Repeal is guaranteed. As for ignoring the millions of newly uninsured and uninsurable people, there will probably be a lot of talk about what to do. But nothing will happen, because that would require the Republican majority to agree on a replacement. And it will be impossible for them to agree. They will never be able to find a majority for any “replace” bill, but will easily get a majority to repeal.
So 2 and 4 and 6 years down the line, with millions more uninsured and nothing done, are the Republicans going to lose their majority? Seems pretty doubtful. They were just elected pretty decisively, yes? And it’s not like if a few more Democrats get elected we could suddenly have sensible health care reform, so what incentive do the newly uninsured have for voting democrat?
Yeah, I’m not sure why people seem surprised about it. But in the current climate, there really is no way that ACA doesn’t get repealed, and replaced with nothings.
It will be a generation or more before we can revisit a national healthcare plan. How many will die, suffer, or go broke due to this is anyone’s guess, but it will not cause a single tear in a GOP’ers eye.
I am curious, leaper and F-P, if you don’t mind, did you vote more towards the D, or towards the R this time around?
If you voted towards the D, then I sympathize. I understand your shock that republicans could dismantle something and cause great harm in the doing of it, but they are also going to be voiding same sex marriages as soon as they get their justice seated, it’s not like they actually care about people, especially not people who didn’t vote for them. If you voted towards R, then what are you talking about? This is why you voted for them. Or at least, this is why they think you voted for them. If you voted R, this is the consequence of your vote. Revel in it. Rejoice in it. If it wasn’t what you thought it would be, then maybe listen to reason next time. If you voted R, and did not want to see millions of people kicked off of insurance, then maybe give your congresscritter a call, see if they listen to you.
ANY “money from Government” to poor people was an affront to GOD Himself.
“Money from Government” to middle-class (Medicare, SS) was Righteous.
Add to this that they couldn’t see past the end of their noses, and you have an absolute hatred of AFDC, General Relief, even SS Disability.
Pull ACA, and we have the poor using the ER as their sole medical resource - and not going until the illness is life-threatening. It is much cheaper to hand out antibiotics than to treat massive infections - it the ER, the most expensive part of many hospitals.
And, yes, Roe v Wade is likely toast.
I suggest you move to solid blue states now, before the rush as the enormity of what these people have in mind becomes obvious.
If you think CA is expensive now, I see a new economic migration soon, pushing housing up further.
Yes, and many of those “millions” of people voted for Trump and for GOP candidates figuring excatly that, they “they” cant just dump all those “millions” of people out of insurance. They can and they will.
By the time elections roll around they will have convinced their electorate that it was Hillary’s fault or something.
Look, I’m getting tired of repeating this (and I do see and appreciate those of you who acknowledge this): I DO NOT DOUBT THAT THE REPUBLICAN CONGRESS WILL REPEAL THE ACA.
I THINK THEY WILL. I DO NOT DOUBT THAT.
What I am doubting is the idea that they’ll pay absolutely no political price for it. I think it’s one thing to always have been denied insurance, and quite another to have it and then lose it because of the direct intervention of a certain party. I think that’s a fundamental difference that changes the equation significantly. If the ripple effects are as widespread as the fearful say, I don’t see how the sheer volume of people “newly” concerned about this now that they have insurance can’t have SOME kind of impact, especially since those people are inevitably connected to other people who care about them in one way or another.
I may be wrong about that. Plenty of people in this thread think I am. But that how it looks at first blush to me. Maybe all they’ll offer is a fig leaf. But I don’t think at this point it’s politically advantageous of them to just shrug off all those people and everyone who loves them. I think, for the reason I mentioned above, that they are effectively “new” in terms of having skin in the game.
Again, I may be wrong. But I’m also not saying that it’s going to flip the Senate or anything either. I just think it’s something that the pols will and should think about.
We also thought that the republicans would pay a political price for nominating trump.
It turned out pretty well for them.
Doubling down on repealing ACA is likely. And we would think that it would hurt them.
I would think that dropping millions off would hurt them. But we have seen that they are good at blaming others for their actions. Making others accept the consequence of their actions is the conservative ideology in a nutshell.
I hope you are right. I hope they look and see that they can’t politically cause that kind of damage, and actually do something that is at least not crazy harmful, and maybe even a beneficial thing.
I hope that if they don’t see it themselves, that the voters would see it, and make them pay for it at the polls at the next election. Too late to actually save thousands of lives, but at least maybe some congress people will lose their jobs over it.
Maybe tomorrow or in a week, I may even feel optimistic enough to think that you are right.
Today, after seeing how the republicans can make gains by doing things that I would think would cost them, I am not nearly there.
Sure, some Republicans might pay the price. But those are going to be very vulnerable Republicans from purple districts. In other words, moderate Republicans.
And I’m not even saying that the Republicans are going to be dancing with joy at the thought of kicking people out of hospitals and into the gutter. I’m saying that they’re going to repeal Obamacare as an end zone dance. And they’ll intend to replace it. But there’s going to be 20 proposals, none of which are going to command an majority. Anything that costs money or impacts the profits of insurance companies is going to be impossible to pass, even if only a minority of Republicans block it. And nothing that could get the votes of Democrats to make up for the Freedom Caucus votes is going to be proposed.
So where does that leave us? Millions lose their insurance, and they’re pissed. But how does that translate into votes against Republicans?
Because I can guarantee that there will be headlines every day out of the White House as Trump does his dancing monkey routine. That’s going to use up every ounce of oxygen from the national debate. There’ll be so much sound and fury that the white working class that put Trump in office is barely going to notice as the Republicans in congress cut their throats. And the worse things get for them, the harder they’ll cling to what they have left.
Republicans will replace it with something, probably juggling around tax incentives. They’ll point to this as a huge concession to the left. When people suffer they’ll blame Democrats for having destroyed American healthcare with their big government plans.
I doubt they’ll point at anything as a huge concession to the left. Their base is not big on concessions right now, and these turkeys are terrified of their base.
I don’t know what the Republicans WILL do, but if they repeal ACA abruptly at this point they won’t get another four years. Might not even get another two years, although as always that depends on Democrats actually showing up for midterms.
As I’ve said in other threads, this is a time for Republicans to be humble. We did not earn this. Democrats handed it to us by not serving the public that elected them. If we make the same mistake we deserve to lose, and we will lose.
That many people going to the blue states to join the already strained state subsidized systems will break those systems, guaranteed. This is just another example of Republicans saying “It doesn’t work, and we’ll prove it even if we have to break it ourselves!”
This recent report from Washington Post discusses how they could proceed - using reconciliation (requiring only 50 votes) to eliminate subsidies, Medicaid and some taxes. This would badly cripple the ACA and probably put it in a death spiral.
They actually did this back in January - with a two year transition period to craft a new replacement bill. Obama vetoed it - Trump probably wouldn’t.
This is already possible in a handful of states, but as far as I know, no insurers have offered out of state policies. Why would they want to negotiate prices with hundreds of out of state hospitals and providers? One key to profits in health insurance is narrow networks, not multi-state networks.
I wouldn’t bet on it. It sounds good but healthcare is not like the credit card industry where the race to the bottom did work for the banks.
I think they’ll repeal as their first legislative act after Trump is sworn in. They’ve got two weeks to get the bill in order.
I think they will face little political backlash. The ACA is a pretty unpopular law in general, and enormously unpopular with the Republican base. I am very sympathetic toward the people here who could not get health care before the ACA, but I think it’s a mistake to count all 22 million people who got healthcare due to it on your side.
I have a mortgage on a rental house, an I resent being screwed by the bank for requiring flood insurance. I’m sure that people required to buy health insurance at their cost feel the same.
President Truman tried to get a payroll deduction health insurance program in 1947. Obviously, his effort was not popular.
Well, having Snyder and the Texas Hospital Association (among others) come out in support of at least some aspects of the ACA could be a big deal.
What I’m hoping for: If enough people the Republicans care about force some delays, there might be time for the public to awaken to the risks. it worked with Bush’s attempt to privatize SS.
But Social Security started out very popular. The ACA is very popular with half of the population and the debbil for the other half.
I’m not really sure. First, we need a repeal yes/no poll, haven’t had one in awhile with just that binary choice. Then we have to figure out how to take care of people who are already dependent on it.
Like i said, I don’t think this is going to be a straight up repeal and the GOP doesn’t have the votes for it anyway. But they can take it apart piece by piece and substitute GOP ideas as appropriate. For example, get rid of the coverage mandates and substitute selling insurance across state lines.