Thread: President Trump should work to repeal and replace Obamacare with nothing!

This is not going to get better until we scrap the whole U.S. healthcare system and start over again. It might work if we could open up American healthcare insurance to International foreign markets, they are already established and have steady income and lower premiums that the U.S. The prices should be lower spread across a larger group and other countries. Making it more affordable to Americans. More people could afford coverage. The uninsured would have to be covered by our government which it already does anyway with our medicare tax. Just a thought.

This is the idea behind erasing the lines. Repeal of McCarran-Ferguson Act of 1945 doesn't have any effect on state regulations of insurance agents or additional laws that states may want to impose on insurance companies. McCarran-Ferguson Act exempts insurance companies from the Federal Trade Commission regulations and the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. To take advantage of that exemption, insurance companies set up state based subsidiaries in all 50 states, each subsidiary only serves the people of that particular state, so the "pool" is very small compared to most businesses that trade on an interstate basis.

Repealing the McCarran-Ferguson Act not only does away with the Anti-Trust issues that raise premiums through monopoly and anti-competition behavior like collusion and price-fixing, it subjects the whole industry to other federal fair trade regulations to prevent predatory sales, fraud, schemes, negligence, discrimination, and other unfair illegal activity. But most importantly it expands the "pool" for each insurance company from the present state population to the population of the entire country. So instead of being 1 of 4 companies that serve Mississippi, they would be 1 of 1,000 that serve the whole nation and the broad spectrum of our national demographics.

Premiums will drop like rocks and services will increase. Co-pays and deductibles will be much smaller and the variety of services and different types of policies will be many, varied and very consumer oriented because there will be interstate national competition.

That doesn't change the underlying demographic problem of so many poor and unemployed in our country who can't afford health insurance at any price. Until we fix the economy we have no choice but to use tax dollars, more state than federal I would think, to pay for their health care until they have a good full time job and buy their own or hopefully have an employer plan they can sign up for.

Thank you for raising the point about the "pool", posylady, because that is a very very important advantage of repealing the McCarran-Ferguson Act of 1945 and "erasing the lines".

Good information. Thank you.

Judy, It might work and should of always been open on state lines. The only problem is that the pool will not be established already to cover millions and to take millions of people who have been uninsured at the start would drain a lot of their resources right off the bat. Uninsured people who become insured start going to the Dr. and many are sure to have serious health issues that will cost. It might work. It also may take a lot of insurance companies down with the added resource strain. Government might have to bail them out at some point. But after a few years of building up resources it could work. Most insurance companies are also insured by Lloyd's of London so most may be O.K. I am just not very trusting of our Health Insurance companies in the U.S. doing the right thing. They are a lot like the big Pharma companies. They want to be the only ones doing business in the U.S. so they can control the market.

Originally Posted by posylady

Judy, It might work and should of always been open on state lines. The only problem is that the pool will not be established already to cover millions and to take millions of people who have been uninsured at the start would drain a lot of their resources right off the bat. Uninsured people who become insured start going to the Dr. and many are sure to have serious health issues that will cost. It might work. It also may take a lot of insurance companies down with the added resource strain. Government might have to bail them out at some point. But after a few years of building up resources it could work. Most insurance companies are also insured by Lloyd's of London so most may be O.K. I am just not very trusting of our Health Insurance companies in the U.S. doing the right thing. They are a lot like the big Pharma companies. They want to be the only ones doing business in the U.S. so they can control the market.

That's right, posylady. That's why I said this:

That doesn't change the underlying demographic problem of so many poor and unemployed in our country who can't afford health insurance at any price. Until we fix the economy we have no choice but to use tax dollars, more state than federal I would think, to pay for their health care until they have a good full time job and buy their own or hopefully have an employer plan they can sign up for.

We'll have to underwrite expanded Medicaid or what Trump said on the campaign trail that I liked better which is, if someone is sick without insurance and no money to pay the bill, then tax payers pay the hospital bill on a reduced negotiated rate, until the person can get a job, a better life and afford insurance of their own. If they have a good job but don't have any insurance, then they'll have to pay the bill, work out a payment plan with the hospital and pay it off over-time.

We right now have 75 million people on Medicaid, about 14 million on SCHIP plus about 50 million on Medicare. That's at least 140 million of our 330 million people already on government funded insurance. The SS Disability I'm not sure how that works, whether they have early Medicare of some kind or not, I would imagine they do, so that's probably another 5 million. So that's 145 million.

Now for me, I've no problem with this 50 million on Medicare or the 5 million or whatever the number is on Disability. But I have a helluva problem with this 75 million on Medicaid and the 14 million on SCHIP. About 5 million of the 75 million on Medicaid are Seniors who qualify for both Medicare and Medicaid. I've no problem with that 5 million or whatever the number is today, that's what it was a few years ago when I did all this research on the subject. Maybe's 6 million today, but whatever it is, I'm fine with that. But for the rest, the objective is to get that other 70 million of Medicaid and the 14 million on SCHIP, full time jobs with companies that either pay high enough wages so they can buy their own insurance or better, go back to the ole days and employers provide a company plan voluntarily, not by mandate.

So you take the other 180 million people who are above poverty and SCHIP levels who are not retired or disabled and that's a pretty large pool that will grow as we create jobs and the SCHIPS program is ended, and the Medicaid numbers drop from 70 million down to 20 million or less. That would be a national pool of employed people of 180 million self-sustaining plus 14 million from former SCHIPPERS which is combined 194 million plus the 50 million that drop off Medicaid to self-sustaining and that's 244 million people plus a good share of the 50 million seniors who want and need supplemental plans.

That's a big pool to work with, especially through employer provided plans.

Then you have to work with our hospitals and drug companies to get some of those crazy costs down. And that means hiring American Doctors. So many hospitals now have imported these foreign doctors who I can tell you many of them do not know what they're doing. I don't know if it's their basic educations, language issues, attitudes, cultural differences, arrogance, or what it is, but it's a problem, a huge problem. We have to get more Americans into medical school. We have to stress that this is a good field to go into and we have to expand our American Medical Schools so they can take on more Americans to attend medical school with priority to fill the need. We also need to encourage doctors to make house calls. This would dramatically reduce hospital costs because it reduces emergency room visits and subsequent "admissions" when all the person may have needed was a shot of penicillin or a prescription. When the hospitals see that you have great insurance, they book you in for a several day stay, drug you so you can't think straight, and milk it for all its worth.

I've posted about this McCarran-Ferguson Act for years, that's where it starts. It's a simple bill, a no-brainer, completely separate from "Obamacare" and with that one simple action, the industry itself will gear up into action and start funding competitive national plans, no government, no legislation, it will just happen. I do like the government rules concerning pre-existing conditions, as well as no drops just because you got sick and actually used your insurance, and also no rescission without cause. We do those simple things of repealing McCarran-Ferguson and have a simple little bill that covers pre-existin conditions, drops for use and no valid cause rescission and there will be companies and plans all over the place for the 180 million pool and then grow with the SCHIPPERS when they go off SCHIP, the former Medicaiders when they go off Medicaid and Seniors who want and need supplemental plans.

I believe our federal government now spends approximately $950 Billion on “health-care” [Medicaid, CHIP, Medicare, and Obamacare subsidies]. I see nothing wrong with reducing federal taxes by that amount, leaving this money within the States, which in turn allows the States and people therein to deal with “health-care” as they individually see fit. Just imagine the enormous saving from doing this ___ no more federal bureaucracy employees who now get outrageous salaries and pensions which hard working American citizens are taxed to finance. We need to rid ourselves of this federal welfare parasitic Cartel which lives large on the American taxpayer’s hard earned wages.


JWK

Our Washington Establishment welfare cartel, which has enslaved the American People, needs to be terminated, and powers not granted to the federal government must be returned the states and people therein.

If federal taxes were reduced in your State by the amount the Federal government now spends on Medicare, including its federal bureaucracy, and keeping that money in your State, could your State continue a Medicare program in your State in a much more efficient manner which would begin with abandoning all the federal regulations which have caused Medicare costs to skyrocket?

Seems to me our bloated federal government is the problem and not the solution. It is filled with a swarm of blood sucking parasitic employees who live large on every States taxpaying citizen’s dime.

JWK

The American People need to rid themselves of the Washington Establishment welfare cartel which has enslaved them, and return powers to the States and people therein which are not granted to the federal government

Do you mean Medicare or Medicaid? Medicare stays with Social Security. People worked for that and paid into it. Medicare is fine. It hasn't had a tax rate increase in 30 years so there's really no problem with Medicare or Social Security which hasn't had a tax rate increase in 26 years. Neither one of those are the cause of budget deficits or higher taxes or national debt.

Medicaid on the other hand is the biggest user/abuser/loser. I would like for the federal government to get completely out of the Medicaid program. Put it all on the States. It's their poverty and policies that cause and promote this expenditure. You get the federal government out of the Medicaid program and you won't have an illegal alien problem, you won't have a breeding problem, you won't have a jobs and wages problem.

But then the States won't be able to afford it unless the feds give up on the evil disgusting federal income tax, so pass the FairTax and turn Medicaid over to the states, lock stock and barrel. Problems solved in one swoop.

I realize you want to get rid of the federal income tax but want a different apportionment federal system. The problem I have with that plan is that now the states will have the big income tax and raise property taxes and have more sales taxes. Problem becomes even larger that way, it seems to me.

If the FairTax is passed at federal, then the states will see the wisdom and move all their taxes to the FairTax at State and Local levels, eliminating income and property taxes.