by JOHN CARNEY, Nov 16 , 2017 [this is old news, but it's informative TM]
Senator Tom Cotton deserves credit for bringing Republicans around to a daring, controversial, and politically brilliant idea: repealing Obamacare’s individual mandate through the Republican tax overhaul. Cotton “brought Obamacare repeal back from the dead,” Politico reports. He rallied his fellow Republican lawmakers behind the idea by showing them how the tax savings from ending the individual mandate could be used to broaden the tax cuts without blowing past debt limits imposed by Senate rules, according to Politico.
Far from complicating tax reform efforts, the inclusion of the repeal simplifies it. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the repeal will save the government $338 billion over the next decade. That made room for the expansion of child tax credits, local property tax credits, and small business tax credits without offending the sensibilities of deficit hawks.
The genius of Cotton’s plan, however, only begins with the budget. Far less noticed is how it derails a key talking point that helped undermine earlier attempts to repeal and replace Obamacare. Those efforts were crippled by misleading stories about how many Americans would “lose health insurance” under the proposals. But no one loses health insurance because the mandate goes away. It simply allows those who would prefer to go without insurance to avoid it.
That’s forced defenders of Obamacare to shift the grounds of their criticism onto far less safe territory. Now the critics say that removal of the individual mandate will “cripple” Obamacare and drive up health premiums. But this argument has a fatal weakness: it makes it clear that the purpose of the mandate was not to guarantee that people got the health insurance they need but to force younger and healthier workers to pay for the insurance of the sickly and elderly.
In other words, the mandate was never about getting needed health insurance to those who were hit by the mandate. It was about using the mandate to force people who did not believe they needed health insurance to pay for the insurance of those who do believe they need it.
This has never been a popular position with Americans, who are generally opposed to seeing people used as the means to accomplish the ends of others. It grinds against the grain of the moral sense of many Americans that people should be treated as individuals, ends in themselves, and not as tools for the goals of social engineers.
Not to say that Americans are not generous. But if the problem is simply that we think health care needs to be subsidized, the cleaner and ethical way to accomplish this is simply by directly subsidizing health insurance for those who cannot afford it. If health insurance pools need to be backed up by broader society, that is a burden that should be shared by all. Shifting the burden to a small portion of Americans isn’t generosity–it’s underhanded politics.
It’s important to remember who pays the price of the mandate. These are self-employed people, or people marginally attached to the workforce, or people who cannot gain insurance from their employer for one reason or another. Americans fortunate enough to have corporate sponsored healthcare avoid the burden–which is to say corporations avoid the burden.
This was part of the devilish genius of Obamacare. By concentrating the burden of propping up the individual health care market outside of the corporate insurance market, the plan was able to gain the support of corporate America.
Repealing the individual mandate will also make future health care reform easier. The next time the Congressional Budget Office calculates how many Americans will “lose” insurance from repeal, it will not be able to include the millions who only “lose” insurance because they aren’t required to have it. The numbers will shrink and the anti-healthcare reform forces will find it harder to lie about the consequences.
Nothing about repealing the mandate means anyone’s health insurance premiums will rise. It simply means that any subsidy to suppress the price of premiums will have to be a shared burden by all Americans. We can no longer hide the price of this policy behind the guise of an insurance mandate.
"The demographic most opposed to President Trump is not a racial minority, but a cultural elite." Daniel Greenberg
"Failure to adequately denounce Islamic extremism, not only denies the existence of an absolute moral wrong but inherently diminishes our chances of defeating it." Tulsi Gabbard
"It’s a movement comprised of Americans from all races, religions, backgrounds and beliefs, who want and expect our government to serve the people, and serve the people it will." Donald Trump's Victory Speech 11/9/16
INSIDE EVERY LIBERAL IS A TOTALITARIAN SCREAMING TO GET OUT -- Frontpage mag
2018: What’s Next for Obamacare by Sean Moran 24 Dec 2017
After the Republican Tax Cuts and Jobs Act repealed Obamacare’s individual mandate, many still wonder whether Republicans can repeal Obamacare in 2018.
Here’s what’s next for Obamacare in 2018.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act repealed the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate. Obamacare mandated that Americans who forgo health insurance would have to pay $695 or 2.5 percent of their income, whichever is larger. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) found that 80 percent of those who pay the Obamacare mandate fine make less than $50,000 a year, making the mandate’s repeal a huge middle-class tax cut.
Even though Republicans repealed the individual mandate, much of the Affordable Care Act remains intact. Obamacare still requires employers with businesses with more than 50 or more full-time employees still have to provide their full-time employees health insurance, regardless of the cost to the business.
The Affordable Care Act also expanded Medicaid to virtually every American under age 65 with incomes up to 138 percent above the federal poverty level. The federal government funded 100 percent of each states’ Medicaid population from 2014 to 2016. However, the federal government will wind down the federal contribution percentage to 90 percent by 2020 and beyond, adding a significant financial burden to state governments.
The Republican Tax Cuts and Jobs Act repealed Obamacare’s individual mandate, effective in 2019. On Thanksgiving, President Donald Trump promised to return to Obamacare repeal after passing historic tax reform legislation.
President Trump tweeted on Thanksgiving, “ObamaCare premiums are going up, up, up, just as I have been predicting for two years. ObamaCare is OWNED by the Democrats, and it is a disaster. But do not worry. Even though the Dems want to Obstruct, we will Repeal & Replace right after Tax Cuts!”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), however, argued on Thursday after passing tax reform that Republicans should move on from trying to repeal Obamacare. McConnell admitted that “We’ll probably move on to other issues” after failing to repeal Obamacare on multiple occasions.
“Well, we obviously were unable to completely repeal and replace with a 52-48 Senate,” McConnell told NPR. “We’ll have to take a look at what that looks like with a 51-49 Senate. But I think we’ll probably move on to other issues.”
Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA) suggested that after Republicans passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act they might revisit their Graham-Cassidy Obamacare block-grant repeal legislation.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) revealed in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News that he continues to work with Vice President Mike Pence and the White House on the Graham-Cassidy Obamacare block-grant repeal legislation.
Graham told Breitbart News, “My goal for 2018” is to repeal and replace Obamacare.
The Graham-Cassidy Obamacare block-grant repeal legislation nearly passed through the Senate. The bill would repeal Obamacare’s employer mandate, several Obamacare taxes, and block-grant money to the states so that conservative states can design more free-market alternatives to the Affordable Care Act.
“It’s a sin not to show the same passion with repealing Obamacare which they did to pass it. They voted on Christmas Eve to pass it,” Graham said.
Graham concluded, “The one unpardonable sin is not trying as hard to repeal and replace Obamacare as they did to pass it.”
. The cost of medication. US consumers subsidize R & D for the world.
. Transparency in the cost of medical care and procedures.
. Malpractice reform. There must be a better way to handle malpractice than submit claims to the court system. This would lower the cost of delivering medical care and eliminate unnecessary procedures done in the name of CYA.
Illegitimi non Carborundum
During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.- Orwell
The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it - Orwell
"a lack of transparency" and "the stupidity of the American voter"!
"The demographic most opposed to President Trump is not a racial minority, but a cultural elite." Daniel Greenberg
"Failure to adequately denounce Islamic extremism, not only denies the existence of an absolute moral wrong but inherently diminishes our chances of defeating it." Tulsi Gabbard
"It’s a movement comprised of Americans from all races, religions, backgrounds and beliefs, who want and expect our government to serve the people, and serve the people it will." Donald Trump's Victory Speech 11/9/16
INSIDE EVERY LIBERAL IS A TOTALITARIAN SCREAMING TO GET OUT -- Frontpage mag