Here's how Trump's HHS pick wants to replace Obamacare

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

By tapping House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Tom Price to serve as his Secretary of Health and Human Services, Donald Trump would add to his team one of the most serious and knowledgeable Republicans on healthcare policy, and in the process press his finger on the scales of the internal GOP debate over how specifically to replace Obamacare.

In contrast to many Republicans, who have talked in terms of repealing Obamacare without offering their own vision for the healthcare system, Price, an orthopedic surgeon, has for years been refining his own detailed plan. In fact, he was one of the few Republicans who introduced an alternative bill in 2009, during the actual debate over Obamacare. You can read that version of the "Empowering Patients First Act" in its entirety here.

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/111/hr3400/text/ih

-snip-

The biggest demonstration of this is Price's preference for offering tax credits to individuals to purchase insurance rather than simple tax deductions. Though it seems like an esoteric argument, it's actually pretty fundamental to understanding the differences on the right on health policy.

Many conservatives prefer offering tax deductions to individuals because they function more like a tax cut – that is, people's tax liabilities are reduced by the amount that they spend toward coverage. However, anybody who supports this view has to be prepared to except the fact that it will benefit a more limited number of people, because many Americans with low incomes pay little or no income taxes against which to deduct.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/heres-how-trumps-hhs-pick-wants-to-replace-obamacare/article/2608349#!

[lapfog_1]

1. The major problem with this

is that tax breaks for people too poor to need them or use them means

1) Very few people NOT covered by their employers insurance will be able to deduct insurance premiums

2) Those people are likely to REALLY NEED insurance because they are facing serious illness

3) #2 implies that the premiums are going to be sky high because insurance needs mostly healthy people to cover those that get sick.

4) OR they exclude those with pre-existing conditions (which will be MOST of the people that could qualify for the tax break)

It's smoke and mirrors... for the vast majority of those covered by ACA, they won't be covered by this pile of crap.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

2. Tax credits

Which would be like the earned income credit. I don't think the right would go for such however.

[Thav]

7. Regardless,

This still leaves for-profit insurance companies in charge. As long as that happens, the idea of "being in charge" and "choice" is a lie. Currently, for-profit insurance companies are still in charge. My "choices" for insurance this year are "Do I pay $15,000 in medical expenses and premiums before the insurance kicks in, then go bankrupt having to still pay 30% of the bills the insurance companies graciously decide to cover, and 100% of the ones they don't want to." or "roll the dice, pay a tax penalty of way less than $15k, and hope we don't get sick and have to go bankrupt from astronomical medical bills."

Regardless, no one will ever know or be told how much anything will cost them. So it's "Pay for insurance and go bankrupt anyway"

[Qutzupalotl]

3. K&R

[world wide wally]

4. Why The Fuck have I never heard Obamacare defended as being regulations on the Ins Companies?

Everybody talks about it like it's a gov't program like Medicaid or Medicare.
It is just a series of regulations on the Ins Co's and an offer to help low income people pay for it.

[KT2000]

5. it is a "polite" way

of dumping people off of medical care.

[Qutzupalotl]

6. K&R

Get this to the Greatest.