Many voted for Trump to shake things up. They believed that things could not get worse and hoped it would get better. While Trump is the manifestation the opposition has focused on, it is the GOP using his electoral college win to create policies that will hurt MOST Americans we should fear.
Senator Sanders nails Cruz on Obamacare
Obamacare premiums and deductibles are high for many. However, any cheaper proposals based on removing regulations will kill or bankrupt Americans irrespective of them being Progressive or Conservative, Democrat, Republican, or other.
This message is not meant to be condescending to my Trump brothers and sisters. It is easy for us to go at each other’s throats as the establishment politicians pit us against each other. There is a purpose. If we are fighting each other, then we can’t see that the pilfer is bipartisan. In my humble opinion, as a Democrat, I do think one side is more humane than the other, but that is not what I want to address here. I want us to fight for a public good that affects us all equally and should not be ideological.
I am not one who believes all Trump supporters are racists. I know many. Hell, I have relatives who voted for Trump. I will admit, I simply cannot understand how anyone can look at the man, what he has said and done to women, what he has said about the other, and still vote for him. But that is water under the bridge. I care too much about all of us to make it a personal grudge except for the sect of his supporters that are in fact, white supremacists.
Health is something that knows no political inclinations. We all want to be fixed if we get sick. Please do not buy into the fallacy that Obamacare was a government takeover of health care. Not because your anti-Obamacare politician says it, means it is true. You interact with your healthcare system through your doctor, your hospital, and your drug store.
Your doctor works for herself or himself, or for a private corporation. Your hospital is a private corporation. Your drug store is a private corporation. The drug companies that supply the drugs to the drug store are private corporations. The companies that supply the tools to the hospitals are private corporations. The supplies used in the doctor’s offices are private corporations. The insurance companies that pay the bills are private corporations. It cannot be a government takeover if the system is run almost entirely by the private sector via private corporations and private doctors.
Before Obamacare, there were much fewer rules governing what these corporations could do. Corporations are profit centers. They have a fiduciary responsibility to make a profit for the people who own the corporation, the shareholders. As such they always try to minimize their cost. Obamacare is mostly a body of rules, regulations, and taxes intended to ensure that the service they provide falls within guidelines, the ultimate goal being the good health and safety of every American. It is no different than the government mandating a speed limit through research to keep us relatively safe. It is no different than the government making some substances illegal to prevent unnecessary deaths. Obamacare ensures that everyone has access to healthcare.
Most Republican politicians hate regulations. So they tell Americans that regulations are responsible for most of our problems. Most regulations came into being because before them people were hurt. Before Obamacare, you could buy insurance that was worthless, the premiums were cheap but at the time you needed to use it, many found them useless because they excluded just about everything. Obamacare ensures women do not pay more than men for health insurance. The law ensures an insurance company cannot cancel your policy when you get sick. It makes sure that no one can be denied health insurance because of a preexisting condition. It makes sure that your coverage includes yearly early screenings and much more. In other words, Obamacare set a baseline of health care requirements to ensure a fairly healthy population.
It is true that this meant the market for cheap insurance was dead. The reality, the cheap insurance cost the entire system more either because the person owning the cheap insurance either remained without care or was ultimately subsidized by us all. In other words, the bill got paid by all of us who had good insurance.
If you listened to the debate between Senator Sanders and Ted Cruz, it is important to read between Ted Cruz’s lines. He wants to give you choices. He wants to give you freedom. Do you want the choice of buying either water with lead or water without or do you want safe water? When Republican politicians talk about choice, it isn’t your choice. It is the corporations given a choice to sell you crappy insurance that make them a profit with no risk. It is not surprising that after fact checking, it turned out Ted Cruz mostly lied.
Obamacare is a market solution to our health insurance problems. It is a Republican plan implemented by Mitt Romney in Massachusetts and designed by the Heritage Foundation. The reason the Republican politicians have not been able to come up with a replacement plan over the last seven years is that it is their plan implemented by a Democrat. The failures of Obamacare that need fixing is not unexpected. Obamacare was just a start. It was always known that a market solution is by definition more inefficient. Monies going to profits are monies not going to pay a health care bill or increased premiums.
Ask yourself a question. Why do we need hundreds of insurance companies and plans to pay a medical bill? Why pay for all that complexity, that overhead to pay a bill. Wouldn’t it be easier to have one entity paying every medical bill? It isn’t rocket science. The reason why is that those hundreds of corporations see it as easy money. They collect premiums take some off the top for CEOs, shareholders, advertising friends, and more. The rest then pay a bill. They do something called risk management to attempt to insure only healthy people to make sure they can keep more of your premiums.
Now supposed you did not have to pay hundreds of CEOs, administrators, advertising, management of multiple databases, risk management professionals, and much more, then your insurance would be cheaper by more than 20%. Medicare for all with a 3% overhead does just that. We should only be fighting for Obamacare repeal if the results were Medicare for all, a single-payer solution that ensures all Americans have health insurance and health care.
Your ideology does not matter to me. Your Party affiliation does not matter me. What matters is that we do not allow politicians to spin us into bad decisions. Bad decisions on health care policy is a death sentence for many. All of us should band together on this one. First let us ensure they do not repeal Obamacare, the progress made thus far. Let’s then come up with modifications that we can all support.