Donald Trump Outlines Plan To Repeal And Replace Obamacare - HOORAY!

At last, one of our presidential candidates has come up with a plan to repeal and replace Obamacare. Donald Trump's plan includes the complete elimination of the reprehensible, overbearing, communistic "individual mandate" that forces individuals to buy a private product in a free society.

Get ready for it. Donald Trump will be unstoppable.

HEALTHCARE REFORM TO MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN

Since March of 2010, the American people have had to suffer under the incredible economic burden of the Affordable Care Act—Obamacare. This legislation, passed by totally partisan votes in the House and Senate and signed into law by the most divisive and partisan President in American history, has tragically but predictably resulted in runaway costs, websites that don’t work, greater rationing of care, higher premiums, less competition and fewer choices. Obamacare has raised the economic uncertainty of every single person residing in this country. As it appears Obamacare is certain to collapse of its own weight, the damage done by the Democrats and President Obama, and abetted by the Supreme Court, will be difficult to repair unless the next President and a Republican congress lead the effort to bring much-needed free market reforms to the healthcare industry.

But none of these positive reforms can be accomplished without Obamacare repeal. On day one of the Trump Administration, we will ask Congress to immediately deliver a full repeal of Obamacare.

However, it is not enough to simply repeal this terrible legislation. We will work with Congress to make sure we have a series of reforms ready for implementation that follow free market principles and that will restore economic freedom and certainty to everyone in this country. By following free market principles and working together to create sound public policy that will broaden healthcare access, make healthcare more affordable and improve the quality of the care available to all Americans.

Any reform effort must begin with Congress. Since Obamacare became law, conservative Republicans have been offering reforms that can be delivered individually or as part of more comprehensive reform efforts. In the remaining sections of this policy paper, several reforms will be offered that should be considered by Congress so that on the first day of the Trump Administration, we can start the process of restoring faith in government and economic liberty to the people.

Congress must act. Our elected representatives in the House and Senate must:

1. Completely repeal Obamacare. Our elected representatives must eliminate the individual mandate. No person should be required to buy insurance unless he or she wants to
2. Modify existing law that inhibits the sale of health insurance across state lines. As long as the plan purchased complies with state requirements, any vendor ought to be able to offer insurance in any state. By allowing full competition in this market, insurance costs will go down and consumer satisfaction will go up.
3. Allow individuals to fully deduct health insurance premium payments from their tax returns under the current tax system. Businesses are allowed to take these deductions so why wouldn’t Congress allow individuals the same exemptions? As we allow the free market to provide insurance coverage opportunities to companies and individuals, we must also make sure that no one slips through the cracks simply because they cannot afford insurance. We must review basic options for Medicaid and work with states to ensure that those who want healthcare coverage can have it.
4. Allow individuals to use Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). Contributions into HSAs should be tax-free and should be allowed to accumulate. These accounts would become part of the estate of the individual and could be passed on to heirs without fear of any death penalty. These plans should be particularly attractive to young people who are healthy and can afford high-deductible insurance plans. These funds can be used by any member of a family without penalty. The flexibility and security provided by HSAs will be of great benefit to all who participate.
5. Require price transparency from all healthcare providers, especially doctors and healthcare organizations like clinics and hospitals. Individuals should be able to shop to find the best prices for procedures, exams or any other medical-related procedure.
6. Block-grant Medicaid to the states. Nearly every state already offers benefits beyond what is required in the current Medicaid structure. The state governments know their people best and can manage the administration of Medicaid far better without federal overhead. States will have the incentives to seek out and eliminate fraud, waste and abuse to preserve our precious resources.
7. Remove barriers to entry into free markets for drug providers that offer safe, reliable and cheaper products. Congress will need the courage to step away from the special interests and do what is right for America. Though the pharmaceutical industry is in the private sector, drug companies provide a public service. Allowing consumers access to imported, safe and dependable drugs from overseas will bring more options to consumers.

The reforms outlined above will lower healthcare costs for all Americans. They are simply a place to start. There are other reforms that might be considered if they serve to lower costs, remove uncertainty and provide financial security for all Americans. And we must also take actions in other policy areas to lower healthcare costs and burdens. Enforcing immigration laws, eliminating fraud and waste and energizing our economy will relieve the economic pressures felt by every American. It is the moral responsibility of a nation’s government to do what is best for the people and what is in the interest of securing the future of the nation.

Providing healthcare to illegal immigrants costs us some $11 billion annually. If we were to simply enforce the current immigration laws and restrict the unbridled granting of visas to this country, we could relieve healthcare cost pressures on state and local governments.

To reduce the number of individuals needing access to programs like Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program we will need to install programs that grow the economy and bring capital and jobs back to America. The best social program has always been a job – and taking care of our economy will go a long way towards reducing our dependence on public health programs.

Finally, we need to reform our mental health programs and institutions in this country. Families, without the ability to get the information needed to help those who are ailing, are too often not given the tools to help their loved ones. There are promising reforms being developed in Congress that should receive bi-partisan support.

To reform healthcare in America, we need a President who has the leadership skills, will and courage to engage the American people and convince Congress to do what is best for the country. These straightforward reforms, along with many others I have proposed throughout my campaign, will ensure that together we will Make America Great Again.

https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/healthcare-reform

 

Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha......

Since I am 100% sure that you have no concept of the plan you are cheering for, here is a breakdown of what "Trumpcare" would actually do.

Here's How Donald Trump Says He'd Replace Obamacare
Mostly, it's a bunch of old Republican ideas that have never gone anywhere
03/03/2016 12:07 am ET

WASHINGTON -- Republican front-runner Donald Trump, who has vowed to scrap the Affordable Care Act and replace it with "something terrific," finally provided a rough idea of what he thinks terrific looks like.

The bullet points published on the billionaire businessman's website Wednesday night don't amount to a detailed plan to overhaul the health care system, but they're about as specific as is typical for a presidential campaign and in line with the vague proposals touted by rivals Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). It's certainly more than the Republican Congress has managed to produce in the six years since the ACA became law. And, yes, Trump calls it "Healthcare Reform to Make America Great Again."

It's notable that Trump unveiled his proposal the night after his Super Tuesday triumph over Cruz and Rubio and the night before another Republican debate. It also comes as he maneuvers toward a general election campaign against whoever wins the Democratic nomination, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

So what does Trump want to do on health care? Of course, the first order of business is to entirely get rid of Obamacare and its individual mandate that nearly everyone get health coverage or face a fine (a subject that recently got Trump into some hot water). There's a bunch of stuff on his website complaining about Obamacare, which gives Trump something in common with the congressional Republican leaders he likes to insult.

Let's start with what's not in Trumpcare, apart from estimates of how much it would cost and how it would affect the health care system. He seems to have no notion about covering the uninsured -- there are no tax credits or new government programs to help the millions who, without the substantial financial assistance that Obamacare offers, could never afford decent coverage on their own.

As a result, Trump's plan would dramatically increase the number of people who would be uninsured by scrapping Obamacare and making cuts to Medicaid. That's despite Trump's repeated assurances that when he's president, nobody will "die in the streets" due to lack of health care. There's nothing about guaranteeing coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, either, even though he has expressed vague support for these protections in the past.

The Affordable Care Act, for sure, has its share of worrisome problems. But rather than calling for fixing them or rolling out a plan to achieve its goals of expanded coverage, cost-containment and quality-improvement, Trump dismisses Obamacare as a failure. Undoing the law would create major disruption after years in which it has transformed the health care system, provided coverage to more than 17 million previously uninsured people and trimmed the uninsured rate to historically low levels.


With that in mind, let's take a look at what the Trump campaign says it wants to do. Mostly, Trumpcare is based on proposals Republicans have touted for years, but never put much effort into enacting, even as they continue to claim an Obamacare replacement is just around the corner.

The most consequential item on Trump's wish list is to allow anyone to deduct the full cost of their health insurance premiums for their income taxes.

Today, anyone who gets health insurance from an employer already doesn't pay taxes on the value of that fringe benefit. This proposal would level the playing field for people who buy health coverage directly from an insurer, although they already can deduct the cost now under limited circumstances.

That may be a great deal for people who make a lot of money, giving them a big new tax break. But anyone with a low income or middle income may still find health insurance unaffordable -- and that's especially true for those who earn so little that the cost of insurance is higher than what they owe in taxes. And this would be enormously expensive for the government, because it would deprive the treasury of a tremendous amount of revenue.

Naturally, another of Trump's big ideas is to increase the use of health savings accounts paired with high-deductible health insurance policies, a go-to GOP policy proposal. The theory behind these -- other than the accounts serving as tax shelters for people who can afford to sock away money in them -- is that health care consumers with more "skin in the game" will become smarter shoppers, demand lower prices for health care and products and drive down national health care spending.

The problem with that -- as the proliferation of high-deductible plans in the last decade or so is showing -- is that patients sometimes just go without health care and don't do a very good job differentiating between care they need and care they could do without. And, again, health savings accounts aren't much use to people who don't have the spare income to deposit money into them.

And then there's what heretofore had been the only tangible element to Trump's health care agenda: allowing health insurance companies to sell policies across state lines. This, too, is a very old conservative reform idea.

The trouble is, it probably wouldn't accomplish anything. Health insurance companies aren't clamoring for this freedom -- and some even oppose it. That's because one of the primary functions of a modern health insurer is to create local networks of doctors, hospitals and other providers their customers can go see. An insurer based in Alabama, for example, would have to expend a lot of time, effort and money to sell coverage to customers in, say, Pennsylvania.


The supposed upside to this approach is that insurers based in lightly regulated states could sell barebones policies to people elsewhere. And while that might enable some people to get a better deal, it would be disastrous for the health insurance markets. If people who need insurance the least can buy the cheap, skimpy plan that wouldn't serve the needs of sicker people, that would leave only the latter group in the insurance pool in the state where they live. This eventually would drive up premiums to an unsustainable degree.

There's also some smaller things in the Trump plan, like allowing prescription drugs to be "reimported" to the United States from countries like Canada, where their cost is lower, and requiring medical providers to disclose their prices. Curiously, there's no mention of Trump's ballyhooed (and quite exaggerated) proposal to permit Medicare to directly negotiate drug prices.

Now we get to Medicaid, the joint federal-state health care program for low-income people, children, pregnant women, people with disabilities and elderly nursing home patients. Borrowing from House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and countless GOP leaders before him, Trump calls for "block granting" the program. That's another way of saying he wants to set a cap on how much the federal government will give states to run the programs in exchange for allowing states to modify it with less federal involvement. It's also another way of saying he wants to drastically shrink this program, which provides benefits to more than 70 million people.

CONCLUSION:

So how does it all add up? Trumpcare would cover far fewer people than Obamacare, take away not only the consumer protections that law provides but undermine strong insurance regulations in states that have them, force an unknown number of people off Medicaid, and let wealthy people save money on health insurance and reduce their tax burdens.

It's hard to see how any of this would prevent anyone dying in the street.

 

Republicans control the Senate and the House already, why don't they just repeal the law right now instead of using the repeal mantra as a wedge issue? Same with abortion?

 

And just what happens when they do? Or haven't you heard what happens to each bill after it is passed by Congress? And, BTW, maybe they don't feel like implementing the nuclear option like the democrats.

 

Excuses are like butts. Everybody has one and nobody wants to hear yours.

But you do make my point, how is Trump going to do anything he promised? He can't.

 

You mean like the Republican House has blocked everything Obama wanted. Oh, and let's not forget;

 

I am sorry, but I did not hear/see your response!

 

Again, you make my point, how is Trump going to do any of the things he is promising? You never quite answered that question. You just ignored that sentence but you sarcastically ask me to respond to you?

Sorry for not being sorry.

 

Good! I hope he does get rid of it because it is wrecking the economy, additional to all the other bad Obama laws.

 

So what you are saying is he will only get passed what the Republican pass. Kind of like Obama when he took office with control of both the House an Senate.

but there might be one major difference. You see, all of his bills do not have to start in the House. But then I guess that was just your handicap for Obama.

 

How is it "wrecking the economy" ? We have the best economy of any country you can name even as the world economy slows down. Are you just spewing talking points again? Sure you are. But I'll let you prove to me that your statement is true. Bedazzle me with your knowledge of economics.

 

And again, it is the SLOWEST RECOVERY since the great depression. The pay gap is the largest it has ever been and growing the fastest it ever has. The debt is more than nearly the total of every other president COMBINED. The medium income has dropped under Obama. The welfare rolls have jumped dramatically. The job participation rate has fallen (and it was proven not to be due to the aging work force). Now, please tell me how well our economy is doing.

 

Yeah, a Republican provided recession will have those effects. Or was everything just peachy when George Bush left office in your opinion? Why did known history only begin in January 2009 for you? You seem to have no problem blaming Bill Clinton for 911 nine months into George Bush's term. Now let Danny boy answer for himself. He doesn't need you to protect him.

 

9 months into Bush's term? This is 7 years into Obama's term an you are still blaming Bush!! YEP! You go for it and see how many people here you can convince. (Oh, and clueless does count as people.) Reagan got us out of the worst recession since WWII in ~2 years. Our employment grew more in one month under Reagan than it has during the entire Obama administration. Even Bush managed to get us out of the Clinton recession despite 9/11. Yet somehow you praise Obama's retarded economy ?

 

Okay, I will bedazzle you. Remember when you showed us a YouTube video on how America is ranked lower than many nations in education, life expectancy, crime rates, oppressive regulations? Etc. So where is America the greatest nation based on these stats you provided to us a while back?

 

In our entire history as a nation have we ever experienced a period like BO's reign? Wages are lower, more people on government assistance, fewer people in the workforce. I don't think stagnation goes far enough to describe what we've been forced to endure.

 

That wasn't me. There was no crime rates other than number of people incarcerated, and as far as oppressive regulations, there weren't any.

If that is your best attempt to impress me with your knowledge of economics.....OUCH! Better go back to letting rim job speak for you. Not that he is any better, it's just that it gives you plausible deniability.