Republican Health Care Plan

This morning, President Trump reversed himself again and said that Republicans would run in 2020 on a Health Care plan that would be a superior replacement for the Affordable Care Act.

I am entirely in favor of implementing such a plan but I want to pose a serious question: what will be the aims of this plan and how will they be achieved.

Please post ideas here, not insults directed either at the ACA or the Republican opposition to it. I would really like to see if something better can emerge.

Anything but universal is a failure now (and the Republicans are not bold enough). I am completely on board, rip the bandaid off.

Until that day I see nothing passing and only small revisions to the wounded ACA.

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The big problem that they are facing is that they now are forced to keep pre-existing conditions protections and no lifetime caps because those are political kryptonite to mess with.

How they do that with a free market solution is basically squaring the circle.

I thought Trump was supposed to have a healthcare plan that was bigger, better and cheaper ready to go on day 1 of his presidency, when the Republican party controlled the Presidency, the House AND the Senate. What happened?

They’ll probably allow all people with pre-existing conditions onto medicaid or Medicare. That solves the healthcare issue, and then it becomes a funding issue with no political consequences except debt.

That is basically Medicare for all right there.

Almost everyone has a preexisting condition of one sort or another.

They are not bold enough for that. I would be OK with that since it has an obvious conclusion.

Nah, just set a financial threshold, ingrown toenail isn’t going to cut it.

Formula, cost of medical services per year, income level. No reason to give Bob making 300k a year medicare for asthma.

They’re really against the wall because of their promises. They can still claim political victory if it’s just Medicare/aid for 90% instead of flat out universal healthcare.

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What advantage does a fractured system give? On the flip side, it introduces complexity, inefficiencies, rent-seeking, etc.

Choice.

The choice of a less efficient, less effective, and costlier system? No thanks.

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Medicare denies more coverage than private health care does.

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I have seen the studies, they were limited and based on surveys (and not hard data), it was not universal (some private insurers had higher rates), and Medicare had a higher reported satisfaction level from providers. Try again.

There was a republican governor who passed healthcare legislation for his state. Massachusetts I think. The GOP should look into taking that framework and expand it to the federal level.

Without a detailed outline of their plan and a firm set of dates in terms of implementation, it’s impossible to see this as anything more than recycled campaign rhetoric.

It seems to me this would tilt the health care system towards middle class, who have the documentation on preexisting conditions and away from the poor, who benefit from ACA subsidies.

It would also eliminate the ACA effort include reproductive health services for women as an essential part of health care… further stressing the Republican relationship with women and giving the Democrats a substantial reason to oppose.

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Concrete data on private group insurance is not available. However, in the individual market, private insurers deny claims at a rate of 19%, much higher than both traditional Medicare and Advantage plans.

Moving to a simplified billing system rather than the fractured system we have now could save up to $375 billion a year [1].

1, https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.1186/s12913-014-0556-7

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The most important thing is to get people to purchase their own health insurance. The employer based system, we have is the main driver of the high inflation rates. The next is to allow real market choice, since many people only really need long term care for cancer and such.