The Health-Care Gap Between Red and Blue America

[Hermit-The-Prog]

States have a surprising degree of autonomy to block President Trump’s changes to Obamacare—and liberal-leaning states are already making their move.

Ronald Brownstein

The battle over health care is moving to the states.

The most immediate effect of the recent steps taken by President Trump and congressional Republicans to unravel the Affordable Care Act will be to create an even deeper gulf between red and blue states in the availability and quality of health insurance. An array of blue states is exploring ways not only to blunt Trump’s moves, but also to reach beyond the ACA with new mechanisms to expand coverage. Simultaneously, many red states are leaning into the rollback—both by seeking to limit access to Medicaid, and by embracing Trump’s efforts to deregulate insurance markets in ways that will restore the pre-ACA separation between the healthy and sick.

“In the states that don’t act to strengthen their regulation, you are going to see these non-group-insurance markets weaken,” by eroding the risk-sharing between the healthy and sick that the ACA required, said Linda Blumberg, a fellow at the Urban Institute who closely studies the law. “It really takes us major steps back to where we were prior to [the law].”

Two big moves from Trump and congressional Republicans are expanding this wedge between the states. The first was the tax bill’s provision repealing the ACA’s individual mandate, which required all Americans to buy insurance. The second was the administration’s recent proposal to significantly expand the availability of “short-term” health plans that don’t guarantee minimum benefits or prohibit discrimination against consumers with preexisting health problems.

[...]

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/03/obamacare-trump/555131/

[Ohiogal]

1. Okay, I admit I'm wearing rose-colored glasses here

But ........ health care! C'mon. How can anyone in power (looking at YOU, GOP) work so HARD to DENY a struggling person health care? A goddam doctor visit! You'd think we were asking them to give a Cadillac to every person in the country! It's basic human care, for cryin' out loud. We're all human beings. At one point or another, we're all going to need the services of a doctor or a hospital. And our for-profit healthcare system is set up so that it works against equal care for all. How can anyone make denying care to everyone their agenda??? Shouldn't we be trying to ensure that EVERYBODY can have access to health care??? I don't understand freakin Republicans and I never will.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

2. all for me and none for thee

Republicans in Congress have no qualms about having their own health care paid for by all of us taxpayers. They might even understand that those who pay taxes, pay at the doctor's office, pay at the hospital, and pay for medical insurance already cover _all_ of the costs of those who can't. It's just that they want everyone to continue to pay for the giant parasitic medical insurance industry, of which they, in turn, are parasites. There's money in misery.

I like your rose-colored glasses. Borrowing them for a minute, I see a system where health care exists instead of the present wealth care. The huge overhead of health insurance could be replaced by a simpler administration system designed to cover medical costs rather than gaudy offices, vacation mansions, and Ferraris for offspring of executives.

Health insurance is a strange beast. I've tried to figure out which human beings are not at risk of bad health -- accident or illness -- and can't. With home-owner's insurance, only those who own homes are included in the risk pool. Likewise with automobile insurance. If you don't own a car, you don't have a need to participate in sharing the cost of the risks. Since all citizens are at risk concerning health, it seems only reasonable that all citizens participate in the risk sharing, just as we all share the cost of national defense. (I don't want neighbors with private armies).

[mwooldri]

4. "Conservatives" in America do not believe health care is a right.

They believe that it is a privilege.

Unlike guns. It's in the constitution, so it's a right.

Maybe we need a constitutional amendment. A simple phrase "The right for a person to access health care shall not be infringed." Stick that in there. Takes away the "Conservative" argument.

[Orange Free State]

3. I wish that several of the larger states

would pool their health care plans to get economy of scale, and as a state program thus be immune to whatever Trump does. Let’s say California, New York, and Pennsylvania formed a program called Calnypa or something. States that want to have health care could do it, and you would automatically leave out West Virginia, Mississippi, and other Deplorablestan states with bad habits that would drive costs up.

I wonder if it could be made to work?