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Back : "all I care about is that the poor and the uninsured-but-have-money get access to healthcare, paid for by others ... everyone else can go F themselves"
There is a HUGELY simple way to lower health care cost, all it takes is a few steps:
1. Allow nationwide sale of insurance
2. Deregulate the industry.
3. Tort reform.
It really is that simple. If we want to talk about healthcare for the poor, it is a much better plan to get the poor out of poverty so that they can support themselves and be a contributing member of society.
Why is it that not one of these things is in obamacare? Anyone with even half reasonable thought process must recognize they will lower cost. That is because the intention of the liberals is not to lower cost, Obama stated the goal in a speech before the AFL-CIO in 2003, they want a single payer system.
The problem is that nationalizing health care is that each state has specific requirements on health care. There are also additional provisions on a state-by-state basis for information protection, etc... I know in MA, we have MA CMR 201, requiring basic IT security (such as encryption in transit and at rest) for financial and health records of MA residents. This would result in revoking state's rights, which has already been one of the complaints about the Affordable Care Act from the Republicans.
That being said... I would anticipate those items that you highlighted as being eventual goals of any national health system. I always viewed the Affordable Care Act as a way for the government to get their foot in the door in the health care system, and to have additional incentives to pass such reforms.
Whirlin, if the liberals had ever engaged with the conservatives in the crafting of the bill in any way, shape, or form, I might say you are correct about reforming it. But as we see right now, the plan is not ready, anyone with half a brain recognizes this, the conservatives have asked for a one year delay of implementation, and the liberals are screaming bloody murder and will shut down the government because of it.
As for the requirements in individual states, so do car insurance companies, yet they manage to sell across state lines, or even better, as much as someone who supports states rights hates to say do this, come up with a federal standard, which would also aid in the reduction of cost, since insurance companies would not have to have 30 or so different programs to support.
There are both health insurance and auto insurance companies that operate in multiple states. They are both subject to the laws and regulations of each state where they sell the insurance. When people say that they want health insurance companies to be able to "sell across state lines," what they really mean is that they want health insurance companies to be subject to only the laws and regulations of the state where the insurance company's main office is located.
Instead of auto insurance, a better comparison would be credit cards. I bet your credit card issuer is from South Dakota or Delaware.