Rand Paul and Paul Ryan
After eight years of bashing Obamacare, congressional Republicans still haven’t come up with a plan to replace it. They are, however, essentially unified in wanting to stop the Congressional Budget Office from estimating how much a repeal might cost.
While the media and most Democrats were focusing on the House of Representatives voting to weaken the Office of Congressional Ethics (a measure that was subsequently retracted), the larger document that the initiative was part of also prohibited the office from analyzing proposals to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Almost no one seems to have noticed this.
Responding to the provision on the floor of the House on Jan. 3, Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., condemned it and the Republicans:
“They’re admitting in their own rules that their proposal to repeal the Affordable Care Act will be devastating to the federal deficit and the national debt,” he said.
Two representatives for House Speaker Paul Ryan did not respond when contacted by Salon asking about the Congressional Budget Office restriction.
Buried on page 25 of the “Rules of the […]
Obamacare is a train-wreck in motion that must be put out of our misery before it destroys our economy. I would prefer to simply have the equivalent of major medical insurance, and just take care of myself. Not a fan of single payer, but at this point it makes sense to transition to single payer. Nothing is going to happen overnight because nothing in healthcare admin happens fast. Uncommon sense would suggest having something to replace following repeal of ACA is advisable.
Obamacare as passed has been a disaster for many of its supposed beneficiaries. Premiums increasing at double digits, plans with deductibles so big that people are effectively uninsured after buying some of these plans.
The Democrats betrayed us when they left out the public option.
That is some selective reasoning there, Hovland. SOME premiums have increased, while some have decreased, this holds true for deductibles and overall healthcare costs as well. Beyond this, the rate of increases, percentage-wise, was more steady and in a freefall before the ACA. This is a point I rarely see mentioned. People act as if medical costs, rates, and premiums were a non-issue before the law went into affect. There is a reason it was proposed for years (by Republicans no less) and finally a president had the cahones to stop talking the talk, and walked the walk.
Does it have issues? of course, fairly major ones that need–and were expected all along–to be tweaked. This is a massive country, with a massive population of increasingly unhealthy people. Obesity in and of itself is guaranteed to bankrupt the entire economy in short order unless people have healthier options in the long run.
And I’m not sure if you are being willfully clueless here, or if you are channeling the parody of The Colbert Report with a declaration such as: “The Democrats betrayed us when they left out the public option.”
The Republicans, almost without fail, were the chorus railing against a Public Option, not democrats (unless you include the former Democrat Lieberman), and they still are. Democrats eventually set it to the side because otherwise the ACA would have died. This is the state of politics. You don’t, nor should you ever, get everything you initially want. Binary-thinking is the death of politics.
Beyond this, Obama himself, back in July 2015, stated in The Journal of American Medicine…..“Policy makers should build on progress made by the Affordable Care Act by continuing to implement the Health Insurance Marketplaces and delivery system reform, increasing federal financial assistance for Marketplace enrollees, introducing a PUBLIC PLAN OPTION in areas lacking individual market competition, and taking actions to reduce prescription drug costs.”