Republicans Stop Pretending They Want To Fix HealthCare.gov

Really guys, pretending at your age?
Republicans Stop Pretending They Want To Fix HealthCare.gov



AP Photo / J. Scott Applewhite
Dylan Scott – October 30, 2013, 4:19 PM

If it wasn't already quite clear, House Republicans removed any doubt at Wednesday's hearing with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius about whether they are actually interested in fixing HealthCare.gov after its troubled rollout.
They aren't. They're looking for any and all means to continue their fight to stop Obamacare.
That's why they spent as much time at Wednesday's hearing grilling Sebelius about President Obama's promise that Americans who like their health plan can keep it as they did inquiring about the problems with the website -- even though the latter was ostensibly the hearing's purpose.
It was the first question she was posed by committee chair Fred Upton (R-MI). It reappeared again and again during questioning from Republican members. They offered story after story of constituents who had received letters from their insurers, telling them that their existing coverage had been cancelled because of the health care reform law. It's always been a favorite line from the GOP, but it's been taken to a whole new level after NBC News claimed Monday that the administration knew that the president wasn't strictly correct when he made that statement.
Republicans are on safer political ground when they're arguing that Obamacare is fundamentally flawed, rather than trying to toe the rhetorical line of looking for fixes to a website at the center of a law whose existence they wish erased. The disingenuity of the latter has been fodder for Democrats during the last week of oversight hearings.
But there's nothing ideologically inconsistent for Republicans about the former. That might help explain why, in a hearing that the official GOP memo said "will focus on the failures and issues surrounding the implementation of... health insurance exchanges," Upton chose to start with an unrelated question.
"I think everyone in American remembers the president's words: 'If you like your health care plan, you can keep it.' Period," Upton said. "I would guess that there are lot of us on this panel today who are hearing from angry and confused constituents, who are now being forced to go onto an inept website, whether they like it or not, to shop for a new replacement policy."
"When was the president specifically informed of the regulation change and, if so, was it pointed out that this totally undermines his previous statement? ... Why was that change made and did the president know it?"
Sebelius, repeating the administration position that the insurers are responsible for canceling those policies, not the Affordable Care Act, then tried to explain -- in a rather wonky fashion -- why this was happening. The layman's version, as explained here and elsewhere, is this: the law allowed insurers to continue covering customers with pre-ACA plans, but they couldn't enroll any new customers into those plans and they couldn't make significant changes to them.
After a while, that stops making business sense for insures and so they've been canceling those so-called "grandfathered" plans. The coverage that would replace it, as prescribed by the law, is usually much more robust and therefore priced differently, as Sebelius and other officials have said when asked about the issue.
"Mr. Chairman, there was no change," Sebelius said. "The regulation involving grandfathered plans, which applied to both the employer market and the individual market, indicated that if a plan was in effect in March of 2010, stayed in effect without unduly burdening the consumer with reducing benefits and adding on huge costs, that plan would stay in effect and never have to comply with any regulations of the Affordable Care Act."
But that didn't placate Upton or his Republican colleagues for the remainder of the hearing.
Committee Vice Chair Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), the next Republican to get a turn with Sebelius, took up the same line of questioning a few minutes later.
"Before, during and after the law was passed, the president kept saying: 'If you like your health care plan, you can keep it,'" she said. "So is he keeping his promise?"
"Yes, he is," Sebelius said, with a terseness that surfaced time and again through the hearing. At one point, she resorted to: "Whatever. Yes, he is the president," when Rep. Gregg Harper (R-MS) pressed her about whether Obama was ultimately responsible for HealthCare.gov's poor launch.
But Blackburn didn't let it go. "What would you say to Mark and Lucinda in my district who have a plan, they liked it, it was affordable, but it is being terminated and now they do not have health insurance."
"Insurance companies cancel individual polices year in and year out," Sebelius said. "They're a one-year contract with individuals. They are not lifetime plans. They are not employer plans."
GOP committee members still took their shots at the website's glitches, pressing Sebelius about what the administration knew about them, and when and who specifically was responsible for making major decisions. They pulled out other familiar boogeymen like personal data being at risk on the website and the prospect of skyrocketing premiums for millions of Americans.
But over and over, they returned to the president's promise. Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) referenced the Washington Post's fact-checker, which gave Obama "Four Pinocchio's" for the statement. Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) did the same and then suggested to Sebelius that perhaps she should advise Obama to stop making it.
"Would you recommend to the president that he stop using that term?" Shimkus asked. "Wouldn't that be helpful in this debate?"
"I haven't read the Washington Post," Sebelius said, audibly frustrated, as Shimkus talked over her.
"Well, then we'll get you a copy," he said, before finally moving onto another issue.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/republicans-would-rather-talk-about-obama-gaffe-than-healthcare-gov

 

You're right, we would have much rather been invited to participate in the drafting of this legislation than having to fix it after the fact.

 

The Republicans were involved in the drafting of the ACA. To assert that they were not is to ignore the reality of the legislative process. If one were to read through "A Legislative History of the Affordable Care Act: How Legislative Procedure Shapes Legislative History" [PDF] they would learn that on its way to becoming law the bill came out of a committee on which (as with all committees in Congress) members of both parties were sitting. One of the most memorable "contributions" of the Republicans was to eliminate a public option, which had been a part of the bill until they nixed it:

 

Yes, they were so involved that not a single Republican ever voted for any Obamacare bill.

Oh, and your "Legislative History of the Affordable Care Act" missed an interesting addendum to the bill's histroy. Senator Mike Enzi forecast these problems with Obamacare in 2010. He wrote a bill to address and fix them. Funny, but every single Democrat voted against the bill. They wanted exactly the people losing the affordable private insurance and being forced to enter the unaffordable Obamacare. They got their wishes and now what?

 

...so where's the Tort Reform?

 

Nice. I provide evidence that Republicans were indeed involved in drafting the law, contrary to the assertion in the previous post, and the swift response is a couple of lame "Yah-buts." Not particularly impressive, but mildly gratifying.

 

Why does everyone keep referring to the ACA as healthcare reform? From what I've learned so far it only addresses Health Insurance reform. The bill was over 2000 pages so I guess healthcare reform is packed in there somewhere.

 

There's supposed to be a component in the bill that automates patient record storage and retrieval. That's a long overdue upgrade to the Healthcare system, but I seriously doubt the ACA can protect that information...given the disastrous roll out of Healthcare.gov.

 

Sure...some really stupid ideas were taken out of the bill and attributed to "compromise" with Republicans, but nearly all positive initiatives proposed by Republicans were ignored...(e.g. healthcare spending accounts that accumulate over time, private insurance plans that are transportable across state lines, Tort Reform, keeping Government out of the Healthcare business, etc).

It gets tiring explaining this over and over to a bunch of Liberals that just don't have a clue.

 

See How stupid are BO's Obamacare defenders?

Oh, and I thought you would need no proof of the voting. Tell me if you do.

 

If you remember that the entire ACA law was virtually an identical copy of Romneycare, drafted by the same people, you have to also realize that this law has had a lot of input from both sides even if one side decides that they want to walk away from their contributions and then sabotage the remaining process. Don't worry, this is the same argument they will be making when the law is a wild success and people love it just like they love it in Massachusetts and they want to take credit for it even though they fought tooth and nail against it the whole time. It's what hypocrites do.

 

If it truly is "virtually an identical copy of Romneycare", I would guess that means Romney was a much better administrator than Obama. In fact, it sounds like Obama doesn't hold a candle compared to Romney.

 

Romney left office before the law was implemented. Romney didn't run again because he was so hated in the state. Even his hand picked replacement lost by 21 points. Incidentally, Romneycare sign ups took longer than Obamacare sign ups. Oops!

 

Be serious for once...Romneycare was drafted by a Democratic State Legislature. You know that. Why would you characterize it as a Republican model for Healthcare? ...unless you are just being disingenuous again.

 

So Romney just took credit for the law? Is that what you are saying? He had nothing to do with it but took the credit anyway? Hum? Disingenuous indeed.

 

So Romney was not responsible for Romneycare?

BTW, from the looks of it, Obamacare signups will be a never ending process. Regardless, its end date is unknown at this stage.

 

You idiots and your "math". How do you think the internet works anyway? Do you think people stand in line to sign up? Let's say there are 20 million people to sign up. They could sign up today and be done. Or, 10 million could sign up today and 10 million tomorrow. Or 5 million could sign up today and another 5 million over the next 3 days. Point being, once the servers can handle larger loads, there is not real limit to people all signing up even on the last day. You guys really gotta figure out technology.

 

Maybe you should listen to the news. Today, the site can handle "20,000 to 25,000" per day. And the latest figure is there will be 110,000,000 lose their insurance. That is 4,400 days. That does not even include the newly eligible. Even using your 20,000,000 figure, that is 800 days at maximum capacity.

 

That's "today" and if you knew anything about technology, you would know that can change overnight. There are not 110 million people signing up. That is just a BS figure.

 

Like I said. You need to listen to the news. You are saying Todd Park was wrong? And now you are trying to emulate Obama saying no one will lose their insurance. When the corporate mandate hits, over 1/2 of America will lose their insurance. REALLY! If that 110,000,000 is wrong, it is TOO LOW!