Gaming of Obamacare Poses a Fatal Threat

gwb-trading said:
I disagree with you that putting for-profit insurance companies out of business will somehow fix the healthcare system in the U.S. - it will not.

There are plenty of western nations that have public and private plans in the market that co-exist. For example in Germany, each year workers select between the public plan and several private plans in the workplace. The private plans cost more and offer more benefits generally. However they are still close in cost to the public plan because they are competing against it.

This type of public / private system has been implemented very successfully in many countries and should of been used as the model in the U.S. Instead we got the disaster known as Obamacare which was an attempt to giveaway everything demanded healthcare and insurance company lobbyists. It certainly has backfired on the insurance clowns, they got everything they demanded and now it is bankrupting their firms.

The U.S. would have been far better off in extending Medicaid to all, and then allow private insurance companies to offer alternative policies to employees at companies. However the greedy healthcare industry would not want something like this - it would cut in on their profits. Nor does the industry was common sense reforms such as offering health insurance policies at a national level instead of state level to be put into place (which would make the cost much lower with no state regulatory paperwork required).

Bottom line: Obamacare is a complete disaster and must be replaced. However what it must be replaced with is not what tea party Republicans are dreaming of - the replacement must be more aligned with the public/private systems that many European countries have in place to be cost effective and medically effective.
More...

I would be in 100% agreement were I living in a dream world, or in Germany, or in Switzerland. What do you think the chances are of repealing McCarran-Ferguson? I'd say close to zero. [see link at the bottom.] The only way the Public Option can work as a competitive foil to private insurance is if there is very tight, uniform and restrictive, federal regulation of medical insurers, exempli gratia as in Germany and Switzerland, and as in all modern nations except the U.S.A.

I was for Obamacare so long as the public option was included, even though I knew full well that no plan could succeed without repeal of McCarran-Ferguson. Once the public option was dropped, as a necessity as it were, to get something, anything, through the House and past Democrat Senator Baucus in the Senate, I knew, though I foolishly remained optimistic, that the ACA was going to be a horrible failure with respect to any hope for cost containment. And of course it is, just as I predicted.

Since our obsolescent form of government will not allow for repeal of McCarran Ferguson, I am of the opinion that our next best option is a disastrous crisis, that will force us to adopt medicare for all.

But that alone won't solve the problem of McCarran Ferguson unless medicare participation is made non-optional. Because that disastrous, 1945, Act will interfere with Federal regulation that might otherwise forbid private insurers from siphoning off only the young and healthy and leaving, as they do now, the old and infirm to medicare!!! And that would continue to happen under a competing choice system, medicare or private insurance, unless uniform Federal regulation prevents it. The reason this dual system can work fairly well in some countries in Europe is because of very tight, restrictive, federal regulation of medical insurers. We don't have that, and we won't have that until the last Republican Senator and a third of the Democrats in Congress are dead, and McCarran-Ferguson can be repealed!

Incidentally, I should mention that we have already in place a system of Medicare in conjunction with private insurance that supplements medicare payments under medicare parts A and B. This is very different, however, from what you propose, and what I would want too, where we have a choice of choosing either a private carrier or the government throughout our lives. Whereas Parts A and B supplemental insurance function OK because Medicare keeps a tight lid on allowable charges, the part D supplemental insurance, begun under Bush II, is a nightmare ripoff against a back drop of out of control drug pricing. It is also a huge giveaway to the companies offering part D supplemental insurance. How the government was able to bring coordination and any regulation at all to these supplemental policies in the face of McCarran Ferguson, I don't know. Surely there was some coercion somewhere. [Under McCarran Ferguson, specific federal regulation of insurers can preempt State regulation, but the probability of such regulation passing both houses seems nil.] And as we know, private insurers have no interest in competing with medicare for the old and infirm, other than in their optional and profitable supplementary role, where medicare continues to pick up the bulk of the costs..

What we both want is cost control through competition. It's Very hard to achieve this when the offer is something that can't be refused, and regulation is willy nilly, State by State.

http://www3.ambest.com/ambv/bestnews/newscontent.aspx?refnum=179977&URATINGID=2255588&altsrc=23
 
Last edited:
why do you keep writing this phony history.

Obama choose Baucus to shepard Obamacare through because that is what the insurance companies told him and the other democrats to do. I have given you links to that Frontline PBS special which documents this.

There was no republican opposition to worry about because the dems had all the votes they needed. Obama could have gotten the public option passed if the dems were willing to serve the people and not their Wall street paymasters.

2. McCarran Ferguson had nothing to do with this. McCarran does not prevent Congress from regulating insurance... While I agree it should be repealed it does nothing to stop Congress from creating single payer. Its the fact that the dems are crony whores that stopped the public option.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarran–Ferguson_Act


The McCarran–Ferguson Act does not itself regulate insurance, nor does it mandate that states regulate insurance. "Acts of Congress" that do not expressly purport to regulate the "business of insurance" will not preempt state laws or regulations that regulate the "business of insurance."[2]

The Act also provides that federal antitrust laws will not apply to the "business of insurance" as long as the state regulates in that area, but federal anti-trust laws will apply in cases of boycott, coercion, and intimidation. By contrast, most other federal laws will not apply to insurance whether the states regulate in that area or not.[3]
 
Good. You read almost as well as I do. So what is needed then are Acts of Congress that DO expressly purport to regulate the "business of insurance", as these WILL preempt state laws or regulations that regulate the "business of insurance."

And what is the probability of such preempting laws being passed? I would guess roughly the same as the probability of McCarran Ferguson being repealed.
 
to the first part of your statement, yes... correct all they have to do is expressly regulate insurance. (Isn't it odd how the leftist at some of your favorites sites completely mis-characterized the effects of that the law to cover for the democrats. What could motivate them to do that. Whose interest are they serving... are they also sellouts? are there no trustworthy voices in the media anymore? )

to the second part.


The probability of single payer being passed was extremely low even though at least one hundred members stated they supported the idea... the reason the odds were so low is that when its time for campaign bribes your party answers to silicon valley and wall street - as do establishment republicans. Wall Street and its insurance companies clearly told your party... there would be no single payer. (again watch the documentary.)

the fact the democrats in Congress as a group and mostly as individuals are crony whores is why McCarran is on the books. Its not McCarran-Fergusson that makes them whore sellouts - who are traitors to unions and the working class - its their greed for money, campaign bribes and big payoff jobs when they are done being whores.

I know those the words I used above are harsh. But... I believe they are the most accurate words I can use. This plain meaning of what they are doing to the working class of this country should be stark and clear.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top