If there's one awful thing about today's rabid Democrats, it's that they force people to consider some of the most drastic Republican ideas as rational in the face of Democratic irrationality. Obamacare remains a toxic partnership of insurance companies and government that remains just such an example that will likely remind us why better minds and more civic minded leadership than our current President didn't undertake a premature revamping of health insurance at a national level. And against that backdrop I offer yet another example, Salon's Simon Maloy's assessment in, "Paul Ryan's repeal promise: Nobody will be 'worse off' during Obamacare transition," 12/6/2016.
It's worth noting that Paul Ryan IS a threat to consumer interests in every one of his wolf-in-sheep's-clothing policies, including his "plans" for healthcare. Yes, he wants to further gut "entitlement" programs with the noteworthy exception of his own entitlement programs as a public employee. Yes, he wants to stick with the insurance company-government partnership that has already been used by Obamacare to reduce spending on insureds' healthcare--that's those per capita savings that first clued us in that "affordable" in the affordable care act referred to government and insurance company savings, never honestly disclosed until this fall, (http://conoutofconsumer.blogspot.com/2016/11/president-obamas-moment-of-truth-saved.html.)
This is the public employee hypocrisy on both sides that underscores the importance of consumer attention. Paul Ryan isn't changing even as he disguises his unkind underbelly with soothing words directed towards the public and the President Elect, both of which he's treated with disrespect. Democrats should be pushing the logical idea that making sure public employees are bound by the same healthcare law as non-public employee citizens is our number one protection--a protection we did not have under Obamacare as Democrats slimily slid through compliance by justifying their superior benefits as a "perk" given by their employer, the federal government. Never mind that we pay for their superior benefits. But, the angry self-justifying Republican hating Salon doesn't really care about consumers, they care about politics.
And so to Simon Maloy. Mr. Maloy easily slips into ignorance when he explains that Paul Ryan's gradual repeal and replace ideas "probably won't make all that much of a difference for next year," informing us of the obvious--the newly elected don't officially take office until January when health policies and enrollment in health insurance plans for 2017 are largely completed for the year.
But then Maloy plunges into the Looking Glass and writes an at-best overdue and an at-worst false scenario: "For 2018, however, it poses a big problem, given that insurers will likely decide that there’s no point in renewing their commitment to the exchanges." That's already happened Mr. Maloy. You're reporting what Obamacare created BEFORE this election season.
Mr. Maloy apparently missed the endless headlines since at least the summer about the en masse departure from exchanges of health insurance companies. This was not only a built-in risk in the Affordable Care Act which provided for TEMPORARY risk reinsurance and risk corridor payments to insurers by the government to lure insurer participants into exchanges which expired for the 2017 year and therefore no longer attracted insurers to exchanges (http://conoutofconsumer.blogspot.com/2015/12/how-obamacare-shot-itself-in-foot.html) but is already an actual RESULT of the Affordable Care Act's termination of those payoffs to insurers. (Mr. Maloy does remember the likes of Aetna, UnitedHealth, etc., does he not?
Mr. Maloy cites NPR, also a day late and a dollar short to the table, echoing the same worries that if insurers know that in 2019 something else is coming along then why should insurers stick with exchanges. Again, for anyone up to date, the insurers have already left exchanges en masse.
But it gets weirder. Mr. Maloy chooses as a "solution" to resurrect the EXPIRED Obamacare provisions to pay off insurers via risk reinsurance and risk corridor payments: "Republicans could move to subsidize the insurers and help cover whatever losses they might incur from participating in the exchanges during the 'transition.'" This is not the Obamacare, this is Maloycare, those provisions expired and we've already seen insurers leave exchanges.
And then, again ignoring that the payoff provisions have expired, the insurers have already left, Mr. Maloy lectures that "The Affordable Care Act already has 'mechanisms' in place to incentivize insurers to participate in the exchanges and protect them against excessive losses," again NO, MR. MALOY, THE ACA HAD THOSE TEMPORARY MECHANISMS IN PLACE, THEY EXPIRED.
Instead of playing on our "stupidity" and revealing their own, perhaps this former party of the people could positively address the weaknesses revealed by Obamacare?
The answer for consumers is: Repeal the law. No replace yet. Until we address the core flaws with a federal scheme and the government partnership with insurance companies so vividly illustrated over these past years:
First, any national law must apply to public employees first, not never as Obamacare allowed.
Second, regarding the insurance of over 26-year-olds which government likes because it gets people insured by having their parents pay for it, and it was already in place in about 20 states before Obamacare--Incentivize insurers to provide that coverage to grown children through the age of 26 the same way they were incentivized to do so before, with the promise of getting those elusive "young-healthies" into their risk pools by making the purchase of their financial consumer product available for the grown children of paying customers.
Third, deincentivize employers from choosing junk plans for their employees by protecting the tax deduction employers get for their share of payments, (which Obamacare discouraged in the hopes that by letting employers off the hook for providing "benefits" to their employees and their families the government would take in more tax dollars because employers' bottom lines would be higher (without the insurance deduction) and taxpayers' tax bills would be higher because incomes would rise).
Fourth, reinstate the federal pre-existing condition coverage made available to individuals during the 'transition' into Obamacare.
Fifth, incentivize insurance company competition to provide what customers want by removing an individual mandate or continuous coverage penalty that forces people to purchase the consumer financial product under threat of financial consequences either via tax or increased premiums.
Stop the likes of Paul Ryan, the public employee who wants to govern everyone but himself into poverty.
Mr. Maloy isn't worried about Obamacare because he's not talking about Obamacare in 2016, he's talking about rewriting the law to include his own wish list. Waste of space. It's time to rip the Obamacare band-aid off quickly instead of creating more governmental missteps all designed to achieve the inhumane, burdensome, gradually physically and financially draining consequences of Obamacare and its like--enrich the government coffers by reducing government "entitlement" programs, even those paid-in directly like Social Security and Medicare while treating the "entitlement" of public employee benefits as untouchable. That's the outrage.
