Trump’s healthcare plan will offer ‘insurance for everybody’: report

[7,052,770]

Uh... Obamacare has price control provisions that attempt to force young people and men to subsidize women and the elderly (which have failed), among many other disastrous regulations like the supposedly popular but stupid 26-year old rule and pre-existing conditions rule. I would prefer to see no subsidy, but I'm trying to be politically realistic. We also need to stop endlessly blaming everything on the insurance and pharmaceutical industries and start getting tough with healthcare providers. Lack of transparency is what allows healthcare providers to hide behind insurance companies, and the more layers of government and bureaucracy we add, the further from a truly free and transparent market we get.

Consumers (i.e. the market) are a far more powerful and effective force in changing the behavior of businesses than government could ever hope to be. The government's role should be to reduce the information asymmetry that currently exists with the opaque nature of healthcare spending in the US and allow the market to do its work.

1. Are you seriously proposing that we go back to the day where men and women are charged different rates? Talk about a political non-starter. I doubt a single Republican female Congressman or Senator would vote for that, nor would some of the moderate Republican men. Just imagine the tweets: "Republican health plan: raise rates on women to give men a break!! #WaronWomen"

2. As far as age rating goes, some have suggested that expanding the age curve from 3:1 to 4:1 or even 5:1 would pull a lot more healthy youngs into the market, maybe even to the point where the average rate goes down so much that old people don't really pay more. Maybe that's true - it's worth looking into. Note that it would make no difference for the people receiving subsidies, so it would need to attract moocher criminals uninsured young people who aren't receiving subsidies into the market to make a difference.

3. Getting rid of the pre-existing conditions rule is a terrible, unworkable idea. The vast majority of people with PECs are losers in the genetic lottery - it's not their fault. Why should they have to pay extra for something beyond their control? I could understand adding on a surcharge for people who got diabetes because they didn't eat right for decades, but how do you do that logistically?

If you boiled down the ACA into a single phrase, it would be "no discrimination on the basis of pre-existing conditions," both in allowing coverage at all, or charging extra for them. Everything else on Obamacare is what needs to be there to make that possible. Gotta have the individual mandate to keep the pool healthier and keep costs down. Gotta have the subsidies to help people obey the individual mandate. Etc. If you keep the pre-existing conditions rule, you keep Obamacare, and it looks like that's what we're going to do if Trump was serious about that.

4. The subsidy formula could definitely use some reworking. First, it doesn't need to cut off at 400% FPL. The 401%ers are totally screwed and get nothing. Even worse, it can incentivize people into making less money so they can get their subsidies. Better to let the subsidies taper off but theoretically apply to anyone whose insurance costs more than 9.5% (or 10% or whatever) of their income.

Even worse, The subsidy is based on the second cheapest silver plan, but that usually just means some bare-bones high deductible silver plan with a really cheap network, which means lower subsidies for everyone. It would be a lot more workable to base it on the "standardized" silver plan from a more robust network. One of the major reasons people are seeing their bills go up is because bare-bones barely-silver plans are entering the market and tanking everyone's subsidies.

5. Your point about getting tough on the providers is a good one. Generally speaking, health insurance companies don't have nearly the profit margins of hospitals. We could really save on health care costs if the Feds required hospitals to accept the Medicare rate for everything.

[Santander]

1. Are you seriously proposing that we go back to the day where men and women are charged different rates? Talk about a political non-starter. I doubt a single Republican female Congressman or Senator would vote for that, nor would some of the moderate Republican men. Just imagine the tweets: "Republican health plan: raise rates on women to give men a break!! #WaronWomen"

Yes, I am serious. Men pay more for car insurance than women, but I don't see any politicians crying out calling it an injustice. Insurance is discriminatory by nature and by righting one wrong, you just create another.

[Person Man]

1. Are you seriously proposing that we go back to the day where men and women are charged different rates? Talk about a political non-starter. I doubt a single Republican female Congressman or Senator would vote for that, nor would some of the moderate Republican men. Just imagine the tweets: "Republican health plan: raise rates on women to give men a break!! #WaronWomen"

Yes, I am serious. Men pay more for car insurance than women, but I don't see any politicians crying out calling it an injustice. Insurance is discriminatory by nature and by righting one wrong, you just create another.

Yet no one complains about the automotive mandate. Just saying.

[SteveRogers]

1. Are you seriously proposing that we go back to the day where men and women are charged different rates? Talk about a political non-starter. I doubt a single Republican female Congressman or Senator would vote for that, nor would some of the moderate Republican men. Just imagine the tweets: "Republican health plan: raise rates on women to give men a break!! #WaronWomen"

Yes, I am serious. Men pay more for car insurance than women, but I don't see any politicians crying out calling it an injustice. Insurance is discriminatory by nature and by righting one wrong, you just create another.

People choose to speed or drive drunk. Nobody chooses to get cancer.

[Frodo]

Well there's a silver-lining -there is no way Republicans can gut Obamacare now, not with Trump having publicly spelled out that he wants a healthcare plan that has universal coverage.  At least not without serious backlash and an opposition that won't waste any opportunity in reminding them of it.  

And I strongly doubt they have any alternatives to Obamacare that can do that.  

[pbrower2a]

Republicans had their chances to ensure better funding of Obamacare with heavy 'sin' taxes on alcohol and tobacco. they could have allowed weight to be a factor in determining insurance rates (obesity contributes to higher costs of health care). They could have pushed legislation that would take sweets, sodas, and snacks off SNAP eligibility because such things contribute to obesity. 

They bet everything on the failure of Obamacare... and they will bet everything on trying to kill it.   

[Sir Mohamed]

I believe it, when I see it. But it won’t happen, that is certain. Just another thing the Trumpster has no idea of. Or he’s just trolling us once again. The so-called “plan” is probably not worth the paper it’s written on.

[Phony Moderate]

Trump is no free marketeer as anyone who is aware of his pre-Obama era public statements knows, so I don't buy the argument that he'd be 'tricked' into this.

Rather it won't happen due to him not knowing the fine details of healthcare policy.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

1. Are you seriously proposing that we go back to the day where men and women are charged different rates? Talk about a political non-starter. I doubt a single Republican female Congressman or Senator would vote for that, nor would some of the moderate Republican men. Just imagine the tweets: "Republican health plan: raise rates on women to give men a break!! #WaronWomen"

Yes, they should be charged differently.  Men make much worse lifestyle choices overall than wimin.  Men's premiums should be more expensive.

[Devout Centrist]

1. Are you seriously proposing that we go back to the day where men and women are charged different rates? Talk about a political non-starter. I doubt a single Republican female Congressman or Senator would vote for that, nor would some of the moderate Republican men. Just imagine the tweets: "Republican health plan: raise rates on women to give men a break!! #WaronWomen"

Yes, they should be charged differently.  Men make much worse lifestyle choices overall than wimin.  Men's premiums should be more expensive.

Anecdotally, sure, but this hasn't been seen in premiums historically.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

1. Are you seriously proposing that we go back to the day where men and women are charged different rates? Talk about a political non-starter. I doubt a single Republican female Congressman or Senator would vote for that, nor would some of the moderate Republican men. Just imagine the tweets: "Republican health plan: raise rates on women to give men a break!! #WaronWomen"

Yes, they should be charged differently.  Men make much worse lifestyle choices overall than wimin.  Men's premiums should be more expensive.

Anecdotally, sure, but this hasn't been seen in premiums historically.

Well, I was just responding to Harry's shock that some think they should be charged differently.

[President Johnson]

Women pay less because they are more careful with their health than men. It's like car insurance. Young people usually pay more because they are responsible for far more accidents.

[7,052,770]

1. Are you seriously proposing that we go back to the day where men and women are charged different rates? Talk about a political non-starter. I doubt a single Republican female Congressman or Senator would vote for that, nor would some of the moderate Republican men. Just imagine the tweets: "Republican health plan: raise rates on women to give men a break!! #WaronWomen"

Yes, they should be charged differently.  Men make much worse lifestyle choices overall than wimin.  Men's premiums should be more expensive.

Anecdotally, sure, but this hasn't been seen in premiums historically.

Well, I was just responding to Harry's shock that some think they should be charged differently.

I'm not really shocked that some (men) think that. I was just laying it on thick for effect.

[MasterJedi]

I imagine it'll be giving huge tax breaks to insurance companies to offer coverage to people, with no price controls or regulations on how much they can charge.

[Person Man]

I imagine it'll be giving huge tax breaks to insurance companies to offer coverage to people, with no price controls or regulations on how much they can charge.

So basically it is Trump being resigned to the fact that without the ACA, the health insurance industry will go the way of the mortgage and auto industry and people will need to be bailed out anyways. However, maybe he can promise more coverage by totally deregulating the insurance industry and the medical loan industry. Bail out a bubble and create a bubble in one fell swoop! We will never have it so good! It will be orgasmic!