RYANCARE: 5 Serious Problems With The Republican Replacement For Obamacare

Ben Shapiro,

In 2010, angry Americans elected Republicans to the House of Representatives in the belief that Republicans would fight tooth and nail to repeal Obamacare. In 2014, Republicans took the Senate by making the same promise. In 2016, President Trump won election on the basis of repealing the “disaster” of Obamacare.

Now it’s 2017. Republicans have a majority in the House and Senate. President Trump is in the White House.

ryancare_small RYANCARE: 5 Serious Problems With The Republican Replacement For Obamacare News  And instead of repealing Obamacare, they now plan to trim around the edges.

Their new Obamacare plan isn’t an attempt to shift America away from government-run healthcare. It’s an attempt to re-enshrine government as the center of the health care system, with a slightly rejiggered vision of its role. The plan isn’t likely to lower costs, promote competition, or curb moral hazard.

It’s not good.

Here are the five biggest problems.

1. It Retains Requirements That Insurance Cover People With Pre-Existing Conditions. The key component to Obamacare was always the nonsensical notion that government could force insurance companies to cover those with pre-existing conditions. This turns insurance companies into piggy banks rather than insurance companies – imagine a fire insurance company that allowed you to buy insurance after your house was on fire. That’s not an insurance company any more. The same is true in health insurance – and the Republicans’ attempt to preserve this popular provision of Obamacare means that Republicans must also do something to ensure that insurance companies don’t go bankrupt. There are only two ways to do that: with a mandate to buy insurance, or with government subsidies.

2. It Creates A Back Door Mandate. The Republican plan gets rid of the overt Obamacare mandate. But it does allow insurance companies to charge an elevated 30% fine for those whose insurance lapses for more than two months at any point in the last 12 months. This means that you’re essentially fined in the future for not buying insurance now. Which has nothing to do with the Constitutional role of government.

3. It Creates Individual Healthcare Subsidies. The problem is that this back door mandate isn’t enough. What about people who are high risk or have pre-existing conditions, but haven’t bought insurance? We have to give them money to buy health insurance. Which is what the bill does: it includes an advanceable, refundable tax credit based on age. This is effectively a subsidy, since the tax credits apply to people who don’t pay much in taxes, just as the Earned Income Tax Credit is actually a giveaway to people who don’t pay taxes.

4. It Subsidizes Medicaid.

The Obamacare boondoggle was sold by allowing the federal government to pick up the tab for Medicaid expansion in the states. This bill would allow the feds to cover Obamacare Medicaid expansion for three years – and there’s no way a future Congress will actually cut these subsidies, fearing political backlash. This is like every other long-promised sunsetted spending program: it’s not going anywhere.

5. It Subsidizes High-Risk Pools On The State Level.

The bill sends $100 billion to states over the next ten years to help cover those who are high risk and can’t afford insurance. This, of course, won’t be nearly enough – it incentivizes the state to sign people up, then look to the federal government for more cash.

The bill does have good points – it’s revocation of Obamacare taxes and sponsorship of Planned Parenthood are great. But it doesn’t do any of the key things Republicans would want to do, and it actually ends up allowing Democrats to keep most of what Obama created while simultaneously blaming Republicans for its shortcomings, as well as the budget blowout that will follow Republicans killing both the individual mandate and the Cadillac tax.

So, well done, Republicans. Instead of putting forward a gradual repeal of Obamacare, you’ve actually created a gradual cementing of key elements of Obamacare, all to avoid the political blowback.

  • DrArtaud

    Ben is no longer on my Christmas list. Ben supported hillary over Trump because he felt in 4 or 8 years that hillary would damage the Conservative party less than Trump.

    Yes Virginia, obamacare is a disaster. But Ben’s simplistic solutions need discussed.

    Here are the five biggest problems.

    1. It Retains Requirements That Insurance Cover People With Pre-Existing Conditions.

    Preexisting conditions. Young, presumably healthy Ben needs to be specific. I agree that one must not have an avenue to purchase auto insurance after one wrecks one’s car. But, if the govt engages in legislation that causes turmoil and pandemonium as people are kicked off their employer supplied plans, or experience decreased benefits, or are transitioning between plans due to the govt meddling in healthcare by forcing obamacare on us, there needs to be a transition period where people with preexisting conditions can buy and keep insurance at a rate commensurate with other plans.

    Folks, auto insurance. There are safe drivers and unsafe ones. Although people that chronically wreck are put into high risk pools, there are people that experience wrecks at a specific rate that are still insured under regular plans and they are not repaying in full the amount of their accident. That’s the way insurance works. To imagine that insurance companies can summarily dismiss preexisting conditions is ludicrous.

    And, drum roll please, treated preexisting conditions may not, in some instances, be as costly to insure as a person without preexisting conditions that leads a reckless life.

    Video: Jeb Corliss ” Grinding The Crack”

    Article: A wingsuit diver died in the Swiss Alps earlier this week - so why do they take such risks?

    The article is not about Jeb Corliss’ death, it was someone else, but he survived crashing into the ground once already, certainly costly medical bills resulted, and what if he was rendered a quadriplegic. Is this fair to insurance companies? Though Jeb’s hobby that ends the life of so many probably wouldn’t yield health insurance for anyone known to participate in such, how about motorcycle and car racing, smoking, illicit drug use, etc., does Ben feel that insurance companies should bear the costs these potentially dangerous lifestyles? How about unrestrained sexual activities. HIV and AIDS, STDs, etc. are expensive.

    2. It Creates A Back Door Mandate. The Republican plan gets rid of the overt Obamacare mandate. But it does allow insurance companies to charge an elevated 30% fine for those whose insurance lapses for more than two months at any point in the last 12 months……

    Ben waxes idiotic. Complaining that coverage for people with preexisting conditions should not be mandatory, he’s comfortable with a situation that might signify a preexisting condition to be covered with no penalty to the insured. Dear Ben, allowing insurance to lapse is a major no no, even auto insurance. There’s nothing wrong with requiring that people that purchase insurance and allow it to lapse for 2 months or more being penalized as a disincentive. My wife and I inadvertently let our auto insurance lapse, the insurer would not accept payment to restore the insurance, we had to go elsewhere, admit we let our coverage lapse, and hope for the best. We were lucky. Many aren’t. Our insurance only lapsed by less than two weeks.

    3. It Creates Individual Healthcare Subsidies…..What about people who are high risk or have pre-existing conditions, but haven’t bought insurance? We have to give them money to buy health insurance. Which is what the bill does: it includes an advanceable, refundable tax credit based on age…..

    This is horrifying. My reading of this is that healthy Ben supports allowing insurance companies that have people with preexisting conditions to drop those people as they attempt to transition into Trump-care plans. The reason for my assertion is that Ben differentiates between those people with preexisting conditions that have not yet purchased health insurance.

    4. It Subsidizes Medicaid.

    The Obamacare boondoggle was sold by allowing the federal government to pick up the tab for Medicaid expansion in the states. This bill would allow the feds to cover Obamacare Medicaid expansion for three years and there’s no way a future Congress will actually cut these subsidies, fearing political backlash…..

    And healthy Ben emphasizes my point eloquently. Thanks. The govt provided the means to obtain insurance via Medicaid and Ben suggests that the govt is now allowed to abrogate that provision and toss people off. Not that the essence of what Ben is saying isn’t correct, but the govt that created the problem should have to live with that problem until people naturally transition to other plans. It should not have created the problem to begin with.

    5. It Subsidizes High-Risk Pools On The State Level.

    The bill sends $100 billion to states over the next ten years to help cover those who are high risk and can’t afford insurance. This, of course, won’t be nearly enough, it incentivizes the state to sign people up, then look to the federal government for more cash.

    So, healthy, heartless Ben, actually thinks that after this brouhaha called obamacare, that was foisted on America by evil democrats (and I mean that sincerely) to provide healthcare to the uninsured will best serve the Republicans by forcing people off their insurance and playing into the hands of an already antipathetical media surely to spin the issue in time for the midterm elections. Sorry Ben, just like Michelle Fields, I’m not buying it.

    The following video is of the Michelle Fields charges, fully supported by Lyin’ Ben Shapiro.

    Video: NSFW - The Brutal Assault of Michelle Fields ft. Lyin’ Ben”

    Ben, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Ben is Glen Beck in disguise, I won’t be fooled again.