Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[cherdano]

So, the Republican plan, which is known as "Obamacare Lite", and is basically a continuation of the ACA with some modifications, is not good. Surprise, surprise! We are in a mess that appears to be unfixable.

 

You misread the CBO report (if you did, in fact, read it). CBO didn't claim 24 millions would lose insurance compared to now. CBO claims 24 millions would lose health insurance compared to status quo, i.e. Obamacare.

 

The CBO also says:

In CBO and JCT's assessment, however, the nongroup market would probably be stable under either current law or the legislation.

In other words, Obamacare is not, in fact, imploding. ldrews knows better than the CBO, of course. Who is more likely to make a well-educate guess, CBO or ldrews?

[y66]

From Preet Bharara: A Prosecutor Who Knew How to Drain a Swamp. Fired!

 

Most Americans had never heard of Preet Bharara, Manhattan’s federal prosecutor, before he briefly took center stage in the drama over the Trump administration’s Friday order demanding the resignations of 46 United States attorneys.

 

Mr. Bharara alone refused to resign. He was fired on Saturday, and immediately cast as either a martyr for justice or a sanctimonious self-promoter, depending on one’s partisan inclinations. But New Yorkers, who have had a front-row seat to his work over the last seven years, know him for his efforts to drain one of the swampiest states in the country of its rampant public corruption.

 

Appointed in 2009 by President Barack Obama, Mr. Bharara quickly went after New York’s rancid political culture, where politicians of both parties have long treated anti-graft laws like suggestions and ethics rules like Play-Doh.

 

Mr. Bharara won convictions of more than a dozen lawmakers, culminating in 2015, when he brought down two of the state’s three most powerful politicians: Sheldon Silver, the Democratic former Assembly speaker, and Dean Skelos, the Republican former Senate majority leader. Both men have appealed their convictions, which included charges of bribery, extortion and money laundering.

 

Mr. Bharara also tangled repeatedly with the other member of that entrenched trio, New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo. He investigated Mr. Cuomo’s suspicious disbanding in 2014 of the Moreland Commission, an anticorruption panel that Mr. Cuomo had established a year earlier to address the epidemic of self-dealing in state politics. Mr. Bharara eventually decided there was not enough evidence to charge the governor with interfering in the commission’s work, but at the time of his firing, Mr. Bharara’s office was prosecuting two of Mr. Cuomo’s former advisers in a bribery and bid-rigging scandal.

 

Mr. Bharara was an equal-opportunity prosecutor. One of the first cases as United States attorney for the Southern District of New York involved bank-fraud charges against a top Democratic donor, Hassan Nemazee, who had ties to Senator Chuck Schumer, for whom Mr. Bharara had worked as chief counsel and who had urged Mr. Obama to hire him.

 

At the time of his dismissal, his office was in the final stages of a criminal investigation into the campaign fund-raising of New York City’s mayor, Bill de Blasio.

 

It’s standard practice for United States attorneys to be replaced when a new administration takes office — roughly half of those appointed by President Obama had resigned before last Friday — but Mr. Trump, as president-elect, had personally asked Mr. Bharara to stay on during a meeting at Trump Tower in November. So why fire him now?

 

It has been reported that Mr. Bharara’s office is investigating whether Fox News, essentially the propaganda arm of the White House, failed to properly alert its shareholders about settlements with employees who accused the channel’s former boss, Roger Ailes, of sexual harassment.

 

It may be a while before the full story comes out, or before the Southern District of New York sees another prosecutor as cleareyed about rooting out public corruption. In the meantime, Mr. Bharara deserves credit for leaving New York a little cleaner than he found it. “We are not trying to criminalize ordinary politics,” he said in a 2015 speech. “Just try not to steal our money.”

[ldrews]

Y

In other words, Obamacare is not, in fact, imploding. ldrews knows better than the CBO, of course. Who is more likely to make a well-educate guess, CBO or ldrews?

 

I am reading that premiums are soaring, deductibles are soaring, and insurance companies are rapidly exiting the ACA marketplace. Some states now have only 1 insurer left. How is this not imploding?

 

But then I am not an expert like cherdano, just a voter with an opinion. See you at the voting booth, just like last time.

[y66]

From Trumpcare: Fiction and Fact by Stephen Rattner

 

Watching administration officials play cat and mouse with Sunday talk show hosts is a hoary Washington tradition. But yesterday, Trump spokesmen offered a remarkably large number of flat out untruths as they attempted to defend the Republican health care plan.

 

Untruth #1:

 

“I firmly believe that nobody will be worse off financially in the process we are going through.” – Tom Price, Secretary of Health and Human Services, on Meet the Press.

 

Fact #1:

 

Millions of Americans will be worse off. For those currently purchasing insurance on the exchanges using Federal subsidies, that support will be replaced by tax credits that, for many, will be substantially smaller, as this chart shows:

 

 

For those in the 31 states and the District of Columbia that are participating in the Medicaid expansion, Trumpcare will provide far less Federal support, as the chart below indicates. After 2020, states will no longer be able to accept additional enrollees and no one who loses eligibility (such as by getting a higher paid job) will be able to return to the program even if their income drops. All told, the Administration plans to save $370 billion over the next 10 years from these cuts – which will surely make many Americans worse off.

 

 

Untruth #2:

 

“The fact that certain groups will pay less tax is not…central to the issue. We’ve done this in a fashion that allows the people who cannot afford health care now to afford it.”

 

—Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget on This Week

 

Fact #2:

 

That’s two misstatements in quick succession. The plan to repeal $600 billion of taxes that almost entirely benefit the wealthy is very much at the heart of the matter. Those revenues are currently being used to expand Medicaid for the poorest Americans and subsidize health insurance for families with incomes between $24,600 and $98,400 per year. Removing a large chunk of those subsidies surely makes health care less affordable for those with lower incomes.

 

Untruth #3:

 

“The number of individuals who actually got coverage through the exchange who didn’t have coverage before…is relatively small.”

 

—Mr. Price on Meet the Press

 

Fact #3:

 

What is he talking about? Of the 11 million people who are buying health insurance coverage through the exchanges, all but 1.7 million are receiving subsidies through Obamacare. As the drop in the total number of uninsured indicates, it’s impossible to imagine that most of them were previously buying unsubsidized insurance directly from providers.

 

Untruth #4:

 

“The President is focused on health care, not insurance coverage.”

 

—Mr. Mulvaney on This Week.

 

Fact #4:

 

President Trump was very clear during the campaign: “We’re going to have insurance for everybody,” he said in an interview with the Washington Post on January 14. “Much less expensive and much better.” According to early estimates from Standard & Poor’s and Brookings, between six and 15 million Americans would lose insurance coverage under Trumpcare.

 

Even House Speaker Paul Ryan, appearing on Face the Nation, seemed to acknowledge that some who currently have health insurance would lose it. “I can’t answer that question,” he said. “It’s up to the people.”

 

Untruth #5:

 

“If you want to have coverage – and we think that everyone should have coverage – we’re providing you access to coverage.”

 

—Gary Cohn, director of the National Economic Council, on Fox News Sunday

 

Fact #5:

 

That’s technically true but of course, with or without any federal assistance, individuals are always free to buy health insurance. Mr. Cohn’s comment came in response to repeated questioning by host Chris Wallace about what would happen to the more than 20 million people who have gained coverage under Obamacare. As noted, it’s inconceivable that millions of Americans who are currently insured won’t lose their coverage.

 

Untruth #6:

 

“I love the folks at the C.B.O. … but sometimes we ask them to do stuff they’re not capable of doing and estimating the impact of a bill of this size probably…isn’t the best use of their time.”

 

—Mr. Mulvaney on This Week.

 

Fact #6:

 

Estimating the impact of proposed legislation is precisely what the Congressional Budget Office was set up to do back in 1974. And while the C.B.O.’s early estimates of the impact of the Affordable Care Act were, in fact, slightly optimistic, they were closer to the mark than many other forecasters, as this chart shows:

 

 

Evaluating complex policy proposals is, indeed, difficult but Mr. Mulvaney’s apparent preferred alternative – doing no impact analysis at all – makes no sense. Just because weather predictions are often wrong, would you not check the forecast before you venture outside?

 

Finally, a reminder to Mr. Mulvaney: The current director of the C.B.O., Keith Hall, was picked by the Republican leadership on Capitol Hill and served in the administration of President George W. Bush.

 

Untruth #7:

 

“Obamacare…is blowing up our fiscal problem.”

 

—Mr. Ryan on Face the Nation

 

Fact #7:

 

The Affordable Care Act was crafted with a mix of tax increases and Medicare cost cuts alongside the new benefits in order to – shockingly – provide a modest amount of deficit reduction. Over its initial decade, the entire Obamacare package was projected to reduce the total deficit by $124 billion. In addition, in its most recent assessment, the C.B.O. said repealing Obamacare would increase the deficit by $353 billion between 2016 and 2026.

 

Furthermore, the net expenditures on coverage have been revised down several times. In 2010, the C.B.O. projected that benefit costs would total $132 billion in 2016; by last year, that estimate had been reduced to $110 billion.

 

Untruth #8:

 

“Obamacare is just not working. You know, in the last year alone, premiums are up 25 percent.”

 

—Mr. Cohn on Fox News Sunday

 

Fact #8:

 

That often-cited statistic applies only to individuals who buy unsubsidized insurance through the exchanges (1.7 million people) and those who get their insurance directly from providers (another six million Americans). These two groups account for just 3 percent of Americans.

 

And while by talking about “last year alone,” Mr. Cohn implies that this is the latest of a long string of large increases, in fact, premiums increased by 7 percent in 2016 and 2 percent in 2015.

 

Untruth #9:

 

“The people who are just above Medicaid but still have difficulty buying their own premiums will…have the ability to use [Health Savings Accounts] to pay for their…healthcare on a tax-advantaged basis.”

 

—Mr. Mulvaney on Meet the Press

 

Fact #9:

 

He is talking about people whose incomes are well below median levels and is offering them the opportunity to save money they don’t have and get the benefit of taxes they generally don’t pay because their incomes are too low. How does taking away the Obamacare benefits and giving them refundable tax credits of $2,000 to $4,000 per person replace subsidies that currently run to as much as $9,874 for older low-income individuals?

 

Untruth #10:

 

“I was on Obamacare when I was in the House. My family’s deductibles were over $15,000 a year.”

 

—Mr. Mulvaney on Meet the Press

 

Fact #10:

 

Mr. Mulvaney didn’t provide enough information for me to be sure but for one thing, the out-of-pocket maximum for a marketplace plan in 2016 was $13,700. For another, while Mr. Mulvaney is correct that senators and representatives are required to buy their insurance through the District of Columbia exchange, they get a pretty good deal.

 

According to Congressional Research Service, if they buy a gold plan, the government (meaning us taxpayers) paid up to 75 percent of the premiums. I went to the District of Columbia health care exchange and for a family of 5, like the Mulvaneys, the yearly cost of plans currently being offered is approximately $25,000. That would mean premium costs of just over $6,000 a year. The required deductibles range from zero to $2,000. So I have no idea where Mr. Mulvaney’s assertion came from.

 

Untruth #11:

 

Kentucky is a “textbook case of Obamacare’s failures.”

 

—Vice President Pence in Louisville on Saturday

 

Fact #11:

 

While not said on a Sunday show, Mr. Pence’s comment must be noted. In fact, Kentucky has seen the largest drop of any state in the uninsured rate under Obamacare, as this chart shows:

 

[ldrews]

I agree with many of the posters here: The Republican/Trump health care plan won't fix the problems, may make them worse.

 

I propose that Trump and the Republicans back off and do nothing rather than make the situation worse. Let the current ACA program play out for a few more years and see how it does. What does anyone else think?

[PassedOut]

I agree with many of the posters here: The Republican/Trump health care plan won't fix the problems, may make them worse.

 

I propose that Trump and the Republicans back off and do nothing rather than make the situation worse. Let the current ACA program play out for a few more years and see how it does. What does anyone else think?

He can't do that. Trump has said that health care is broken and that he will fix it. He has control of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government, and the democrats are powerless to prevent him from implementing his solution -- one that will give better health care to all at lower prices. He's chosen the most talented cabinet in US history to help him do it.

 

Blaming the democrats won't work.

[rmnka447]

A lot of highways here were upgraded by the stimulus money used in 2009 and 2010 to get the economy back on track. The lift bridge here was upgraded in winter of 2014-2015.

 

The reason that none of the Trump appointments have been blocked by democrats is because of the changes to Senate rules in 2013 preventing filibusters of presidential appointments (except for appointments to the Supreme Court). The democrats changed the filibuster rule (with 3 democrats joining the republicans in voting against the change) because of the extreme blocking tactics used by McConnell and the republicans against Obama's appointments.

 

If you'll check, you'll see that the republicans do hold a 52-48 majority now, so have clear sailing on presidential appointments. The reason that Trump has fallen so far behind Obama in getting this done is his tardiness in vetting and putting forward nominees for approval.

Sure, the Republicans can confirm the appointments, but the Democrats also have the right under Senate rules to hold up the vote on each appointment for 30 hours. The net effect has been that all of Trump's cabinet appointments haven't been confirmed yet. And normally, the Cabinet Secretaries have a big say in the appointment of people under them.

 

Although Republicans I'm sure didn't like many of Obama's cabinet appointments, they were at least courteous enough to let Obama get his governing team in place fairly quickly. So making any comparison between Obama and Trump on speed of appointments is comparing apples and oranges.

[awm]

Obama made no effort to fix the infrastructure in 8 years.

 

This is such a ridiculous statement. First, the stimulus package had over a hundred billion for infrastructure. Beyond that, Obama spent years trying to get an infrastructure bill as did democrats in the senate only to be blocked by Republicans at every turn.

[awm]

Sure, the Republicans can confirm the appointments, but the Democrats also have the right under Senate rules to hold up the vote on each appointment for 30 hours. The net effect has been that all of Trump's cabinet appointments haven't been confirmed yet. And normally, the Cabinet Secretaries have a big say in the appointment of people under them.

 

Although Republicans I'm sure didn't like many of Obama's cabinet appointments, they were at least courteous enough to let Obama get his governing team in place fairly quickly. So making any comparison between Obama and Trump on speed of appointments is comparing apples and oranges.

 

Obama's appointees actually had relevant experience to the jobs they were appointed to do (unlike Trump nominees like Betsy DeVos, Ben Carson, and Rick Perry). They also had their ethics paperwork done before hearings began (unlike Trump nominees). And Obama nominees had a pretty long wait too, especially after Republicans took over the Senate. Beyond that, Trump hasn't even named nominees to a lot of positions, and some of these don't even require Senate approval.

[y66]

Donald Trump is what we got when a lot of people who should have known better just said f*ck it, f*ck Hillary, f*ck the Dems, f*ck me.

 

Trumpcare is what we got when Paul Ryan decided to f*ck people who need health care the most.

[mike777]

If nothing else this entire forum discussion and real world discussion shows just how difficult it is to destroy and replace a government program with something else or several somethings. So many forces come together to protect an existing program.

 

 

fwiw I suggested extending medicare to people under 65 years and years ago....not that I have a solution for paying for it, how to not stifle innovation, and fixing the many problems that come along with that suggestion.

[ldrews]

He can't do that. Trump has said that health care is broken and that he will fix it. He has control of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government, and the democrats are powerless to prevent him from implementing his solution -- one that will give better health care to all at lower prices. He's chosen the most talented cabinet in US history to help him do it.

 

Blaming the democrats won't work.

 

What makes you think he has control of the legislative branch of government? Have you talked to McCain, Shumer, Pelosi, Ryan about this? And you have forgotten that non-budgetary reconciliation legislation requires 60 votes in the Senate, allowing Democrats to filibuster?

 

I am glad you approve of his cabinet.

[PassedOut]

What makes you think he has control of the legislative branch of government? Have you talked to McCain, Shumer, Pelosi, Ryan about this? And you have forgotten that non-budgetary reconciliation legislation requires 60 votes in the Senate, allowing Democrats to filibuster?

Trump's party controls both the house and the senate, and can avoid a legislative filibuster on health care via reconciliation, as they've announced they'll do.

 

Trump knows the composition of the legislature and has proclaimed that health care will be fixed quickly, and fixed so that everyone is covered and costs are down. A plan like that will have no trouble passing quickly, as soon as Trump reveals what it is. Legislators in both parties will be embarrassed to have missed figuring it out for themselves. It will be fascinating television to see Trump let that cat out of the bag.

 

After that, he'll tell the military how to get rid of ISIS.

[Zelandakh]

You misread the CBO report (if you did, in fact, read it). CBO didn't claim 24 millions would lose insurance compared to now. CBO claims 24 millions would lose health insurance compared to status quo, i.e. Obamacare.

 

The CBO also says:

 

In other words, Obamacare is not, in fact, imploding. ldrews knows better than the CBO, of course. Who is more likely to make a well-educate guess, CBO or ldrews?

The CBO is clearly fake news. The "real truth" is obviously that Trumpocare is a shining beacon of goodness that will heal all Americans and be paid for by the Chinese, or the tooth fairy, or perhaps just the next Democrat administration that has to pick up the pieces.

[Zelandakh]

fwiw I suggested extending medicare to people under 65 years and years ago....not that I have a solution for paying for it, how to not stifle innovation, and fixing the many problems that come along with that suggestion.

I might suggest extending Medicare to all Americans, calling it the National Health Service, and paying for it by taxing the rich by at least as much as the poor. But obviously that would have me labelled as a Communist terrorist and an enemy of the Free World.

[ldrews]

Trump's party controls both the house and the senate, and can avoid a legislative filibuster on health care via reconciliation, as they've announced they'll do.

 

Trump knows the composition of the legislature and has proclaimed that health care will be fixed quickly, and fixed so that everyone is covered and costs are down. A plan like that will have no trouble passing quickly, as soon as Trump reveals what it is. Legislators in both parties will be embarrassed to have missed figuring it out for themselves. It will be fascinating television to see Trump let that cat out of the bag.

 

After that, he'll tell the military how to get rid of ISIS.

 

Trump is a Republican in name only. He is a populist that executed a hostile takeover of the Republican Party. Do you not remember the campaign? The Republican Party leadership hated Trump almost as much as did Clinton. Trump won the election by appealing directly to the Republican voters and bypassing the Republican establishment. I think you are having a "senior" moment!

[ldrews]

I might suggest extending Medicare to all Americans, calling it the National Health Service, and paying for it by taxing the rich by at least as much as the poor. But obviously that would have me labelled as a Communist terrorist and an enemy of the Free World.

 

If you think the rich would end up paying a significant portion, you are ignorant of history or are incredibly naive.

[Zelandakh]

If you think the rich would end up paying a significant portion, you are ignorant of history or are incredibly naive.

It is naive to point out that a fairer system could be implemented? Since you wanted change, I would have thought that this would appeal to you as it is certainly a bigger change from the status quo than anything being proposed by the current administration.

[PassedOut]

No Magic in How G.O.P. Plan Lowers Premiums: It Penalizes Older People

 

According to the C.B.O. report, the bill would make health insurance so unaffordable for many older Americans that they would simply leave the market and join the ranks of the uninsured.

 

The remaining pool of people would be comparatively younger and healthier and, thus, less expensive to cover. Other changes would help make health insurance skimpier — cheaper, but with deductibles that are higher than those criticized by Republicans under Obamacare.

 

Under the G.O.P. bill, the C.B.O. finds that insurance premiums would first spike, by 15 percent to 20 percent more than under Obamacare over the next two years. But by the end of a decade, the average plan would cost 10 percent less than it would under the Affordable Care Act. (Over all, though, 24 million fewer people would have insurance, it found.)

 

...

 

The combined difference in how much extra the older customer would have to pay for health insurance is enormous. The C.B.O. estimates that the price an average 64-year-old earning $26,500 would need to pay after using a subsidy would increase from $1,700 under Obamacare to $14,600 under the Republican plan.

In 1985, Congress passed the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, which made medical treatment a right for everyone, citizen and non-citizen. Under that law, all hospitals that accept Medicare or Medicaid must provide treatment to anyone needing care -- even those not covered by Medicare, Medicaid, or private insurance -- regardless of the patient's ability to pay.

 

Before the ACA, those treatments were paid for by those of us who did buy health insurance, and that freeloading was one of the factors causing our insurance rates to increase dramatically year after year. To put an end to that freeloading, the ACA instituted the Individual Shared Responsibility Fee, the "insurance mandate."

 

In 2010, the Attorneys General of 14 states asked the Supreme Court to find a new constitutional right to freeloading, thereby invalidating the Individual Shared Responsibility Fee. The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that there was no such constitutional right to freeloading, with Chief Justice Roberts in the majority -- much to the displeasure of the freeloading advocates.

 

Now Paul Ryan and the other freeloading advocates propose to restore freeloading legislatively, while forcing many older folks out of insurance coverage altogether. Those older folks will need a disproportionate amount of the care that congress has declared to be their right. The financial burden for that care will fall largely on older folks who do pay the much higher premiums envisioned by Ryan and his freeloaders.

 

I'm not surprised to see that the AARP opposes this return to freeloading.

[jogs]

 

Trumpcare is what we got when Paul Ryan decided to f*ck people who need health care the most.

You're free to pay for the poor who cannot afford to pay for their healthcare.

 

Obama was unable to provide healthcare to military vets.

[jogs]

fwiw I suggested extending medicare to people under 65 years and years ago....not that I have a solution for paying for it, how to not stifle innovation, and fixing the many problems that come along with that suggestion.

By 2030 the US taxpayer wont be able to afford medicare to people over 65.

[jogs]

His promise to "drain the swamp" has pretty much gone by the wayside, as he appointed a cabinet full of billionaires and Goldman-Sachs execs.

 

Billionaires are not the swamp. 1776-1787. The wealthiest colonists were among the delegates who formed the nation and wrote the constitution. The career politicians are the swamp. This group starts with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi. Unfortunately Paul Ryan seems to be joining them. Many career bureaucrats are part of the swamp. These are the people who must be drained.

[ldrews]

It is naive to point out that a fairer system could be implemented? Since you wanted change, I would have thought that this would appeal to you as it is certainly a bigger change from the status quo than anything being proposed by the current administration.

 

First of all, "fairness" is in the eye of the beholder. What is fair to you may not be seen as fair by other people.

 

Second, as has been pointed out by others, all change is not necessarily good. Change without respect to agreed upon goals is irresponsible and potentially damaging. The Democrats/liberals have their set of goals, the Republicans/conservatives have a different set of goals. Since the control of government has changed from one set of hands to another, many of the changes being proposed are an attempt to march to the new set of goals. In this context change that moves toward the Republican/conservative goals is "good" and changes that move away are "bad".

 

Your idea of "fairer" is not in accord with the Republican/conservative goals, so your suggestion for change is "bad".

 

You may not like it, but the only way to move in your preferred direction is to persuade the Republicans/conservatives that your ideas further their goals, or outvote them at the next election.

 

Until a social consensus is achieved regarding an appropriate solution to the health care problem we will undoubtedly continue to see contentious behavior.

[Zelandakh]

First of all, "fairness" is in the eye of the beholder. What is fair to you may not be seen as fair by other people.

 

Second, as has been pointed out by others, all change is not necessarily good. Change without respect to agreed upon goals is irresponsible and potentially damaging.

Your turn for a senior moment? May I remind you:-

So all that matters is that he's replacing a system you don't like? It doesn't matter that the proposed replacement has extremely serious problems of its own, and doesn't actually fulfill his campaign promise of healthcare for everyone?

 

Is anything good as long as it's not Obamacare?

The current system seems to be imploding. The question becomes do you stick with the known but deteriorating system or do you take the gamble of trying a new system. The new system is not guaranteed to be "better" and given political realities can probably never be guaranteed to be "better".

 

To me it is similar to the recent election choice: stick with the status quo candidate or gamble with the change candidate. Depends on how much you think change is needed.

In other words, you wanted change regardless of whether it is better or worse. Can anyone really claim that the change that came with Trump during the election campaign was based on respect? Or indeed that it had any agreed upon goals. That electing Trump was irresponsible and potentially damaging is probably something many here would agree with you on though. I am glad to see that you have come to accept this.

[Winstonm]

First of all, "fairness" is in the eye of the beholder. What is fair to you may not be seen as fair by other people.

 

Second, as has been pointed out by others, all change is not necessarily good. Change without respect to agreed upon goals is irresponsible and potentially damaging. The Democrats/liberals have their set of goals, the Republicans/conservatives have a different set of goals. Since the control of government has changed from one set of hands to another, many of the changes being proposed are an attempt to march to the new set of goals. In this context change that moves toward the Republican/conservative goals is "good" and changes that move away are "bad".

 

Your idea of "fairer" is not in accord with the Republican/conservative goals, so your suggestion for change is "bad".

 

You may not like it, but the only way to move in your preferred direction is to persuade the Republicans/conservatives that your ideas further their goals, or outvote them at the next election.

 

Until a social consensus is achieved regarding an appropriate solution to the health care problem we will undoubtedly continue to see contentious behavior.

 

Cam you at least admit this much:

 

1) In a market based healthcare system, there is zero incentive for profit-based health insurers to offer coverage to people who are already sick.

2) In a pure market-based healthcare system, profits rather than health outcomes are the driving force for insurance company decision-making.