Quote:
Originally Posted by TheDaliLama
You have a point. Let a real debate play out.
It's an entitlement now, there may not be a good solution.
You know.... it would probably be less expensive to give free healthcare to those who only have pre-existing conditions and have free market competition for the rest of us.
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1. The ACA and Medicare Part D (signed by Bush43) both cost $800 billion over 10 years. The ACA became political with the severe spikes in premium cost in certain states. Republicans do like the certain parts of the law, people with pre-existing conditions can't be denied coverage and children can stay on their parents plan up to age 26.
2. If you get your health insurance from your employer (and most of us do) that is free market, in the sense that the government is not helping you pay for your premium. The government does not control which doctors are in which networks, the health insurance companies control that.
3. In the individual market high risk people with pre-existing conditions are buying the health insurance. Low risk people are not buying in sufficient numbers to create a balanced risk pool. The government is helping you pay for your premium in the individual market in the income range of family of 4 makes > $24,000 and < $94,000. (Note the range is different if there are more than 2 kids)
4. The unbalanced risk pool is causing the premium price to go up (if the health insurance company elects to stay in that market or state/county). UHC left all of their states and Aetna went from 15 states to 4 for 2017.
5. If they to do as you suggest put all the people with pre-existing conditions into their own risk pool, it would not be any cheaper. Insurance companies in general rely on premiums from low risk policyholders to pay off the claims submitted by high risk policyholders. The government would be forced to make up the difference.
6. The fix to use is the bill by Congressman Pete Sessions from Texas. It gets rid of the individual mandate, has the tax credits and lets the states keep their expanded Medicaid. The new house bill being pitched by Ryan will not fly in the Senate. There are at least 3 republican senators who don't want to lose the expanded Medicaid for their state.