The thing to remember is that with these guys, first they decide what they’re going to do, THEN they come up with the high sounding rhetoric to justify it.
The executive order itself is kind of funny.
It reminds me of one of those pseudo-legal documents the sovereign citizen types are always trying to file in court. It looks kind of official on the surface but once you really read it you see how the whole thing is pretty much bullshit.
It says
It shall be the policy of this administration to facilitate the purchase of insurance across state lines and then it goes on for several paragraphs about how the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act sucks. Since it’s an official document he didn’t say ObamaCare. Isn’t that presidential?
It is sadly lacking in details about how it will facilitate the purchase of insurance across state lines or even a real explanation of what that even means. But they drop something about developing and operating a healthcare system that provides high quality care and affordable prices. But this phrase is just kind of dropped in the middle of the document without context.
Then they lay out a flawed theory about how association plans will save the day. Then they resolve to “expand access” to them but they don’t say what that means and they seem unaware of the fact that insurers don’t want to give associations access to the same plans as large businesses.
Then they go on some more about how much the PPACA sucks.
Then they explain what HRAs are
More about how much the PPACA sucks.
Then the actual action that they will be taking. Various cabinet secretaries are going to consider proposing some regulations or giving some guidance.
Looks like something they threw together because Trump “needed a win”. And they hope it keeps him from going insane over the weekend, Thrn they’ll worry about next week.
But now they own it. Big Miscalculation
Wow, you must have one great and rock-solid health care plan to make a statement like that.
So, that raises a couple of issues:
First, in a purely capitalist system your insurance provider will have the option to deny your insurance claims simply because they feel like it and you will have no recourse whatsoever. When you go to the government to say it’s not fair they will come back and say no it is not fair but that’s Rand Paul’s master stroke of capitalist genius right there.
Second, there are all these angry working class whites across America who probably do not have health care plans similar to yours. What do you recommend so that they can get these health plans? Particularly if they already have some health issues and the capitalist market can completely deny them any coverage at all because of those issues? “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps” is great… if you have boots to begin with. But all these people in between Podunk and Lake Wobegon don’t have boots or bootstraps or any means of procuring either. And these are white people we’re talking about here! How can they attain the same level of privilege that you take for granted?
If you become disabled through illness or injury it can take up to 2 or more years before you start receiving benefits. Meanwhile, medical bills due to hospital stays, follow-up visits, and medication do add up. All of this leads to a potential medical-related bankruptcy. Taxpayers end up paying somehow. Unless we bring back peonage and debtors prisons.
To be fair, Obamacare wasn’t a bipartisan policy; it was passed over the objections of mostly rich white men who didn’t want to pay for “those people’s” medical care and “women’s stuff.” It’s just that they’ve been waiting for 7 years to finally do something about it, and now they have the power to do something about it. And even though when it came down to the moment of truth they were confronted with their own lies and realized that ordinary people actually kinda liked Obamacare and didn’t have the stomach to vote against it, they can just close their eyes and try to claim credit for it anyway.
We’ve been talking a lot about Trump’s inability to do anything, which is angering his base of supporters. Well, in a way, Trump just scored his first political victory with his extreme base, and he did it completely without help from Congress. He can unilaterally destroy Obamacare, which, in the eyes of “suck it up, butter cup” Republican voters, is a crowning achievement, politically. It’s entirely possible that he can use this as leverage against McConnell and Ryan. True, it’s wildly unpopular and potentially very risky what he’s doing, but to the political activists in the deep red districts, Trump is clean-up hitter who just went deep. This might start a brutal civil war within the Republican party, and while some pundits might be cheering that prospect, I for one dread it. Because the extremists can win. And they can wreak hell on earth if they do.
(bolding mine)
We’ll have to see how it all plays out, but that could be a significant “oops” factor.
I think that EO is scheduled for next week.
Potentially more problematic over the longer term is that many of those who benefit from the subsidies are working, and probably many of those are middle class whites. It’s not like cutting off Medicaid and knowing that they weren’t going to vote for you anyway. I’d guess that at least a fairly significant portion of those taking the subsidies liked the subsidies but that fact didn’t necessarily buy them allegiance to the Democratic party. They’re probably more likely to be politically active, too.
Even so, for many people on the right, this was a policy “win” for Trump, and I expect him to act more and more unilaterally from now on. He’s going to put pressure on the Senate to end the filibuster, too. Trump doesn’t want to be out-Trumped by Steve Bannon. He’s already been embarrassed once and he’s probably terrified that it could happen again.
Trump is going to be an extremist president, and this is just the beginning. I don’t think people understand just how extremist he will become. It’ll be up to moderate - hell not even moderates, just merely establishment Republicans, to stop Trump. Somehow, though, I doubt they have the courage to do it. As I’ve said before, the establishment GOP members invited the Tea Party, the Freedom Caucus, and the White Nationalists into their party because they believed that they could use them to their advantage and then dump them once they won their elections. It is no different than how the German conservatives believed that they could control the Nazis in the 1930s.
You mean like all of those on the exchange losing coverage due to pricing or the companies simply pulling out of poor areas via the exchange under Obamacare?
And how is this supposed to make it better?
Not likely. Next election, the Russian social media machine will just “Blame democrats” for these people’s loss of healthcare. And they will eat it up, and obediently follow Putin’s order to vote Republican.
Insurers and insurees need to plan ahead. In that sense, any change, especially one by this erratic President, will be disruptive in the short-term.
A feature of Obamacare is a form of “Marxism”: Take from the healthy and give to the sick and injured. Delving into specific details is pointless until you, dear Doper, decide if you are for or against this form of “Marxism.”
The following may be a slight Exczaggeration, but summarizes this point:
Another, lesser, purpose of Obamacare is to take from the rent-seeking insurance industry and give to the public. Again, dear Doper, are you are for or against? Do you want to study your portfolio before you answer this question?
A (D) says something and an (R) says something else, and you have to ask who’s truthful and who’s lying? “You’re not from around here, are you?” 
Insurance is not Marxism. It’s insurance. It’s not taking from the rich and giving to the poor. It’s spreading out risk. Sure, the system is priced in a socialistic way, but that doesn’t make for Marxism.
Not that there is anything wrong with Marxism, other than the fact that humanity as a species is (currently) too evil to use it. It is a more fair system, but is open to huge abuse.
Obamacare DOES have features of Marxism and I’m tired of liberals muddying the “dialog” by pretending otherwise.
Obamacare transfers some money from taxpayers to insurance companies and low-income insurees. That’s “Marxism.” Obamacare, with rules about pre-existing conditions, transfers value from the healthy to the sickly. That’s “Marxism.”
Whether Americans have the humanitarian values to consider these features good is a separate question. But these features are essential to Obamacare, or any UHC plan.
(I put “dialog” in quotes since, as I noted in another thread, there is no longer such a thing. America has divided into camps which can only scream at — and tell lies to — each other.)
The theory behind Marxism is wrong leaving aside the system of communism in general. Dialectic analysis is wrong, the sweeping arc of history is wrong (aside from the facile observation that history advances), and with the advent of automation, neither labor nor capital play as big a role in production as innovation. Neither capitalism nor communism reward inventors as much as the worth that they bring, unless you’re the handful of inventors who are also capitalists.
So…Marxist like the public school system then?
How does transferring taxpayer money to wealthy insurance companies constitute “Marxism”?
It doesn’t but let’s place the blame where it really belongs, on the health insurance companies.