Just as devil’s advocate, would they not already be prepared to operate in the previous environment, by merit of the fact that they spent years doing so? How much expertise re-tooling is necessary to prepare for grounds you have already covered?
The second question is a serious one, if any industry professionals could elucidate on how difficult this would be, I am happy to accept I am wrong and do the requisite mea culpas.
How so? I keep hearing this with little to no evidence.
I’m not sure what you mean by this, but Obamacare is not collapsing.
All of the ‘loser’ pts (older, sicker) on Obamacare are receiving treatment for something. Thus, such a stipulation would represent the worst of all possible worlds for the insurance industry–‘you have to keep insuring the expensive pts, but the ones you make money off of are free to drop out.’ The companies would be forced to jack up their rates, and the Feds would be forced to subsidize those higher rates–or not, in which case they would lose their coverage and we’re back to my original scenario.
As an analogy (I could be wrong), I would put this akin to removing fuel economy standard requirements on cars overnight. You’re not simply looking at how Ford handles this, you’re looking at Ford’s suppliers, those that supply raw materials to the supplier’s, those that transport the goods, etcetc.
With HC, you have less of a goods failure and more of a service industry failure. The ripple effect would be immense. The number of medical facilities that would immediately try to roll out to these “new” laws and the chaos that ensues is also something to consider.
No no, I mean it was specifically in reference to the contention that the industry would collapse in such a situation.
Fair point well made.
The service implication is probably the most severe consequence acutely. You could have a delay provision to activate it some time over the next 12-18 months, that would give ample time to deal with any resource shortages/ legal implications, surely?
Well, politically awful maybe (from an ‘optics’ standpoint). However, it WAS a promise made for 8 years–and norse’s point is along the lines of “if you promise something, stand up and deliver it”, which I have a hard time disagreeing with. If it was an awful promise to make…maybe you shouldn’t make it. But once you DO, stand up and take care of your word.
Then again, this is politicians so “promises” are meaningless, but you two are approaching the issue from opposite sides (and probably differing governance philosophies as well)
Medical expertise required, none really. Legal, medical coding (Obamacare modified coding extensively–billling, administration, and regulation–and hence billions of database entries and software systems), and administration…probably quite a lot. It took about 4 years to see the full effect of Obamacare on companies as the regulatory and administration burdens increased and coding changed and companies adapted. It’s anybody’s guess as to how long it would take to rollback, but I think it would be significantly longer than 12-18 months with everything.
I for one would have a lot more respect for a politician who realized his/her promise was lousy and owned up to that fact, than for one who mindlessly kept an “awful promise” simply because s/he said that’s what they would do.
And among politicians, Trump is in the unique position of being, in essence, his own political party. If he were to tell (tweet at) his followers ‘Ya know, it turns out there are some aspects of Obamacare we should keep, and I’m going to work with like-minded Republicans and Dems to do so’ I don’t think they (his followers) would turn on him. Same is true if he had second thoughts about The Wall.
I agree, and it is a stupid position to make a promise to repeal something without a solution. Didn’t stop them from doing it. However Trump ran on repeal and replace, not repeal and see what happens.
Are you under the impression that Obamacare did not offer insurance to any more people and has no effect on insurance companies? I’m not sure what evidence you’re looking for.
You could argue we could recover from the impact, or as @Legalsteel is approaching it have a period to ease into the changes. But there definitely would be an impact if you make such a dramatic change to a big industry in one fell swoop.
Edit: To clarify, I’m not arguing FOR Obamacare. I’m just saying any dramatic change to an industry needs to be handled carefully and the far-right freedom caucus (and others) who want full repeal with no solution are not being realistic and are just grand standing knowing that it will never happen.
As an aside, this conversation regarding rollback is one of the key reasons I was so against Obamacare in the first place. Leave aside the major issues such as a coercion to buy a service (I mean a “tax” for being uninsured cough cough), the overpowering nanny state–you don’t know what’s good for you and you can’t be uninsured even if you wanted to, and you can’t keep your previous catastrophic plan either–people getting used to a new entitlement, and all the rest. Once the monstrosity was in place it would be almost impossible to roll back cleanly due to the immense shift in admin, regulation, legal, and all the rest.
I and many others saw this, and knew the only real opportunity to avoid Obamacare was to not have it pass in the first place. Now that it is here I find myself thinking that we need to approach fixing it by modification and streamlining it, because repealing it would be a seismic shift. The industry would not collapse, but the chaos would be incredible. This is not a function of me liking O’Care, it’s a function of how it’s ingrained itself into every facet of healthcare so tightly. This is, I believe, precisely one reason the Dems wanted to pass it even if it was shitty. They knew once it took hold it would be like an octopus–completely entangling everything and near impossible to roll back neatly even with the political and popular will.
Unfortunately I think they were right. I am still in favor of completely overhauling it, and I would support a bill to repeal it IF one could be seriously put together intelligently…but I don’t see that happening with Congress and barring a well-thought out bill it would be a train wreck to try half-assedly.
Sure, I follow you. I agree for the most part, I was simply trying to convey the perspective norse was coming from to Drew because I think he saw a different angle.
I’d rather have someone admit a mistake and improve than not admit a mistake and stay on a lousy course. However, I can see the frustration to people on the other side–“we voted you in to repeal this thing and you’re bailing on us”.
Agree. I don’t see that this bill was handled carefully.
I see it differently. I see Obamacare not as a driver of, but as a reaction to the American zeitgeist concerning healthcare.
Americans have long held diametrically opposed views that impacted upon healthcare:
Obviously, those two beliefs/feelings cannot co-exist–something has to give. And it is clear (IMO) that most Americans are simply intolerant of the idea that people should die for lack of insurance–in other words, belief/feeling #2 trumped (heh, heh) belief/feeling #1. The primacy of belief/feeling #2 was first hinted at by the creation of Medicare (old folk get help with HC costs), then by Medicaid (poor people get help), then by EMTALA laws (everyone gets help). (Lest folks think it was just another ill-conceived Great-Society-type Dem idea, EMTALA was signed into law by Reagan.)
In short, the American zeitgeist has been moving toward universal care for a very long time. Obamacare was simply an acknowledgement of this fact, and an attempt to deal with it in a cost-effective and rational manner (realizing that many folk think it was neither).
Did it? Did the GOP create the FC or it’s predecessor, the Tea Party? It seems that a, for lack of a better term, populist, grassroots movement created these entities. These entities have been at odds with the GOP from the very beginning of their existence.
Truth.
I remember in the early days there was talk of forming a new “conservative” party and then it fell to reforming the GOP instead because a 3rd party basically can’t get off the ground in the US system.
Did the GOP spend money on their campaigns? Did they help them get elected? The tea party was created to be an attack dog that “standard” GOP members could claim distance from. It was a brilliant political move, but they underestimated the grassroots support that would let them survive without “standard” GOP help.
I would certainly be one of those who thought it was neither rational nor cost effective, but I think your points on the conflicting ideals are well made, which I believe you’ve brought up elsewhere at some point (don’t recall)
Wouldn’t be surprising if I had. I don’t have many good points, and thus tend to recycle them when possible. 
Item #2 doesn’t need to involve the federal government and technically has always existed to a degree, partially because of the Hippocratic Oath.
The answer to every problem is hardly “government”. That’s the lazy person’s easy way out.