Voter: I Am Leaving The Democratic Party Over Obamacare, "Everything They Said Was Not True"

Trump duped ya'all for 5 yrs.
It's coming "In 2 weeks"..."In 2 weeks"

"2016: The Campaign TrailTrump tweeted in February that he would immediately repeal and replace Obamacare and that his plan would save money and result in better health care. By March, a blueprint, “Healthcare Reform to Make America Great Again,” was posted on his campaign website.
Aug 13, 2020

Back to the Future: Trump's History of Promising a Health Plan ...
kffhealthnews.org
https://kffhealthnews.org › news › back-to-the-future-tr...

 

In a rare moment of honesty none other than Bill Clinton himself said that Obamacare was the craziest thing he'd ever seen and that it was designed to fail

 

And somehow this makes the long list of absolute lies that Democrats fed you somehow better?

You know you have nothing when all you can do is try to point to the other guy instead and shift the blame

 

no they think the Republicans won't interfere with it. We don't need politicians help politicians help is always worse than if they don't help they charge way too much for everything bringing billions possibly trillions of dollars of debt and then give you miles and miles of red tape to chop through.

It is so utterly convoluted in complicated these days because the government interfered.

I don't want these incompetent bastards fuching with anything else

all politicians do to think the ones you vote for are somehow altruistic and beyond reproach is exactly why people vote for the politicians we have.

the best plan is the government ****s the hell off plan. All they do is bring in bureaucracy and miles and miles of red tape and supreme incompetence.

Why in the hell would anybody want these criminals and child molesters involved with anything like this

Disagree it's a very liberal to want the government not involved in healthcare see when they're not involved you don't have to go through all of this red tape and you don't have to deal with all the extra expense and you have more freedoms Liberty is the root word for liberal so whatever gives you more Liberty is the more liberal so government not being involved at all and something they have no business being involved in in the first place is the most liberal.

 

How many people voted for Trump for his bestest healthcare plan ever?
"In 2 weeks" "In 2 weeks"

 

But...but..trumwpfff

Why don't you remind us again what year Obamacare came out?
You were lied to repeatedly and yet all you can do is try to change the subject.

 

I'm right on topic, a healthcare fact and that you can't bring yourself to admit so you deflect and deflect some more. lol
That Obamacare came out in 2010 is totally irrelevant.

Trump's 2015-2020 shtick was repealing Obamacare and replacing it with the bestest ever healthcare.

'In his early days on the campaign trail, circa 2015, he said on CNN he would repeal Obamacare and replace it with “something terrific,” and on Sean Hannity’s radio show he said the replacement would be “something great.” Fast-forward to 2020. Trump has promised an Obamacare replacement plan five times so far this year. And the plan is always said to be just a few weeks away."

https://kffhealthnews.org/news/back...-of-promising-a-health-plan-that-never-comes/

 

@Izzy

You're actually not on topic because the topic is what is a posted above. Trump had absolutely nothing to do with lying to the public and crafting the disaster that is Obamacare.

You can't blame its existence on his failure to replace it because he's not the one that created it and lied to the American public about everything in it

Do you care to discuss the opening post or are you just going to sit there and try to keep changing the topic?

 

So you are blaming Trump for not repealing the program you support passed by a President and party you support?

 

Why don't you BLAME CANADA too?

 

Obamacare is what Obama and the Dems passed and forced us all on to. It IS what it IS. I don't think Republican's will help me more because I am already on Medicare as I am forced to go on but I think they will protect the solvency of the system better than the Dems and what does it matter what the Dems say about how they are going to expand it even more if it is NOT SOLVENT?

Tell which system cares more about the outcomes of those it serves best, a private free market or a government run mandated system? That applies to any market situation, which one?

 

I'm sorry to hear all that. Even the part about voting Democrat.

Up until about 1960 health insurance was uncommon. Few companies offered health insurance for their employees. Those provided with health insurance through their company tended to be executives. Most paid for their healthcare directly (called PATOS, pay at time of service). If you weren't affluent, care was provided by a charity hospital or was done pro-bono by the general hospital. Most doctors were expected to do a certain amount of care for the poor (pro-bono) as part of their responsibility to the community. This was often handed off to residents and interns as part of their training.

In large part the healthcare system was capitalist, no different than other services like hair salons and whatnot. Prices were set by the market and supply/demand. As a result, when my brother was 2 years old and broke his arm in 1964 the cost to set his arm and apply a cast was $7 (we found the bill in an old filing cabinet of my father's after he passed). The cost for me to be born in that same year was $111. $1 in 1964 adjusted for inflation to 2024 is $10.01. So this was equivalent to $1,111.11 today. Virtually everyone could afford to pay directly for their medical care, and the few who couldn't had lower cost/quality options. The affluent could obviously afford more state-of-the-art care (private rooms) and were largely responsible for medical advances. In the 1960's employers began to offer employees healthcare as an incentive. Before long, employees began to expect company provided health insurance. In the mid 1960s the government passed laws requiring healthcare providers treat everyone regardless of ability to pay. Faced with the prospect of losing money and having to shut their doors, the healthcare industry was forced to shift the costs to those who could pay or had insurance. Prices for PATOS and those insured began to rise. This placed additional pressures on employers to provide healthcare to all their employees. The vast majority of companies and businesses provided health insurance by 1980. Those who didn't work had no need for insurance as the hospitals were required to treat without compensation. Why pay for your own healthcare when someone else is required to pay for you? Private care specialists began requiring patients make appointments and would only provide specialty care to those enlisted with their facility (insurance or PATOS). Those who weren't paying for their own health care ended up going to the ER for routine non-emergency care. Cost shifting increased and prices rose.

After the Savings and Loan crisis in 1989-1990 and the subsequent recession, with healthcare prices continuing to rise dramatically, many employers could no longer afford to provide the healthcare. As more and more companies dropped health coverage, more and more Americans found themselves unable to pay PATOS, since they weren't paying for just themselves, they were paying for someone else too. The hospitals ended up having to shift even more costs onto PATOS and insured. Of course this is a positive feedback loop where the more costs go up the more companies drop employee insurance, more cost shifting, more price increase (the cycle continues). A positive feedback loop is inherently unstable and eventually prices continue to increase exponentially until finally BILL GATES is the only one insured and he is paying for the healthcare of the entire nation. The regulations put on hospitals to treat those who couldn't or wouldn't pay turned a capitalist system into what was essentially a socialist system, at least from the perspective of the consumer. It was still competitive among the healthcare providers themselves.

Clinton got elected and Hillary attempted a complete government takeover of the healthcare industry. It was stalled and in 1994 after the Republicans took over it was shelved completely. When Obama came into office the industry was in chaos. Obama sold the nation a bill of goods by promising no preexisting, cost savings, yada yada yada as you described above. You and many others fell for the ruse everyone can get a free lunch. Understand, if they can't refuse to cover you for a preexisting condition, why would anyone be dumb enough to pay? You need only wait until you get an ailment. Lets say you find out you need a triple bypass and they tell you it will be $50,000. You look at the cost of enrolling and figure out it will save you money, so you subsequently enroll. Of course this isn't INSURANCE as we know it. Insurance companies are like the banker on Deal or No Deal. You know there is a risk. Once you find out what your case is worth you may end up losing out. But your average case might be worth $100,000. So, you agree to take a little less than your average expectation. The banker (really he is providing insurance) wins because he knows the case on average will be worth more than he pays you. In the long run, over many events, the insurer will make a small profit. What the banker (insurer) is really selling you is lower risk. If they can't refuse to cover you for preexisting it is equivalent to you being allowed to open your case and then take the banker's (insurer's) previous offer after you know the consequences. Obviously the banker (insurance provider) cannot make money under this system.

My cousin was one of the very few people selected by the insurance industry to work with the Obama administration at the time Obamacare was being proposed. He was tasked with not only representing the healthcare industry, but to be part of the team who would submit a report to the industry so they would know what to expect, run the numbers, estimates etc. (not my field). Essentially, the insurance industry would create policies which would cover the uninsured or anyone who decided to enroll. Others were able to get private insurance as long as they provided some minimum coverage. Americans had their options severely restricted. You could no longer opt for just catastrophic coverage for instance. Essentially the regulations drove current policies and catastrophic coverage out of the market. Those who couldn't afford the premium couldn't be charged, the insurers would have to cover them for free. Most important was without preexisting nothing made any sense. People would just wait and then see if they benefited before getting coverage. Politically and Constitutionally the administration couldn't force people to get coverage so they implemented a policy where if you didn't have coverage you paid a portion of what it would have cost in taxes. Still, it was essentially a calculation after the fact. You just included the penalties for not enrolling into the calculation once you found out you needed a triple bypass for $50,000.

The administration made statements about cost savings. When asked by reporters how they were going to go about cost savings, Obama and others would give a nebulous reply, "We are going to eliminate redundancy in the healthcare industry". The plan was to make it illegal for hospitals to replicate services. For instance only one hospital would be permitted to do heart surgery in a given area. Another hospital would be the only one allowed to do oncology (cancer). A different hospital would specialize in pain care. On and on. My cousin told me, "Do you know what redundancy is?" No I replied. "Competition"! They eliminated competition and essentially made it so the insurance companies were required to pay whatever the healthcare providers charged. Patients had little to no incentives to hold down the costs. So not only would the insurance companies be forced to offer policies to those with preexisting conditions, no one had any incentive to reduce the prices charged except the insurance companies. Those working with the administration were dumbfounded. How can the administration think this is viable. We won't sign on to something so obviously economically disastrous. The administration then told them, don't worry about it. We are going to guarantee the insurance industry a profit 20% above the cost of all healthcare payments made by the insurance industry. So at the end of the year, you need only submit your costs, the government will make you whole plus 20% provided you use this years costs to set the premiums charged next year. Well, this changed everything. Now the insurance companies didn't care what the hospitals charged either. The more the merrier. 20% of a bigger pie, ring it up sir. It was the taxpayers on the hook now.

After months of going through it all, they were completely perplexed. Obviously, if the taxpayers are on the hook for any losses the industry incurred plus 20% and there is no system in place to lower costs, healthcare providers with a monopoly able to charge whatever they want, this too is a positive feedback system. Every year the healthcare industry charges what they can (government doesn't much care) and the insurance companies get that back plus 20%. Patients only enroll after they get a preexisting condition when they know it will be cheaper. This pretty much guarantees losses. Taxpayers pay the price and next year the premiums rise by at least 20% (or more). The next year people who have a preexisting condition do a new calculation using this years premiums/deductables and it repeats. Only this time the calculation only makes sense to enroll if the condition is REALLY REALLY expensive as premiums have dramatically increased as have the deductibles. Finally in frustration my cousin and others expressed their dismay and couldn't figure out how it made sense. Finally the guy who was setting up the process for Obama whispered to them, "Don't worry about it. We know it isn't viable and is guaranteed to result in exponential rises in cost and deductibles. In 7 years when the system reaches the breaking point, Americans will be forced to sign on to Socialized Medicine". It suddenly dawned on those working with the administration why it made no sense. It wasn't supposed to make sense. It was designed to get so incredibly expensive the Dems would eventually get what they really wanted... government takeover of healthcare.

Trump removed the mandate and the penalty for those who don't enroll. This just changes the calculation patients make as to whether to enroll. As a result, the bureaucrats added a regulation (without Congressional vote) requiring those who enroll do so by a certain date. Essentially this means you can be refused for preexisting conditions now, depending on when you need care and whether it can wait until the next enrollment period.

My intent is to assist you in understanding how the system currently works. It may help you understand what your best options are. Unfortunately there aren't many.

 

He tried and didn't have the votes to pass it. Neither was he able to cancel Obamacare because of John McCain's deciding vote. All he really had to do was cancel Obamacare and that would solve many of the problems in a short period of time. Of course you would also need to drop the government requirement healthcare providers provide healthcare regardless of whether you pay. This would be harsh, but capitalism is the solution. Prices would drop dramatically. Perhaps as much as 90% or more.

 

In the late 70's Carter passed a regulation requiring insurers pay out in claims at least 50% of what they receive in premiums for every group policy they offer. This was one of the few things Carter did which I agreed with. At that time some predatory insurers would offer policies then not pay or use unethical practices (fine print) to issue what amounted to worthless policies. Many were paying out 5% of what they received. Amazing requiring 50% was even necessary. Every year insurance companies would have to submit their numbers for scads of policies and if they didn't meet the 50% mark they would be fined. The results were publicly available if you knew where to look. I had a friend in the industry who pointed me to the data. The list was a spreadsheet with about 50,000 rows. One column listed the percentage paid. It wasn't until you got down to the last 5000 or so that you found the first one that wasn't EXACTLY 50%. It crept up 0.1% every now and then as you approached the final listings. If I recall the last one with the highest payout was like 55% or thereabout. Obviously what they were doing was adjusting their payouts to exactly meet the 50% minimum. As the year came to a close if they were going to fall short they would ease up on paying out claims. If they were too high they would get stingier on the amount they paid out in claims.

This was around the time of hurricane Katrina (some may remember). The insurance companies were getting hammered in the press for failing to pay claims. Really bad PR for Nationwide and Allstate. This is why my friend pointed out the data to me. He was explaining to me what was going on. Many insurers were delaying paying claims to their customers so they would fall in following years. This way they can hit the 50% mark, then start paying again in January. They could then be stingy all year long for current claims and make their 50% mark the following year. Many claims weren't paid until 2 years after Katrina. They claimed it was due to the volume of claims they had to pay. It wasn't.

The point is, at the time if you bought any kind of insurance, you were on average only going to get back half of what you were likely to pay in premiums. From that they paid out administrative costs to run the insurance company and do the paperwork. The rest was profit. I believe this is still the case. I have no need for insurance in most cases. My wealth is larger than Trumps. What sense would it make to buy insurance if the chances are I'm wasting half my money; unless the risk is QUITE HIGH or the condition preexisting? I can pay for anything I need. It will just come out of my estate.

 

I'm sure having gone through the healthcare system you've noticed many strange things. Perhaps the information above will assist you.

 

An example: My brother is great friends with a guy who runs our regional "Pain Center". As such, he is in charge of approving EVERY SINGLE prescription for pain medicine in a very large area. No matter what doctor you see, if they prescribe you something for pain (e.g. opiates) he has to sign off. He receives 100$ for every opiate prescription he signs. They track physicians to make sure no one physician is issuing too many opiate prescriptions. His staff does most of the work of tracking the physicians. He only steps in if there is an issue. So basically he just comes in and signs several hundred prescriptions and walks off with a crap load of money. I met him at a party and he chuckled, "It is kind of like having the authority to print 100$ bills." Every time I sign my name I make 100$ and it gets tacked onto the patients bill. He makes almost 3 million/month signing off on and tracking opiate prescriptions. Like 30 million per year and it is a monopoly.

 

I recently had a cyst on the inside of my thigh which I needed to have removed. I had a choice of several dermatologists to choose from. So I called ahead and asked what the charges were. Initially I was told by one it would be $2200 to have the cyst removed. I informed him I was PATOS. They of course try to pressure you into signing up for Obamacare, because this allows them to charge the government essentially. No one in the government really concerns themselves much with the cost. But when you're PATOS they know they won't get to do this. Since I called ahead they were essentially having to work inside a capitalist system and compete supply/demand. One agreed to do it for $500 and the other 300$. Quite a difference.

So I go to the cheaper dermatologist. Two girls who were interns actually began the procedure. Half way through the procedure the lady doctor comes in. Standing 20 feet away at the door she asks them if they are having any issues. They reply no. She then walks out and asks them to speak with her. The girls return with puzzled looks on their faces and tell me they can't proceed any further. The doctor said you will have to go to the emergency room for emergency surgery. Apparently there was fecal matter in the cyst, so I would need emergency surgery to avoid sepsis. Now mind you, the cyst was more than halfway down my thigh near my knee. I'm no doctor, but that just seemed crazy. The two interns agreed, left this gaping wound draining, apologized and said the hospital was waiting for me at the ER. Mind you the ER was right next door. Shared the same parking lot. My driver was waiting in the waiting room to drive me home. When I walked out there was an ambulance. The doctor had called an ambulance to drive me 80 feet to the ER? I was like WTF? Are you serious, it is right there. Lady quack (at this point) says, "Protocol". I tell the ambulance I won't need their assistance, get in my car and my driver drives me 80 feet to the entrance to the ER.

After waiting for 30 minutes or so, they take me into the diagnosis room. They take my blood pressure, temperature, weight etc. Then a trauma surgeon comes in and asked me what was up. I told him I was in the middle of getting a cyst removed and this lady doctor claimed it was infected with fecal matter. He took a look and just started roaring with laughter. He called in 3 other physicians to show them and they all laughed. He told me in 25 years of practicing medicine he had never seen a worse diagnosis. "Your intestines are no where near that area." He said there was no need to do anything further. It was best to leave it open to drain. I'm not going to list on here any treatment was necessary. I'm just going to put diagnosed, no treatment necessary and give you a prescription for antibiotics.

Shortly thereafter I received a bill for $16,700 from the hospital. I received another bill for $1,600 for the ambulance I didn't use and didn't request. Apparently, ANY visit to the ER has some ridiculous amount added on for walking in the door. I was quite pissed. I spoke with the hospital and not knowing my situation they tried to get me to enroll in Obamacare. I laughed and told them I would not under any circumstances participate in socialism. Once they realized I wasn't going to budge and it would have to be negotiated as PATOS, they dropped the bill to $300 and I agreed (still pissed though). The ambulance service charged the lady doctor. She tried to bill me and I refused. She tried to file a claim and I counter claimed for malpractice. Even had the ER physicians willing to testify. Deposed she admitted she had done it because she didn't like patients who were PATOS. She thought everybody should be required to be universal socialized medicine. We dropped everything and she paid the $1600 ambulance bill.

Point is, PATOS is essentially free market capitalism. The difference between OBAMACARE and what Americans would pay if it was eradicated are unbelievable. $16,700 in charges to the government, reduced to $300? 300$ for what is required to remove a simple cyst is a little high, but okay whatever. The government doesn't give a damn about what it costs the taxpayers apparently! That's insane.

 

I could see leaving the Dems over Obamacare . . . if the GOP had an alternative. That's the ONLY reason Trump wasn't able to revoke Obamacare. Because he failed in his promise to produce an alternative. And he still fails to do so. If you run on repealing Obamacare and you have NOTHING to replace it with, then you will fail on using that as a voting issue. Period. I'd say Trump learned that lesson, but Trump is incapable of learning.