Everyone is aware that the Republican strategy for taking back power in November is obstruction and saying no to everything in the hope that President Obama and the country fail and falls back into a recession, but one unobtainable tactic they are campaigning on is to repel the hard won health care insurance reform.
The fact is if they managed to actually get a repel through and replace it with some of the so-called plans individual Republicans have floated and they are able to override the president’s veto, it will force a lot of people to pay higher premiums, it will lavish subsidies on the private insurance industry, it will put life-and-death decisions in the hands of bureaucrats and it will add hundreds of billions of dollars to the federal debt, said New Republic writer Jonathan Cohn.
Cohn has been writing about the health care mess long before anyone else, and when the Ann Arbor resident decided to write a book he chose to write about something no one else was writing about at the time, health care. Cohn traveled all over the U.S. and some foreign countries and read every study and every source on health care he could get his hands on in doing the research for the book to produce, “Sick: The Untold Story of America's Health Care Crisis — and the People Who Pay the Price,” published in April 2007.
Cohn is also a senior editor at The New Republic magazine. He is also a media fellow at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and a senior fellow at Demos a non-partisan public policy center. Cohn writes about domestic politics and policy with a primary focus on health care. Cohn has also written for the New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, Mother Jones, Rolling Stone and Slate.
Cohn writes in a column in the magazine that if Republicans actually managed to pull off the impossible and replace reform with their plan of allowing the purchase of coverage across state lines and creating special insurance plans for people with pre-existing conditions, “studies have repeatedly shown that proposals like these would, at best, bring coverage to just a few million Americans. So if the Republicans succeed in taking the recently enacted reforms off the books, that means they are taking insurance away from a whole lot of people.”
Not only does the Republican so-called plan not cover as many people, which Cohn said is not a big deal to them, but it does nothing to reduce the cost of health care like the current reform does.
“The new law includes a bunch of measures designed to reduce the overall cost of care -- first by a little bit, and then by a lot.”
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) concluded that, “once you account for the subsidies; reform will mean lower average premiums for people with private insurance.” The Republicans unrealistic goal of repealing health care insurance reform will mean those people are stuck paying more. “The official projections also suggest that, 10 years from now, government spending on health care will be lower than it might otherwise be. Repeal reform and the deficits go back up -- by more than $100 billion over ten years. And while the nation as a whole will pay slightly more for health care over the next ten years, the rate of growth -- which is the figure we care about most -- will be lower. Take away reform and, according to the projections, health care costs will rise at a higher rate.”
4 comments:
Getting nervous about losing the House, I see.
Health care costs have already skyrocketed due to Obamacare. They are raising their rates now while it's still legal to do so because they know that they won't be able to when that portion of the law takes effect.
Your precious health care takeover is already adding taxes and expenses and bereaucratic takeover of decisions. Soon, rationing will take affect.
But don't worry. Repeal (or repel as you call it) won't happen the next two years. The Republicans can't gain enough seats to override a veto. But they will defund it.
Happy Days are about to be here again...November 2.
“Getting nervous about losing the House, I see?” Based on what? What is wrong with debunking the rightwing lies?
First, there is no such thing as “Obamacare,” anonymous coward, and costs have always gone up on health care. Granted, not as much as the profits of insurance companies, but it has increased.
There is no “precious health care takeover,” as well as no rationing, especially like we have now before health care insurance reform.
I’m not worried because it will not be repealed, even if the worst happened and Republicans controlled all three branches of government. Like I have said a hundred times, The party in the White House almost always loses seats, as will Democrats, but the good news is the Party of the People and the party with an actual plan that lifted us out f the Bush recession – the longest and worst side the Great Depression – will retain control the House and Senate.
Again, anonymous coward, I’m still waiting for you to back up your outrageous lie that we were “nearly shoulder to shoulder once.”
The bush recession only started its nosedive after the demoRATS gained control of congress in 2007. The deficit has skyrocketed since with all their spending programs. The stimulus package was a farce. It was suppose to be a major force in creating jobs through infrastructure yet some how the dems only managed to spend abt 7.75% of the monies on infrastructe from their horrific wasteful plan. 2 of ovomits economic advisor's have quit. obamacare, dingellberry care, whatever, it needs to be repealed and done properly. May not happen to that extent but vote out the demoRATS for passing it.
Again, it’s Democrats. It’s sad that you are still trying to blame the Bush policies that created the longest and worst recession since the Great Depression on the Congress.
The stimulus package wasn’t big enough, but it did stop us from slipping into the Bush Depression and lifted us out of the Bush Recession, the longest and worst recession since the Great Depression.
Where did you get those false talking points? Do they spell as badly as you do?
Post a Comment