about health care and about health insurance and about Interstate commerce, no insurance company is going to sell policies across State lines.