Lisa Benson for January 05, 2017

oh yeah? you think the republicans can’t think of or do anything else? they can OBSTRUCT. that’s what they have been doing for the last eight years, and they want to continue some more on that pathway. there is nobody can obstruct like strict constructionists.

The measure of an impact is reflected in the impact of the measure. -Ling Po

I can’t wait for the GOPers to unveil their “Grand Plan”….. Good luck boys…. now you know your constituents are watching…..Anyone who has a GOP rep and wants to keep him or her in check should read “Indivisible” at:

https://www.indybay.org/uploads/2016/12/16/indivisible-resisting-trump-agenda.pdf

They are just going to take away bits, put them back, rename it, and say they won. (They will never go to the single payer system.)

Two countries instigated health care reform in 1994 – the U.S. with Hillarycare, and Taiwan, a small Asian nation of 23 million people. The Republicans in the U.S. quickly shot down Hillarycare for a number of partisan reasons. Taiwan took a more positive approach.

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The Taewanese Conservative National Party asked Chinese-American Professor William Hsiao, a health care economist, to lead the way. After studying systems from a number of different countries, Hsiao recommended a plan similar to Canada’s national single-payer healthcare system but with enhancements borrowed from a number of European and Asian countries such as Japan.

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President Lee teng-hui demanded quick action, and in 1995 Taiwan had it’s world class universal health care system, considered to be one of the most efficient in the world. Administration costs run at 2% of total costs, compared to about 20% in the U.S.; and total health care spending is about 6% of GDP, compared to about 17% in the U.S. The reformed Taiwan health care system has resulted in nearly all Taewanese having affordable health care and the saving of tens of thousands of lives who otherwise would die for lack of health care.

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In the meantime the U.S. struggles with a costly, inefficient profit based system that prior to Obama’s reforms under the ACA resulted in 40,000 or so deaths annually for lack of affordable care.

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The U.S. might try following the example of little Taiwan.

As Steven Brill has repeatedly pointed out, the bill was a compromise using the Mitt Romney Republican proposals after the Republicans had rejected sensible proposals. So it should properly be called Romneycare.

It was a lemon when it was brand new… To the junkyard with it!

It.. will be rebranded as Trump-Care and everyone will cheer. It was NOT the ACA but the fact Obama was president when enacted. THAT.. could not stand

About 50% of Americans either like the ACA or want to see it expanded. Another 17% want it improved, but maintained. Their base wants anything with the name Obama on it destroyed.I know quite a few people using Obamacare. About half have seen their rates go up under Obamacare, but at a slower rate than they were before. The other half have either had them go down or remain essentially the same. My cousin, who is diabetic, had trouble getting a job, because she messed up the company’s insurance plan. With Obamacare, she was hired within two months and is still working. My brother, who was only working to keep his insurance, because his wife has health issues that could wipe out his retirement money very quickly, has now retired. That makes both his family and that of the woman hired to replace him very happy. My granddaughter was able to stay on her parents’ insurance plan until she was 26. No one thought this was especially important, since she had no health issues, until she was injured and spent a couple of days in the hospital, which cost more than that year’s tuition.Obamacare has been a blessing to everyone I know who is involved with it. The Republicans have a sure way to lose in 2020. If they can’t replace Obamacare with something people like better, they are going to make much more than 1/2 of the population really angry with them. Single Payer is easy, does the job, and is something that the Democrats would vote for. They can even call it Trumpcare. The Republicans may be stupid enough to reject something beneficial because they don’t want Obama to get credit for it, but Democrats, hopefully, are not.

Makes very good sense. And me a Liberal.

Finally we’ll get rid of that ambulance, that’s the problem. Now the sick can crawl to the hospital like the founding fathers intended.

Terminal idiocy is a preexisting condition suffered by the GOP and its trolls.

That’s the best you got?I seem to remember that the last Republican president sent the whole entirety of America into the tree, then that same Republican president signed the TARP legislation that guaranteed the bankers Republicans (Gramm, Leach & Bliley) enabled to wreck the nation would not only NOT go to jail – but would have taxpayer dollars to FIX their systemic mortgage-fraud-as-normal-business-practice practice. You want to cry about Obama trying to keep Americans alive with Obamacare, and did nothing while Bush wallowed in the homelessness epidemic that followed the “mortgage crisis.”

Looking forward to those Republican Death Panels.

If the Repubs and Trump can make some iminor changes to “Obamacare” and then call it “Trumpcare” and then they are happy, then let them do it. Everyone likes coverage for preexisting conditions, children covered until age 26, and elimination of lifetime or annual caps.

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The original idea came from Conservative think tank Heritage Foundation and the immensely popular Romneycare to begin with.

You know, if Democrats would stop being silly and in denial about Obamacare and start making legitimate suggestions about how to improve it, Trump and the GOP might work with them.

So the Republicans want to replace the ambulance with what, a hearse? No, wait. Having something in mind to replace it would mean having a plan, which they don’t have or at least have not shared with the world yet.