Poster Comment:
Primary Paul Ryan out of the Senate.

"Paul Ryan out of the Senate."

??????????

House.

Thanks to Mittens on the job training, Ryan can look forward to an exciting career in the submarine sandwich biz.

Behold, the photos in this post show up nicely. Is it because my computer is broken, or because the guy who posted it's computer is broken. Find out what he did and do it the same way.

Dr. Rand Paul Unveils Obamacare Replacement Act

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Yesterday, U.S. Senator and physician Rand Paul introduced S. 222, the Obamacare Replacement Act, to provide Congress with a health care plan grounded in broadly supported conservative reforms that is ready for an immediate vote after Obamacare is repealed. Dr. Paul’s proposal would expand access to higher-quality, lower- cost health care for more Americans, regardless of medical history.   

“Getting government out of the American people’s way and putting them back in charge of their own health care decisions will deliver a strong, efficient system that doesn’t force them to empty out their pockets to cover their medical bills,” said Dr. Paul. “There is no excuse for waiting to craft an alternative until after we repeal Obamacare, and the Obamacare Replacement Act charts a new path forward that will insure the most people possible at the lowest price.”  

The Obamacare Replacement Act empowers the American people to: 1.) Choose inexpensive insurance free of government dictates; 2.) Save unlimited amounts in a health savings account (HSA) and have wider options for using those funds; 3.) Buy insurance across state lines; and 4.) Join together in voluntary associations to gain the leverage of being part of a large insurance pool. 

Dr. Paul has led the charge to replace Obamacare at the same time it is repealed, and he has been joined in calling for simultaneous action by fellow Republicans including President Trump and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. 

You can see Dr. Paul’s entire plan laid out section by section HERE, and you can find summary information below. 

Dr. Rand Paul’s Obamacare Replacement Act, S. 222:

Legalizes Inexpensive Insurance Plans:

• Ensures that Americans can purchase the health insurance coverage that best fits their needs.
• Eliminates Obamacare’s essential health benefits requirement, along with other restrictive coverage and plan requirements, to once again make low- cost insurance options available to American consumers.

Protects Individuals with Pre-Existing Conditions:

• Provides a two-year open-enrollment period under which individuals with pre- existing conditions can obtain coverage.
• Restores HIPAA pre-existing conditions protections. Prior to Obamacare, HIPAA guaranteed that those in the group market could obtain continuous health coverage regardless of preexisting conditions. 

Helps More People Save To Buy Health Insurance and Cover Medical Costs:

• Incentivizes savings by authorizing a tax credit (up to $5,000 per taxpayer) for individuals and families that contribute to HSAs.
• Removes the annual cap on HSAs so individuals can make unlimited contributions.
• Allows HSA funds to be used to purchase insurance, cover premiums, and more easily afford a broader range of health-related expenses, including prescription and OTC drugs, dietary supplements, nutrition and physical exercise expenses, and direct primary care, among others. 

Guarantees Fair Tax Treatment of Health Insurance:

• Equalizes the tax treatment of the purchase of health insurance for individuals and employers by allowing individuals to deduct the cost of their health insurance from their income and payroll taxes.
• Frees more Americans to purchase and maintain insurance apart from their work status.
• Does not interfere with employer-provided coverage for Americans who prefer those plans.

Helps Individuals Join Together to Purchase Insurance:

• Expands Association Health Plans (AHPs) to allow small business owners and individuals to band together across state lines through their membership in a trade or professional association to purchase health coverage for their families and employees at a lower cost.
• Also allows individuals to pool together through any organization to purchase insurance.
• Widens access to the group market and spreads out the risk, enhancing the ability of individuals and small businesses to decrease costs, increase administrative efficiencies, and further protect those with pre-existing conditions.

Allows the Purchase of Insurance Across State Lines:

• Creates an interstate market that allows insurers who are licensed to sell policies in one state to offer them to residents of any other state.

Increases State Medicaid Flexibility:

• Enables states to fully exercise current flexibilities afforded to them through Medicaid waivers for creating innovative state plan designs. 

Empowers Physicians:

• Allows non-economically aligned physicians to negotiate for higher quality health care for their patients.
• Amends the Internal Revenue Code to allow a physician a tax deduction equal to the amount such physician would otherwise charge for charity medical care or uncompensated care due to bad debt, limited to 10% of a physician’s gross income for the taxable year.

https://www.paul.senate.gov/news/press/dr-rand- paul-unveils-obamacare-replacement-act

Find out what he did and do it the same way.

I should DO the SAME thing that Hondo did?

YGBSM

LMAO ...

Here you go, Stone, we can see it now:

Exclusive: Leaked GOP Obamacare replacement shrinks subsidies, Medicaid expansion

A draft House Republican repeal bill would dismantle the Obamacare subsidies and scrap its Medicaid expansion, according to a copy of the proposal obtained by POLITICO.

The legislation would take down the foundation of Obamacare, including the unpopular individual mandate, subsidies based on people’s income, and all of the law’s taxes. It would significantly roll back Medicaid spending and give states money to create high risk pools for some people with pre-existing conditions. Some elements would be effective right away; others not until 2020.

The replacement would be paid for by limiting tax breaks on generous health plans people get at work — an idea that is similar to the Obamacare “Cadillac tax” that Republicans have fought to repeal.

Speaker Paul Ryan said last week that Republicans would introduce repeal legislation after recess. But the GOP has been deeply divided about how much of the law to scrap, and how much to “repair,” and the heated town halls back home during the weeklong recess aren’t making it any easier for them.

The key House committees declined to comment on specifics of a draft that will change as the bill moves through the committees. The speaker's office deferred to the House committees.

In place of the Obamacare subsidies, the House bill starting in 2020 would give tax credits — based on age instead of income. For a person under age 30, the credit would be $2,000. That amount would double for beneficiaries over the age of 60, according to the proposal. A related document notes that HHS Secretary Tom Price wants the subsidies to be slightly less generous for most age groups.

The Republican plan would also eliminate Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion in 2020. States could still cover those people if they chose but they’d get a lot less federal money to do so. And instead of the current open-ended federal entitlement, states would get capped payments to states based on the number of Medicaid enrollees.

Another key piece of the Republican proposal: $100 billion in “state innovation grants” to help subsidize extremely expensive enrollees. That aims to address at least a portion of the “pre-existing condition” population, though without the same broad protections as in the Affordable Care Act.

It also would eliminate Planned Parenthood funding, which could be an obstacle if the bill gets to the Senate. And it leaves decisions about mandatory or essential benefits to the states.

According to the document, there’s only one single revenue generator to pay for the new tax credits and grants. Republicans are proposing to cap the tax exemption for employer sponsored insurance at the 90th percentile of current premiums. That means benefits above that level would be taxed.

And while health care economists on both sides of the aisle favor tax-limits along those lines, politically it’s a hard sell. Both businesses and unions fought the Obamacare counterpart, dubbed the Cadillac tax.

The document is more detailed than the general powerpoint House leaders circulated before the recess. Lawmakers are still in disagreement about several key issues, including Medicaid and the size and form of subsidies. Discussions within the House, and between House leaders and the White House about the final proposal are ongoing. President Donald Trump, who gives a major speech to Congress on Tuesday night, has said he expects a plan will emerge in early to mid March.

The exact details of any legislation will also be shaped by findings from the CBO about how much it will cost and what it will do to the federal deficit.

But the draft shows that Republicans are sticking closely to previous plans floated by Ryan and Price in crafting their Obamacare repeal package.

“Obamacare has failed," said HHS spokesperson Caitlin Oakley. "We welcome any and all efforts to repeal and replace it with real solutions that put patients first and back in charge of their health care rather than government bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.”

Other changes proposed by Republicans align with previous ideas for strengthening the individual insurance market, which has been unstable under Obamacare with rising premiums and dwindling competition. For example, the legislation would allow insurers to charge older customers up to five times as much as their younger counterparts. Currently, they can only charge them three times as much in premiums. The insurers have been pushing for that change.

The proposal also includes penalties for individuals who fail to maintain coverage continuously. If their coverage lapses and they decide to re-enroll, they would have to pay a 30 percent boost in premiums for a year. Like the unpopular individual mandate, that penalty is designed to discourage individuals from waiting until they get sick to get coverage.

Republicans have vowed to dismantle Obamacare ever since it passed with only Democratic votes in 2010. But reaching agreement on what should come next has proven difficult since they gained full control of Congress and the White House.

Recent polling has shown that Obamacare is increasingly popular. Supporters of the health care law have been turning out by the hundreds at town hall meetings across the country to demand that Republicans answer questions about what’s going to happen to the 20 million individual who have gained coverage under Obamacare.

According to the latest Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll, released Friday morning, the public now views the Affordable Care Act more favorably than it has since the summer of its enactment. Some 48 percent view the law favorably — up from 43 percent in December. About 42 percent have an unfavorable view of the ACA — down from 46 percent in December. The pollsters say Independents are mostly responsible for the shift. A separate poll by the Pew Research Center found 54 percent approve of the health care law — the highest scores for Obamacare in the poll's history. Meanwhile, 43 percent said they disapprove.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/house-republicans-obamacare- repeal-package-235343

This is obviously not all there is in the 1000-page House bill….but at least it gives us an idea. I showed Rand’s 4-page bill in a post above. Of course I cannot at this time determine which is better….maybe you are able to. I can only hope there will be a good reconciliation and the best of each is in the bill that passes. The problem I have with Rand’s bill is that it is so short and therefore it will be open to far too many different interpretations. While the 1000-page House bill will probably cross every “t” and dot every “i”.

Rand Paul bill - 4 pages

Paul Ryan bill - 1000 pages

In general less government meddling is better. Repeal ObamaCare and Bush Medicare part D, and replace with NOTHING.
IOW, free market capitalism. Less Marxism and more competition, improves services and lowers prices.

The trick to lowering costs and improving availability of health care, is to get government out, and capitalism in. Start whacking gov alphabet agencies, and the economy will take off like a rocket.

So Rand's bill is roughly 4000% better than the RomneyGruberRyanObamaCare socialized medicine boondoggle "tweak".

Thanks.

So Poltico can have a copy but a Senator can't. Interesting.

Like Obamacare, the plan has an individual mandate through fines for those who don't keep continuous coverage. Like Obamacare, it has a Cadillac tax,

Trump should take a baseball bat to POS Ryan.

While the 1000-page House bill will probably cross every “t” and dot every “i”.

More pages means more confusing and more chances for many more interpretations. imo.

I can only hope there will be a good reconciliation and the best of each is in the bill that passes.

I'm not sure of that.

As you recall, Massachusetts elected a GOP senator, Scott Brown, to fill Teddy the Swimmer's seat. This meant that the Dems no longer had their 60 votes. However, they had already marked up and voted on the bill then existing in the Senate.

They could still pass 0bamaCare with a simple majority in the Senate via budget reconciliation. However, the House had to vote in lockstep to pass the same exact bill as the Senate bill. There could be no alterations in the House and there was no further reconciliation at all.

If you pass something via budget reconciliation, there is no horsetrading in the usual House/Senate reconciliation committee. It just becomes law.

It kinds sucks to have to learn about all these obscure rules and all their endless exceptions.

More pages means more confusing and more chances for many more interpretations. imo.

On the other hand, more clarifications and specific directions that cannot be misinterpretated.

Half full - half empty glass ...

It kinds sucks to have to learn about all these obscure rules and all their endless exceptions.

That is definitely true ...

Rand Paul bill - 4 pages

Paul Ryan bill - 1000 pages

In general less government meddling is better. Repeal ObamaCare and Bush Medicare part D, and replace with NOTHING. IOW, free market capitalism. Less Marxism and more competition, improves services and lowers prices.

The trick to lowering costs and improving availability of health care, is to get government out, and capitalism in. Start whacking gov alphabet agencies, and the economy will take off like a rocket.

So Rand's bill is roughly 4000% better than the RomneyGruberRyanObamaCare socialized medicine boondoggle "tweak".

Is your ass jealous of the amount of shit that just came out of your mouth?

So Poltico can have a copy but a Senator can't. Interesting.

What is really interesting is that Rand Paul knows perfectly well what is going in the House bill and that is why he was over there doing his drama queen performance before the press conference he called at the closed door. There are things in the House bill that he doesn’t like and he is throwing a hissy fit for attention.

Two wrongs don't make a right….your parents proved that, not this picture.

Praises Jihad John McCain & Canary Graham

Your soul mate Maxine, loves your Senator McCain too!

& Canary Graham

Good one, hondolt!

Free Buckeroo!

Yes, free buckeroo!

I should stop posting, but I've just slowed down since Pebbles did the unthinkable.

I should stop posting, but I've just slowed down since Pebbles did the unthinkable.

That’s good, Ethel.

No one has mentioned they missed you or even cared that you were not posting.

Keep doing it …