The Barnyard

So, you're against affirmative action? Considering white males can be passed over, even when more qualified, for a minority or a woman. Or a student gets denied admission to a university bc the university is allowing students with lower grades in, in order to meet certain enrollment standards.

I'll assume you believe that law should be done away with.

You just perfectly described in great detail the President's Affordable Care Act, Mitt Romney's Health Care Reform in Massachusetts, and the Heritage Foundation's 1993 alternative to Clinton's Health Care bill.

You now join every other GOP lemming on this planet in heartily endorsing every element of Obamacare while simultaneously calling it socialism and Obama a communist for introducing it.

You people are just hilarious.

Also, under the ACA, the IRS can NOT garnish wages or emprison, etc. They have very limited powers to collect. My point is to allow them very strong ability to collect for unpaid medical bills.

Good point about them collecting for private companies. I'd agree with that being a power they shouldn't have. It was an idea(I know that you are big on where ideas come from), to provide a consequence for those that we're so worried about covering, loosely using the ACA as the basis(in that the IRS is involved in 'non-tax' collection. What about creating a database that, in conjuction with the IRS(again to determine who can afford care and who can't), all care providers have access to, and if you're not making payments on your past bills AND are in the 'can afford' pool, then providers have the right to deny care. That way, if you want to run the risk of no coverage AND you don't pay, that's the risk you run. I'm sure there's a major hole there, but it doesn't 'deny' access to anyone that is in good standing with paying their bills, and doesn't require anyone to purchase if they chose not to.

The difference in the child/mortgage example - you have the option. The ACA isn't a - buy a policy and get an deduction. It's a - don't buy and we fine you.

BTW - I've said for some time, since so many on the left want loopholes closed bc wealthy take advantage, that ALL loopholes should be closed. Including the mortgage insurance loophole.

Honestly, I didn't even think about answering that. I think it's a wasted discussion. Yes, unless there's any real evidence to discount that, I think he's a natural born citizen. I paid attention to that for about a month, but had you asked me where he was born I'd have probably answered California. That's how little I care about the subject at this point.

And I answered it - yes.

I am no legislator or policy expert either, but it seems to me that the ACA requires coverage of pre-existing conditions and allows for children to stay on their parents' plans until 26. The rest of you post is relating to payments in lieu of a mandate.

The purpose of the mandate is to encourage and make more affordable preventative care. Most health experts agree that lack of preventative care is one of the main reasons our medical costs are as high as they are with worse treatment than most other developed countries. When someone who doesn't have insurance gets diabetes, rather than learning how to properly live with the disease and making adjustments to slow its growth and impact, they go undiagnosed and show up at an emergency room needing an amputation. The lack of preventative care across the board is a major problem. Your solution does nothing to fix it because you haven't increased insurance coverage and studies have shown that people with insurance have significantly higher opportunities to receive preventative care than those without.

In addition, what you have proposed gets government involved more in the process than they would be under the ACA. Are you suggesting that the IRS should now operated as bill collectors for our nation's health care system? Make no mistake this would be an incredibly large undertaking that would require a significant increase in the number of IRS agents and government bureaucrats. Right now, the IRS is only able to audit the tax returns of approximately 1% of Americans. Think of the number without insurance or where coverage has run out that have medical bills outstanding. You are suggesting that we hire IRS agents to go out, audit returns, examine hospital bills and collect this money? And from the same person who recognized that current enforcement by the IRS is weak, at best, you want to give them more power to enforce the laws including liens, levys, garnishments, etc.

With Medicaid, I believe you are proposing a significant expansion of federal funding. Right now, in Texas, a single person only qualifies for Medicaid if they make less than $2,900 per year. This means that every single person in Texas who makes $3,000 or more per year without insurance would be subject to IRS enforcement action. The ACA sets Medicaid funding eligibility nationwide at 133% of the poverty level, which means a single person making approximately $14,800 per year or less will qualify for Medicaid.

Your plan seems to adopt an approach of less personal responsibility because it doesn't require people to pay for or plan for what they need. If I want to buy a car, I save and maybe use credit which is understood beforehand to make sure I can make my payments and am doing things right. Your plan seems to adopt the approach of "it's better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission."

Additionally, your plan above does nothing curb the extreme problem of healthcare costs in our country. As other posters have pointed out, this problem is not just a healthCARE problem, but a healthCOST problem. The ACA contains provisions that provide incentives to providers who are able to more efficiently provide quality care; i.e., benefits and incentives for not ordering unnecessary tests. There are "death panels" set up whose sole purpose is to review different procedures for common problems to find the most cost-effective way of providing care without decreasing results. No, these "death panels" do not tell individual people what care they can get, that is purely between the patient and the doctor. These "death panels" do nothing but provide recommendations to Congress as to which procedures are the most efficient and effective procedures that Medicaid is covering, and, only if Congress does not act on the Medicaid cost issues (rejecting them all would be acting, do the "death panel's" recommendations go into effect.

I know this seems simple to you but our system currently costs more than twice as much per person to administer as other developed countries yet our life expectancy is less. Perhaps the problem is more complicated than you realize.

I have answered and responded to a number of your posts in this thread and you still haven't answered my one request; please provide a link to the comprehensive package republicans are proposing to "replace" Obamacare with. I keep hearing "repeal and replace" but I can't find the plan. Please provide a link so I can read both reform plans myself and develop my opinion as to which one I think is most likely to work. Thanks.

Thought on a database that all care providers have to inform them who isn't paying their bills and who is? And giving them the right to deny coverage to those who are not paying.

Okay, so now we are getting into a substantive issue; the right to deny coverage based on ability to pay. However, in your plan above, you seem to proposing a set-up where care is provided and then paid for after the fact, with the IRS as the collection authority if payments are not made. By that time, it's too late to deny them coverage for not paying because they have already been given care. Are you suggesting that if bills aren't paid they shouldn't be seen for follow-up care?

Please provide a link to the "replace" portion of "repeal and replace." Not a newspaper article with a set of empty promises but a comprehensive proposed solution that addresses costs, coverage, and how it is paid for.

One word answers to complicated issues are SO useful...

These are just thoughts off the top of my head.

My thought is to provide a searchable database that can be quickly referenced based on SSN and name, that in conjuction with the IRS(to inform providers who is capable of coverage and who is not), that informs care providers if a potential patient has coverage, and if not, their history of paying prior medical bills. If the patient is not in good standing, then care providers can decline care.

Ok, I understand what you are saying.

Who would maintain the database and who would be liable for mistakes when they happen, and they will happen, and when those mistakes happen and they result in denial of treatment and possibly death?

Also, IRS procedures and information will have to be updated because tax returns by their very nature are backward looking; they don't give an accurate representation of a person's finances today, but rather what the finances were over the prior calendar year. When dealing with someone's life, I would think that more accurate information would be desired.

And last, just to be completely clear because I don't want to put words into your mouth; if a person who has not paid hospital bills or care provider bills in the past, say for a broken nose (as an example), shows up at an emergency room having a heart attack and in need of assistance, you are comfortable with that emergency room declining to treat the person and letting them continue going into cardiac arrest in the waiting room or on the street because that person has previously unpaid bills? The care providers will be allowed to deny treatment based on no reason other than ability to pay?

***Please provide a link to the comprehensive plan discussing healthcare costs, coverage, and funding that is being proposed by republicans to replace Obamacare.***