• I wouldn't say get rid of insurance altogether, catastrophic plans can be great. But paying my Doc $25 for a visit is much better than spending $2800 on insurance so that they can pay him $25. Gov't interventions in wages and compensation (insurance) during WWII sure screwed us out of cheap healthcare.

  • Whoops, I meant to add that a gov't run insurance company could subsidize costs for people with PECs and low income for less money than subsidizing the costs of people under for-profit insurance. But, once again, fixing issues like this just mean pols can't raise campaign money to "repeal Obamacare," or "cover all Americans."

  • Lol. That was completely unintentional, but I'll be trying to do it again now that you mentioned it.

  • You're right about the 90% in 2020 and beyond, but that only applies to the expanded Medicare spending, the state still would pay 50% of the non-ACA Medicare spending, plus 10% of the expansion costs after 2020. We have pretty high taxes already and paying for 10% of the Medicare expansion would put my state into the red. Our state constitution requires a landholder-only vote and immediate increase in property taxes to cover the cost in order to go into debt. So even if my state had expanded Medicaid, a special vote would kill the plan to raise taxes to cover the increase in costs. And expanding the risk pool of an insurance company to lower premiums is basic math. Dividing total costs by a higher number of people means each person pays less, thats the only reason insurance can work. You can call it right-wing, but dividing 100 by 10 gives you a smaller number than dividing 100 by 5, no matter what your personal political views are.

  • The fact the the GOP is so excited to repeal the national version of Romneycare just goes to show that it doesn't matter if you got shafted by the ACA like me, or if you are going to be shafted by the repeal. Both parties are perfectly willing to hurt the majority of the country if they can score political points doing so.

  • Lol, right?

  • Yep. The state can't fund that much Medicare spending once the federal funds dry up. A state run insurance program could help people with PreExistingConditions and being able to buy across state lines would probably to the trick when coupled with tax-free HSAs. But that'd take political compromise, and neither Dems nor GOPers raise campaign funds on this issue if it ever gets fixed.

  • They went up to pay for other people's increased insurance use because the ACA and previous regs wont let insurance companies expand their pool across state lines. One of the two insurance companies that the government allowed to operate in my state was just shut down by the parent company because they were losing money. But if you were allowed to buy homeowners insurance after your house burned down, that would destroy that insurance industry over time. There is no reason why a federally owned insurance company couldn't be set up to serve people with PECs. A national-sized risk pool could keep costs down for people with those PECs, while costing taxpayers less than covering them under Medicare. There are a ton of ways to make insurance and healthcare affordable for healthy people and people with PECs, the problem is that if everyone is happy and healthy for a low cost, it will become impossible for Dems & GOPers to raise campaign funds on this issue. So, once again, the majority of people in this country will probably get sacrificed so that wealthy pols like Elizabeth Warren and Paul Ryan can score political points.

  • Saving a few dollars? Millions dying? How does cutting millions of people's wages, lower income people at that since we are talking about part-time jobs, save lives? You could get only the coverage that you need (no reason for a single male to need coverage for female birth control) for about a hundred a month before the ACA, a comparable plan now is $300-$400 per month. By removing gov't imposed insurance monopolies in each state, those plan could be as low as $30-$50 per month. The healthcare industry wasn't free-market before the ACA, which was why cost kept growing.

  • I can't wait until I can afford insurance again! I haven't been able to afford insurance since the ACA went into effect. On top of the premium increases that pushed me out of the insurance market, the mandate for employers to cover employees who work more than 30 hours a week cause my employer to limit our part-time hours from 39 per week to 29 per week. That loss in wages dropped my income too low to qualify for subsidies on top of everything else. So frustrating. Just repealing the ACA without a replacement will provide so much regulatory relief. I hope I don't get hurt or sick before then.