RinoCare

WTF is a RinoCare?  Ohh, you mean Trumpcare!  Yeah, that's a complete piece of chit. 

There's no way around it.  If you want to cover pre-existing conditions, you need an individual mandate. If you want to eliminate the mandate, you can't force insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions.  Trump can't have it both ways.  Everything else he wants; block grants, selling across state lines, HSA's, yada yada, none of that matters until Trump and the GOP eliminate forcing insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions. 

I don't agree that you have to have a mandate in order for pre-existing conditions to be covered.  Insurance can do anything and it's just a matter of running the numbers and charging rates accordingly.  Obviously if only sick people have insurance then the price gets out of hand quickly and insurance companies melt down.  This is what's happening right now with the ACA and there IS a mandate in place.  People are ignoring the mandate because the insurance is too expensive because the ACA did zero to get costs under control and metaphorically put fuel on the fire to make them go up even higher.

IMHO, you can have pre-existing conditions covered (which I like as well) if healthcare costs are reigned in and the insurance rates don't have to be astronomical. 

Regardless of who wrote it, Trump is the leader of the party, Trump is the one pushing for this and threatening GOP Congressmen who vote against it, and Trump is the one who will ultimately sign it in to law if it ever reaches his desk. It's very much Trumpcare. Don't take my word for it. Trump plea  "Go with our plan. It's going to be terrific. You're going to be very, very happy....Let them know you're behind our plan." The man puts his name on everything else, I think it's pretty fitting that he gets his name on this one too. LOL

But anyway, how do you want to reign in healthcare costs in a free market, capitalist way?  Hospitals have operating costs, overhead costs, and profit. Which of those three do you think they'll cut if they're forced to lower their prices? You own a business, if the government comes in and says that you're charging clients too much money, will you just unilaterally lower your prices and continue on business as usual? Or do you start looking for who can be laid off? Or maybe figure out what service you provide that's not a big money maker and can be eliminated.  If you got a way to lower healthcare costs, I'm all ears.  But my simple way of looking at it, it's money in and money out. If the government cuts their money in, they'll cut their money out.

Medical tort reform is one thing that would definitely help. Seems like a no-brainer, but somehow a Congress full of lawyers haven't made that a priority. 

I've talked about TonyCare in the past, but I'll give the high level overview.

The problem is very simple.  We have a supply and demand issue because of the way insurance is implemented in our society.  Employers pay for insurance as a work benefit and even when there's employee contributions it's just a deduction on the check so nobody feels the cost.  Then they have unlimited care with virtually nothing copays.  The Healthcare providers then do the only thing they can do to squelch demand by raising prices.  The insurance companies pass those increases on to the employers and sure their rates go up, but the employees still don't feel it.  Rinse and repeat over decades and you have healthcare costs that are so astronomical that nobody can afford to pay them without insurance and the price of an individual buying insurance for themselves is way too expensive.

Fast forward to the ACA and the government see's "the problem" as more and more people can't afford insurance so they just give more people insurance.  Oh, brilliant F'ing idea you morons, now there's even more demand so the prices continue to skyrocket at an even faster pace. 

OK, now that we've identified the true problem we can look at solutions.  First and foremost we have to get healthcare away from employers.  Each individual must pay for their own healthcare and be able to purchase it across state lines.  Don't mandate that insurance companies have to provide everything on earth in their plans so that people can have cheaper options.  

The car insurance model is a rough idea of how I feel it should be ran.  I don't even mind if there's a government mandate to purchase a catastrophic plan with a $25k deductible or whatever.  Then youngins can pay their $50 a month premium and have catastrophic care in the event of something unfortunate but still be able to survive.  Others can buy expensive cadilac plans if they want, but the difference is that each and every dollar spent on healthcare will be felt and the demand will go way down.  
There are other components such as tort reform that need to be worked as part of a legitimate plan. 

would just like to point out for your example that the "younguns" pay a ton for car insurance.  mine was over $200 a month from age 16-25.  and i couldn't afford that crap.  This is what happens with healthcare.  yeah your plan is great if you have money, but if you don't you get forked.

OK, so what's your alternative?   take more money from me to pay for your healthcare so you don't have to?

total side note.  If you have to pay big bucks for insurance as a teenager it's because you likely bought a car on credit because you had to have a car you couldn't afford.  Obama jacked that up too with the stupid cash for clunkers programs.  When I was a kid and even before Obama was in office you could buy a car for a few hundred bucks that would get you from point a to b until you could afford something better.  After cash for clunkers the only cars available were $2500+ and kids were forced to get into debt buying cars they couldn't afford and having to get more insurance than they wanted due to there being a loan on the car.  
Our government is so awesome!!

I don't claim to have the whole solution but I can point out a few things that might fly with both parties to get done quickly:

1) Allow Medicare to negotiate on prescription drugs.  It wields the biggest hammer but legally can't use that leverage against Big Pharma.  I think this is a point that Democrats might budge on and could get bi-partisan consensus, and not be part of reconciliation.

2) *Baseline* coverage only - just catastrophic stuff really, should be standard through employment, *un*employment usage, and Medicaid.

3) Allow buy-up plans, either through your employer or individually.  I really want to see parity in these options too as I feel like the small business owners and entrepreneurs are really getting screwed right now.

4) Allow employers to "buy up" for all their employees if they want to (this is a competitive point in some markets).

The individual mandate gets people's panties in a wad but you do need your 20-somethings participating in the system somehow.  Esp. as noted above if you're going to protect people with pre-existing conditions and remove lifetime coverage limits.

I suspect the current Democrats won't go for #2.

When you get to the details, most ways of cutting costs involve hurting some big player's bottom line, insurance or pharmaceuticals.  So far, our legislators have not done much to stand up to them, even back into Obama's tenure and earlier.

well when i was a teenager bush was the president.  and i didn't buy a car on credit and have a car i couldn't afford, i had a 1994 isuzu trooper. so eff off. not everything fits your conservative bubble, conspiracy theory, got damn its obama's fault crap.

i'm sick of all of your absolute idiocy and BS.  you just make shiz up and act like its real, when someone points it out you say, oh yeah well THAT thing i was saying i don't actually believe but here's another breitbart article!  Its tiresome.  You and Rogillio can go have your circle jerk without me.

peace b!tche$

I must have touched on a nerve.  

Old people and sick people are supplying the demand. 50% of healthcare costs come from just 5% of the population. So unless you want to cut Medicare (maybe some good ole fashioned Obama death panels are in order) or quit covering pre-existing conditions, you are not going to make a dent in the demand of healthcare. 

Medicare does need to be cut, so I'm with you on that.  The Hospitals were running up the score on my Dad before he died in 2006 and it was ridiculous.  I'm not suggesting to go so far as death panels and not treating people who are in the late stages, but there's a lot of room for improvement and cost savings. 

These all sound like reasonable things to me and agree that there's always a winner and loser.  I have several customers who do medical staffing and it's crazy how much money is flowing into Healthcare providers now.  It's so far out of balance it isn't even funny. 

Rejoicing everywhere when the Democrats pass the single largest piece of legislation ever passed with solely one party.  Voting on it before actually reading the bill.  Legislation which turns out to be a near total failure.  A scheme that is unable to be sustained.

contrast - 

Ryan and Trump push a watered down version of the same, government heavy, healthcare legislation.  Republicans don't fall in line like a bunch of lemmings.  A bad bill is pulled because it doesn't have the votes to even pass the House.  And the media is all over Trump's and Ryan's defeat, Ryan is wounded, Trump's agenda is in doubt . . .   When bad legislation doesn't get passed, the system worked like it should.

Republicans are reaping what they sowed by wasting time for the last several years voting to repeal ObamaCare without any viable substitute.  If it didn't require a replacement then, it doesn't require a replacement now.  These same fickle politicians have decided that it has to be replaced with something or millions of people will lose health care coverage and the politicians might lose their congressional seats.