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Friday, June 23, 2017

The Dishonest Assault on Healthcare; Why Do Dems Have No Solution?

The Republicans in the senate unveiled their healthcare bill yesterday.  Within minutes, we were told by Democrat after Democrat that the bill is "mean", that it would "leave people to die", that it would "kill people" and that it was designed "to give tax breaks to the rich."  Those comments came too soon for any of the senators who made them to have even bothered to read the proposal.  It was nasty criticism without knowledge.

Why is it that the Democrats just attacked the motives of the GOP without even addressing the content of the bill's specific provisions?  Why didn't the Dems tell us who would be left to die and why?  There's a simple answer to this:  they have no viable alternative.  They don't even argue that Obamacare is working; the new Democrat strategy is to blame the failure on the Republicans.  That's pretty funny and totally wrong.  Obamacare was passed by the Dems and hasn't been changed since then.  Their plan has failed, so they blame the GOP.  The Dems have no fix, so they impugn the motives of the GOP which is trying to correct this mess.

One of the biggest parts of Obamacare was the expansion of Medicaid which provides medical coverage for the poor.  Under the GOP plan, coverage under Medicaid stays unchanged for another three years and then the requirements for coverage are modified for only NEW enrollees into the program.  In other words, everyone on Medicaid now stays on Medicaid into the future.  The Dems say that this will leave people to die.  That's a knowing lie.  But consider this:  the GOP plan also allows states more flexibility to control the Medicaid program for that state.  If a state wants to check eligibility every three months, it will be able to do so.  Now it can only check once per year.  If the state wants to start a program to bring down the costs of the program by promoting some pro-health program, it can do so.  Right now, the only way states have to bring down costs is to pay doctors less.  As a result, and here's the shocker, people who have Medicaid coverage have no better health outcomes than people who are uninsured.

Let me say that again:  the USA is spending billions each year to provide Medicaid coverage for the poor, but those with the coverage do no better healthwise than those who stay uninsured.  MEDICAID DOES NOT WORK!!!  This is a national disgrace, and it is a particular disgrace for the Democrats.  They ignore that the program has failed and just fight with lies to preserve it.

The new healthcare bill is complicated; that's for sure.  I have actually read the bill, and it requires a lot of time just to figure out the full meaning.  I'm not going to tell you that everything in there is good; I don't know that -- it's just too complicated to make such a snap judgment.  I do know, however, that the Democrats' response is dishonest and despicable.  They don't have a clue what's in the bill.  They are fighting to preserve the rotting corpse of Obamacare, a program that died last year.  The end result of that fight may help them politically, but it will be at the expense of the American people.  They have no solution, so they are just trying to make the problem worse.

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