Hospitals, Insurers and Actuaries Warn GOP of Economic Calamity By Repealing Obamacare

Health care industry groups and lobbyists -  firm capitalists-  are now warning the Trump Brigade and  GOP to tread very cautiously in terms of trying to repeal Obamacare. This has now seen 6.4 million people signed up before this year's deadline despite the Trump threat to chuck it. But as Chris Hayes' guest put it last night, it would be most unwise to leave some 20 million without health care - then just itching to get revenge at the next election.

Incredibly, many of the Trump voters - namely in Kentucky- never believed Trump's words that he'd dismantle their health insurance, but now they are taking them seriously. What they took to be mere beer talk and rhetoric is now turning out to be too real, as his new HHS pick (Tom Price (R, GA) has vowed to moved expeditiously on tearing the ACA down.

Meanwhile, as recently reported  in The Denver Post ('Health Care Industry Groups Warn of Consequences for Nixing ACA') we are alerted that "hospitals, insurers, actuaries and health networks are telling the incoming Republican administration and Congress that it's not a good idea to repeal the 2010 health care law without clear plans to address the  consequences".

What are they worried about? Well, the sudden dislocation of 20 million people who had finally signed onto insurance plans and were making payments. In other words, a not insignificant part of the economy. While the hysteric Right branded Obama as a "socialist" for creating the plan, it was in reality a takeoff on Mitt Romney's "Romneycare" in MA, as well as an earlier GOP invention from the mid-1990s. While the GOOPrs hate the ACA, Obama's genius was in tying the plan to for profit insurance companies which will not take a slowing of their profits kindly.

Of course, the traditional Left hated the ACA for the very reason that for- profit insurance companies were a major part of it. But hey, maybe Obama was playing 4- dimensional chess all along and we just didn't see it. Didn't see how the inclusion of the insurance industry would make it much more difficult to get rid of by a future demagogue, say like Trump.

To  fix ideas, the Post article notes that "hospitals say a stand alone repeal would cost them billions, compromising their ability to serve local communities".

Not to be outdone, "insurers say congress must be careful not to create even more uncertainty and instability."  while "actuaries worry that the mere promise of an eventual replacement won't be enough to sustain the individual health insurance market"

In other words, the Repukes are playing at unraveling the entire individual health insurance marketplace in their yen to remove Obama's centerpiece legacy.

Meanwhile, "the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network reminded lawmakers that lives are at stake". The network is concerned that "protection for people with pre-existing conditions might be undermined or lost".  This recognizes that before the ACA it was common for insurers to deny coverage to anyone with cancer. Even now, under a supplemental Medicare program, I am not permitted to change to another supplemental once  having been diagnosed with cancer -- and facing further treatment. But unlike those on Obamacare, my  further choice is taken away, not the coverage.

At the same time, while 'pukes insist they are determined to still repeal Obamacare, they are also "mindful of the political risks".   The Post noted:

"The basic plan under GOP consideration involves repealing the health law next year but delaying the effective date to allow congress time to pass a replacement"

But can that work? Not really, not at any practical level. Any such replacement legislation on the same scale would require billions in government financing and extensive regulations - which most repukes hate.

Hate it though they may, their hands may be tied. That's because the two main hospital lobbies - the American Hospital Association and the Federation of American Hospitals-- have released dovetailing studies that their members will suffer more than $200 billion in potential losses if the health care law is repealed without restoring funding cuts that were used to finance coverage expansion.

In other words, the GOP and Trumpsters are in a real hammerlock. You can't just dismiss $200b in losses to one market sector and not create stock market instability. You can't just take away the coverage of 20 million people and not expect political blowback.

But perhaps the most sobering assessment is from the American Academy of Actuaries. Why so? Because unlike the insurers and hospitals they have no financial stake in the issue. Hence, their position is as close to an objective and independent one that you can get. The organization said that delaying the effective date of a repeal while developing a replacement would trigger a crisis for the individual health care market.  This is where millions who don't have job-based coverage (including many unemployed Trump voters) can buy policies. This includes more than 10 million with current access to Healthcare.gov.

By any reckoning it isn't clear the GOP won't overplay its hand and claim more political capital (based on Trump's electoral win) than they actually earned. We are reminded here that Hillary won the actual vote by nearly 2.9 million. By "actual vote" I mean the vote that 99 percent of nations use to determine a leader.  By this standard the GOOPrs don't have any kind of a mandate to do whatever the hell they want. If they do overreach, they are sure to learn the political costs very quickly.

Yep, it will be an interesting new year indeed.

SCOTUS Gets It Right On Obamacare Subsidies - Despite Scalia's 'Jiggery Pokery'

 
Antonin Scalia - who believes we need more exorcists - referred to the Roberts' decision as "jiggery pokery".

Huzzahs and kudos to Chief Justice John Roberts, for clearing the air on the Affordable Care Act, and leading a 6-3 Supreme Court decision to allow subsidies for millions of people who otherwise would have been excluded given they don't live in states with health care exchanges. Of course, all the heads of the Reepo presidential candidates and  conservative hacks and lackeys simultaneously exploded in the wake of the decision - making one wonder what these mutts will do after the next SCOTUS decision to likely allow same sex marriage. In the wake of the Confederate flag being margnalized and removed in multiple forums, plus the Obamacare decision, I believe these punks will be all out of outrage by the time of the next big decision.

But maybe not. One thing the Right's babies - from Lush Rimbaugh to Bill O'Reilly - are really famous for is mock outrage and playing the 'poor widdo me' victim card. You see it everywhere, from the "victimized" Confederate sympathizers getting their flags taken down, to the other whiners trying to make the gullible believe the ACA was a "socialist invention". Errr no, a real socialist invention would be single payer Medicare for all, as Bernie Sanders has proposed, no insurance companies involved.

Look, the ACA -  otherwise known as "Obamacare" -  is not the greatest health care deal around. It was instead an original center -right proposal first advanced in the Nixon era then revived in the 90s (by the likes of Dole and Gingrich) as an antidote to "Hillarycare". Then it was actually put into practice in Massachusetts under then Governor Mitt Romney and became known as "Romneycare".

When the Obama-ites first proposed it, most of us who are true liberals screamed our heads off- demanding the public option, as at least a viable alternative. But a committee of seven headed by cornpone corporate Dem Max Baucus - plus three Reepo members - ensured that option died. Meanwhile, the great "socialist" Obama didn't lift a finger to come to the option's defense - and thus the insurance company-dominated ACA emerged as the only reality. So don't believe the Right's screech monkeys for one second when they yap about "socialism". The fact they do indicates they don't know beans about the evolution or history of this scheme.

Getting back to Roberts, and realizing fully that torpedoing the ACA subsidies would mean 6.4 million people would have nowhere to go, he delivered the only legal decision available and also scolded the critics for their too literal reading of the law (as well as congress for sloppy writing of the specific section to do with the exchanges).

Roberts noted that the three parts of the law are "interlocking" and that the insurance cannot deny coverage of pre-existing conditions,  everyone must get the insurance to spread the risk  and the subsidies (for low income people) make it more affordable. Take away the subsidies, and the system collapses.  As the Chief Justice put it:

"Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them"
.
In other words, blowing away the garbage from the protestors, the Court has clearly said the ACA conforms to constitutional law, it's told us what it means and the Obama administration has interpreted it correctly.

Which is just common sense. However, we know the court's three objectors - especially Antonin Scalia - don't possess that commodity. Scalia, in his reckless and hysterical dissent, wrote:

"The decision shows the court favors some laws over others. "

And:

"We really should start calling the law SCOTUScare"

Scalia also referred to the process by which the decision was made as "interpretive jiggery pokery and pure applesauce". Now this is a character who once pondered what happened to the Devil, as I noted in my post of Oct. 12, 2013.   His own words, from an October 6, 2013 remark:

"In the Gospels, the Devil is doing all sorts of things. He's making pigs run off cliffs, he's possessing people and what not. And that doesn't happen much anymore. He used to be all over the New Testament...What happened to him? He got wilier!"

Bill Maher's take on this REAL jiggery pokery on his REAL TIME show on Oct. 11, 2013 was:

"I don't care why someone acts like a fool, only that when they do we keep them away from decision making. It would be one thing if Mr. Scalia sold pizza for a living. But this is a man we go to to interpret our laws. It's like smelling a gas leak and calling an exorcist."

Maybe the best thing Scalia can do in future dissents, is let that dimwit Clarence Thomas (lowest academically -ranked justice to have ever been appointed - in other words, a true token black)  have the say. At least a dumbed-down dissent is probably preferable to a psychotic, Devil mongering wacko's jiggery pokery!.

Of course, the whole clown cavalcade of Repuke presidential contenders has insisted they will now work to repeal Obamacare. Good luck on that, you bozos, especially after the WSJ reported four days ago a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) finding that if Obamacare is repealed a budget deficit of $141 billion would result.

So these jerks ought to be getting on their knees and thanking Roberts for saving their bacon, because frankly they have nothing to replace the ACA if it was repealed. Would they really be so stupid as to alienate over 16 million potential voters to get the ACA knocked out with nothing to replace it? (Marco Rubio suggests "putting health care in Americans' own hands", which translated means give 'em "premium support". To see more on that go here: http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/03/premium-support-medicare-still-terrible.html )

Well, they're Republicans, so the answer is 'maybe'.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/tina-dupuy/62827/congratulations-conservatives-you-won

And:

http://www.salon.com/2015/06/26/scalia_thomas_alito_have_totally_lost_it_the_complete_and_utter_incoherence_of_the_conservative_supreme_court_justices/

Addendum:

On cue - let the conservatives' heads explode some more: The report now coming in on CBS is that the Supreme Court has just ruled 5-4  that the states do not have the right to outlaw same sex unions. The Court also ruled that all 50 states must recognize same sex marriages performed in other states.

Even Conservos Believe Romney is a LOSER!

Willard Mitt scratches his cranium pondering which Etch -a sketch Mitt he will adopt today!

Bottom: the TRUE story of the deficits, not what Reepo spin-makers have put forward.

No, I am not making that claim, but a spectrum of conservos are as reported in politico.com, e.g.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81280.html?hp=t1

Evidently, they all suspect now what most rational people knew during the Repug debates, that if Romney is nominated the GOP bid for the White House goes down in flames. Romney is the “Etch-a-Sketch” dude, the guy who changes his policy positions, ideology and beliefs from one moment to the next, from one year to the next.

Switch to a few years ago and he’s defending a woman’s right to an abortion, especially in cases of rape and incest. Switch to today – and, sandbagged by the Teabaggers- he sings a different tune. Which Mitt you gonna believe? Can Mitt even win a debate with himself?

The nitwit some months ago proclaimed he plans to ditch “Obamacare”, abolish it in toto! Next thing we hear barely a week ago is he plans to “keep certain provisions” - like the one that eliminates the pre-existing conditions insurance companies use to winnow their responsibilities, and exposure to future risk. Do people really believe this? Which “Mitt” is telling the truth? How can voters know?

Here’s a fact that exposes the liar: One cannot retain the elimination of pre-existing conditions unless one retains the mandate. It is the mandate, which delivers to the health insurers a large mass of citizens that will dilute the concentrated risk pool and make earning profits more likely. In effect, this ensures profits despite enrolling those already diagnosed with cancers, whopping LDL levels- triglycerides, or morbid obesity. Take away the mandate, the heart of “Obamacare” and the pre-existing conditions can’t be allowed, since there’s no way to allow payment for their treatment.

Of course when Mitt implemented “RomneyCare” in Massachusetts he knew all this! Moreover though he either rejects his own plan now – or claims it’s “not the same as Obamacare” (he’s never explained why) - the plan has worked wonders in the state of Massachusetts in terms of bringing down health care costs – as an MIT study found. So why disown it? Mainly because Romney had to alter his etch-a-sketch pattern to appease the Tea Party contingent of the GOP. It was either do that, or lose the nomination.

The other howler concerns Romney’s specious economic claims to "cut deficits" such as he plans to highlight in two new ads to air today in battle ground states. (See the attached graphic of how - contrary to Reepo spin - it's Obama who's really addressed the deficit, taking it down from the whopping debt Bush II left.) Anyway, Willard Mitt's new ads feature his claimed “priorities” to rescue the nation:

- Reduce spending
- Balance the Budget
- Cut the deficit

All splendid aims to be sure, but Romney’s own financial plans are totally at odds with his priorities. So how can we believe his ads?

For example, his plans include adding $2 trillion to the Pentagon budget (despite the fact the Pentagon already said it doesn’t need it), and adding $4 trillion by way of tax cuts. Those two over four years represent an increase of $6 trillion in spending! These additions can only be balanced by equal spending cuts but where will they come from? Mitt won’t say specifically, and those ideas that have come up before – listed by his campaign, such as eliminating the mortgage housing deduction – will only be drops compared to what he plans to spend. For example, the elimination of the mortgage deduction will save maybe $180 billion. Even if Mitt eliminated the mortgage deduction, as well as the child-dependent tax credit and knocked out all VA educational benefits and cut Tri-Care (the military veterans’ version of Medicare) by 50%, the spending cuts would only reach $1.4 trillion.

Do the math:

$6 trillion - $1 .4 trillion = $4.6 trillion

Remains unbalanced.

One sees from this that the rank and file of conservatives have good reason to fear Willard Mitt’s candidacy, because it’s composed of bullshit and bollocks.

This is why, never mind the Reepo dreamers and delusionals, Mitt will be clobbered come Nov. 6th.

One more point: Some confounded Reepos say “he still has time” – forgetting that early voting starts by the end of the month in a number of states. Polls, no matter the naysaying of GOOPrs, shows the proportion of voters who can still be won over or remain undecided are minimal. Thus, the results of an Obama victory might already be decided weeks before the actual general election.