This former Republican business owner used to hate Obamacare and now find himself publicly thanking Obama for saving his life at the same time admonishing Paul Ryan for repealing it.
Obamacare saved his life
Why do many Republicans only love Obamacare after it saves their lives> Where is the empathy for others that is independent on one’s self?
“I was a Republican, and I worked for the Reagan and Bush campaigns,” cancer patient Jeff Jeans said. “Just like you, I was opposed to the Affordable Care Act. When it was passed, I told my wife we would close our business before I complied with this law. Then at forty-nine I was given six weeks to live with a very curable type of cancer. We offered three times the cost of my treatment which was rejected. They required an insurance card. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, I am standing here today alive. Being both a small business person and someone with pre-existing conditions, I rely on the Affordable Care Act to be abe to purchase my own insurance. Why would you repeal the Affordable Care Act without a replacement?”
Paul Ryan said he wanted to replace it with something better. Jeff Jeans interrupted Ryan or a special message to President Obama.
“Can I say one thing,” Jeans said. “I hate to interrupt you. … I want to thank President Obama from the bottom of my heart because I would be dead if it weren’t for him.”
Paul Ryan then proceeded to his mischaracterization of Obamacare. He pointed out states where premiums went up by quite a bit. Then he provided his solution to pre-existing conditions that already failed in many state pre-Obamacare.
“We believe that state high-risk pools are a smarter way of guaranteeing coverage for people with pre-existing conditions,” Ryan said. “About eight percent of all the people under sixty-five have that kind of pre-existing condition. So we obviously want to have a system where they can get affordable coverage without going bankrupt because they get sick.”
Ryan then made the strawman argument.
“But we can do that without destroying the rest of the healthcare system for everybody else,” Ryan said. “That’s the point that I am trying to make. What we should have done is fix what was broken in health care without breaking what was working in health care, and that’s what unfortunately Obamacare did. So, by financing state high-risk pools, to guarantee people get affordable coverage when they have a pre-existing condition like yourself; what you are doing is dramatically lowering the price of insurance for everybody else. So if we say let’s just ask taxpayers, and I agree with this, finance the coverage of those eight percent of Americans over 65 and a condition like yours, they don’t have to be covered or paid for by their small business or their insurer who is buying the rates for the rest of the people in their insured pool. And you dramatically lower the price for the other ninety-two percent of Americans. Let’s just directly fix that, so that everyone else can get more competitive rates and they don’t have to pay for insurance to try and cover for those kinds of really expensive people.”
Paul Ryan’s narrative continues Frank Luntz great work, misinforming Americans to have them vote against their own interest.
Here is the reality. First of all Paul Ryan lied. It is not 8% of Americans with preexisting conditions. 25% of Americans under sixty-five have preexisting conditions. Worse, the number is more like 30% in red states. Paul Ryan and the Republican fix is corporate welfare.
Giving all the healthy people to private insurance companies while giving all the sick people to the government simply removes risk from the insurance companies. As such they can charge lower prices even as they maintain substantial profits. But the American citizen still ends up paying the total cost. Why? Because the taxpayer is paying the bill. Whether you pay the cost of higher premiums or higher taxes, you pay.
Paul Ryan and Republicans attempt to sell insurance as a product you pay for which you get an equal return. That is not the case. Insurance is a bet. The insurance company is betting you won’t get sick and you are betting you will. Gambling should not be a part of health care.
Paying a bill does not require innovation so why should it be in the private sector. The only reason is to ensure some skim dollars for a profit for basically what the government can do at a fraction of the cost. Single-payer health care eliminates executive pay, advertising cost, and a myriad of other costs which could be reinvested into health care.
Health care is not like a product you shop around for. When you need it, the last thing you should be thinking about is shopping around. And in fact studies show shopping around for health care does not work.
And don’t be fooled. There are many other features that Obamacare offer that Republicans will gut. Ensuring women are not overcharged, yearly checkups, elimination of rescissions, elimination of caps, and much more will be gone if the repeal occurs.
Instead of fixing the glitches in Obamacare, Paul Ryan and Republicans are destroying our health care system. They will cost the life of many Americans.