Don't Panic!

[McCamy Taylor]

For two wholes hours, folks who had bought their own insurance on a federal-not-state health exchange were faced with a predicament. The DC Circuit Court did what everyone knew that it was going to do and declared "We want to take back your ACA insurance in time to influence this fall's Congressional election!" Yes, that is what they said. You just had to read between the lines.

Luckily, two hours later, another court said "Who are you kidding?" and gave those of us who purchased ACA insurance on federal exchanges back our health insurance.

Now it is in the hands of the US Supreme Court. And the Koch Brothers want us to remember that the Supreme Court can be supremely stupid and partisan (Bush v. Gore, Citizens United, No Medicaid for Poor Folks in Red States). So that we will panic. So that we will begin wringing our hands. So that doctors will stop scheduling surgery and hospitals will start demanding cash up front...

But think about it. Which financial interests in this country stand to benefit if the Koch Brothers have their way and millions of Americans retroactively lose their health insurance? Not the hospital chains that will have to reimburse insurance companies. Not the pharmacies that will have to reimburse insurance companies. Not the insurance companies that will have to reimburse the federal government. A whole lot of special interests in the US will be out a whole lot of money---and I do not think that the money loving SCOTUS will be willing to go against the interest of the health insurance industry, pharmaceutical industry and medical industrial complex all at the same time. Just to curry favor with the Koch Brothers. And maybe influence the outcomes of a handful of Congressional elections. Maybe.

This, dear readers, looks to me like sound and fury signifying nothing. The result of this little skirmish is more likely to be another deep division in the ranks of Republicans, many of whom have begun to realize that megalomaniacs like the Kochs and Sheldon Adelson do not want what is best for Corporate America as a whole. They want what they want! And if they end up driving five or six other businesses bankrupt, the Kochs could care less.

Divide and conquer. It is very amusing watching the Republicans do it to themselves.

[randys1]

1. As I said elsewhere, Health Insurers are getting rich with ACA

so as your post says, no chance they do this AND piss off the VAST majority of the country

i hope



ps

If ACA had been introduced by ANY repub prez, and it would have eventually, NONE of anything negative would have happened

would have went thru and been praised by everyone all day long till the end of time

this is about racism and nothing else

[1StrongBlackMan]

2. If you call a 2% increase ...

in profits, over the last 18 months, getting rich. Okay.

[appal_jack]

4. It's not like they were poor to begin with.

It's not like insurance companies were poor to begin with.

'Single Payer is the best option,' many of us said. 'Medicare for all would be simple and effective.'

'No no no,' said the sensible woodchucks. 'It would never pass.'

So Congress passed a complicated private-insurance-centered clusterfuck, and we've been dealing with the consequences ever since. I live in a state where the Gov. opposed the exchanges, and declined the Medicaid expansion.

Single payer would have been (and still is) worth the extra effort up-front.

-app

[1StrongBlackMan]

5. How do you think "the sensible woodchucks" ...

came to the conclusion that it (Single Payer) would never pass?

Could it be that the "the sensible woodchucks" can count to 60 and 217?

Yes, Single Payer is a/the goal, so how about we stop dreaming and work to get to those numbers?

[randys1]

7. TREMENDOUS pressure is on not just Obama but all politicians to not cut out the

insurers, it would be our toughest fight of all other than civil rights...

[1StrongBlackMan]

8. I agree about the pressure AND ...

the toughness of the fight.

So as the Civil Rights Movement taught us, it is best to advance on the issue slowly; but steadily ... yesterday, Romney-care, that demonstrated a "new model", that led to today's ACA (that allows individual states to experiment with/build their own single-payer system; tomorrow, building on the states' models, single payer.

That's how sustainable advances have been made ... that's what cruz, in all his idiocy, recognizes.

[randys1]

6. The agents are making the majority of the profit right now, but over time as long as the

subsidies are there, it will be good for the carriers too

which is inevitable with this system, not perfect but ACA is a million times better than before

[herding cats]

3. Wise words.

I'm inclined to agree with you on this. Besides, panicking isn't going to help us anyway. Watching the divide among the Republicans is at least an entertaining diversion until we know the final outcome.

[kelliekat44]

9. The GOP will be destroyed forever in the country if the ACA falls because of shenanigans like this.

If it fails because it is a poor, unworkable system that's one thing. But if it is scuttled because opponents don't want Obama to succeed with anything, widespread repudiation of the GOP will be ingrained in our political psyche for generations. And once again, Obama will emerge looking better.