Republican Healthcare Plan

That is an issue. But no insurance is worse. From what I can see the people who have been subsidized are screwed. (High-risk pools have been tried; they are expensive and never received sufficient funding. I doubt the Republican government will be allocating huge funding.) Thus alleviating the burden for those who can afford to contribute to an HSA. Those who cannot afford it or don't have Federal income tax liability to be offset (the famous 47%) will not be helped at all. I.e. like all previous block grant programs cut back funding greatly and hope the states decide to use it to provide health care. There are several states that already allow out-of state insurance companies to operate. There are exactly zero insurance companies taking advantage of that. It's horrendously expensive to expand into a new state and it takes quite some time to realize a return.Of course state governments are not interested in giving up their regulatory functions.Likely there would be a "race to the bottom" as with credit cards. Insurers will find the state with the most flexible and limited regulation and move there. Yes, and since health care isn't amenable to a free-market solution, many many of those people will be screwed.

Yes. It's now legal for states to allow out-of-state insurance. Some do. The only way to change the situation Federally is to make it mandatory on all states. If there's an opt-out then a lot of states will opt-out (few want to give up their regulatory power) and the situation won't change. "Allowing sales across state lines" will be meaningless and ineffective.

It's US right wing dogma that aid to the needy harms them by encouraging them to avoid working and rip off the taxpayers. Ayn Rand stuff. The data shows otherwise, which appears to have no effect on the belief.Healthcare would be no problem if those people would park their welfare Cadillacs, turn off their 75" TVs, and buckle down.

Medicare is much more efficient than many duplicated bureaucracies in private hands. And it has purchasing leverage no private company has.All sweeping claims are wrong.

The people who can't afford insurance without subsidies won't get any of that. Many of them pay no Federal income tax so tax rates are irrelevant, and the proposed tax cuts will reduce the payment by those who do pay tax by about 1%.

I know and suspect others do too.If you pay no Federal income tax where do the premiums come from?If you desperately want to contribute to an HSA but have nothing left after food, housing, and clothing what do you do?Do you think there are ignorably few people with those problems?

Ok, what laws inhibit sale of insurance across state lines and what side effects will getting rid of them have?Will anyone do anything to make the economics more favorable?

Er, um,...SFW?Congress made the decision not to cover everything.Medicare has purchasing leverage no private company has.The firsts does negate the second.

You don't have to buy additional insurance. You can pay out of pocket. You seem to think everybody has enough disposable income.Would you be in favor of making Medicare better by allocating additional government funds to make copays and limits equivalent to private insurance?

The ACA isn't all that bad. But the Republican "plan" is guaranteed to be far worse for the consumers. They've made many promises that nobody will lose insurance. A pathetic lie. The leadership is being very careful to say everyone will have access to medical care unless, of course they can't pay for it.Plus back billing. That's a sweet deal for hospitals and will significantly increase health care bankruptcies. My late wife's care was probably in the 2-2.5 million range. Back billing would have wiped me out even though I have first-class health insurance

I notice your reply has no connection with the points I made.Are you in favor of back billing?Given that the Republicans will not initiate or raise any taxes, do you think they will produce a plan under which nobody loses meaningful insurance? (I'm not including meaningless plans that guarantee bankruptcy if you get any moderate to severe illness).

Again I notice your reply has no connection with the points I made.Are you in favor of back billing?Given that the Republicans will not initiate or raise any taxes, do you think they will produce a plan under which nobody loses meaningful insurance? (I'm not including meaningless plans that guarantee bankruptcy if you get any moderate to severe illness).

Immediately followed by a long post in which there is no mention of the issues my questions raised. Quite a performance.You make it clear you are in favor of bankrupting poor Americans by back billing and unaffordable meaningful health insurance. Pretty vile.

Back billing (AKA balance billing) is incredibly despicable.Say a hospital's standard charge for a procedure is $10,000. But your insurance company has negotiating power and forces them to accept $8,000 when they do the procedure on you.Back billing allows the hospital to bill you for the "missing" $2,000. Makes the hospital happy. Ensures that any major illness will bankrupt you whether or not you have health insurance.

Your intentions are clear. Your posts are not. You do not remember correctly. The ACA made it illegal to charge chargemaster fees in some cases . However that portion was never implemented because rules were never published in the Federal Register. There's a lot of disagreement as to why. Tax-Exempt Status For Nonprofit Hospitals Under The ACA: Where Are The Final Treasury/IRS Rules?:

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The ACA reformed the procedures and standards applicable to tax-exempt hospital financial assistance programs, historically a core activity of tax-exempt hospitals, and one that takes on special importance in states that, to date, have failed to implement the Medicaid adult expansion. The ACA amendments (26 U.S.C. 501(r)(4)(A)) make several key reforms: they limit the charges that can be leveled against patients eligible for financial assistance; they require hospitals to establish written policies specifying financial eligibility criteria, how patients can qualify for assistance, and hospital collection practices in the event of non-payment; and they require that policies be widely publicize[d] within the community served by the organization.

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The only such reference I can find is to the America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009, not an amendment, which never passed and was not associated with the ACA. It was intended to be a comprehensive health care reform bill. Obama refused to endorse it because it would add $900 billion to the deficit over the next ten years.The ACA eliminated most medical bankruptcies. VP Price wants to do just that. Neither of us know what Grassley would do. Would he fall into line? Maybe. The Republican plot to devour retirees' nest eggs

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A great many medical providers adjust their prices based on how defenseless the patient is, and bleed the weakest ones for every last red cent, often with preposterously inflated charges for things like aspirin and bandages. A 2015 study looked at the worst price gougers in the country and found 50 hospitals that charged uninsured people roughly 10 times the actual cost of care.

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Key to this practice is something called "balance billing," and it's why the American Medical Association is strongly supporting Donald Trump's pick of Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees Medicare. Balance billing is forbidden for Medicare enrollees, but Price wants to allow it thus allowing doctors and hospitals to devour the nest eggs of thousands of American seniors.

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So what is balance billing? It's the practice of billing the patient for the difference between the sticker price and what insurance will pay. So if a hospital visit costs $1,000, but your insurance will only cover $300, some providers will "balance bill" you for $700.

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For unscrupulous providers, the method of exploitation is obvious: When doing any sort of expensive procedure, take a rough estimate of the absolute maximum the patient can pay, and jack up the price so the balance hits it. Or if you're short on time, just bill them into the stratosphere, and you'll get whatever the patient has during the bankruptcy proceeding.

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Balance billing is basically illegal for Medicare patients, and heavily restricted for Medicaid patients. It was restricted under the Affordable Care Act as well, but only partially. Out-of-network care increasingly common as insurance networks get narrower and narrower can still be balance billed even if it is for an emergency, both for ACA plans and employer-provided ones, and doesn't have to be counted toward out-of-pocket limits. People being blindsided by immense out-of-network bills going to an in-network hospital that employs an out-of-network surgeon they conveniently failed to tell you about, for example is an increasingly common experience. That is why ObamaCare failed to stop people being bankrupted by medical debt (though it did slow medical bankruptcies substantially).

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That brings me back to Tom Price and the AMA. In 2011, Price (an orthopedic surgeon himself) introduced a Medicare "reform" bill in Congress that, among other things, would have brought balance billing to the program. This would greatly increase provider and physician revenues, and the AMA eagerly lined up behind it.

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