Back in 2009 and 2010, the Republicans managed to hold together and vote 100% in opposition to a government takeover of the healthcare sector. When they took over the House in January 2011, the repeal bills began. Once the Republicans captured the Senate, a repeal bill actually made it to Obama's desk where he - unsurprisingly - vetoed it. Now, rather than just erase this disaster and have US law return to what it was in February 2010 (the month before the ACA was signed into law), they are having second thoughts. The Democrats took the hit - having lost over one thousand elective offices across the country during Obama's Presidency - so the Republicans figure why give up the power that Democrats committed political suicide to acquire. Really, let's not be hasty. Is it any wonder I left the Republican Party?
Apparently, the free market is a foreign concept to the party that used to champion free markets. Have they not noticed that goods and services provided by the free market see tremendous improvement over time and also drop in price? Here is a great graph that shows how prices have changed over the last 20 years. All those things government has sought to make more affordable (e.g. college, health care, housing, food) have seen massive cost increases. Those items left to the private market (e.g. clothing, cars, furniture, cellphone plans, TVs) has seen prices flat or dramatically fall. Maybe there is a correlation?
Among the crazy things the Republicans have decided to retain is the guarantee of coverage for those with a pre-existing condition. That would be like allowing a homeowner to buy insurance while the house was on fire. The fire is a pre-existing condition; how can the insurance company deny? That isn't how insurance works. Insurance is a hedge against disaster, not a payment plan for routine costs. No one buys gas or gets their tires rotated through a copay. Why doesn't health insurance work that way?
The best thing that Congress could do would be to repeal the whole enchilada. And then just keep repealing until there are no national laws or regulations regarding health care. Prices would plummet, insurance would transform to only paying for catastrophic care, and the states could setup modest programs to cover the poor. The Constitution does not authorize the government to do anything with regard to health care. Set the market free and it will do wonders. The drawback is that government would have less power over the peasants and fewer dollars to spend.
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