American Healthcare for Euros: Duex

Ok, so something like 27 million Americans don't have health insurance.

Why not?

They may not have jobs.

They may not have the kind of jobs that offer health insurance.

They may just not care about not having health insurance.

Many millions of those people without health insurance are youngsters making the quite rational choice that they wont need it. Chances are, if you're young, you wont.

As noted yesterday, in the mid-2000's we here at Casa de Stroock purchased our own health insurance. Many people did the same. To save money they bought Catastrophic Plans.

Ok, so what's that?

When you go to the doctor in America, the insurance company offsets the cost slightly with something called a co-pay. That means you go to the doctor, you give them $30 bucks, the insurance company pays the rest. There is also something called a deductible. Again this is the insurance company offsetting its cost by making you responsible for an upfront payment. The size of that deductible depends on what kind of plan you have. Basically a Catastrophic Plan came with a high deductible, say $5000, but with much lower monthly rates. In essence you rolled the dice with a Catastrophic Plan. If you had the sniffles you were on the hook for the bill. If you broke a leg, you would be on the hook for some of that bill. If you got cancer you'd be on the hook for the first $5000 but the insurance company picked up most of the rest.

Yes, Europeans, this is complicated, there's no getting around that.

Obamacare killed Catastrophic Plans by requiring people to insure themselves as mandated by the government, so people had to pay for all kinds of services they didn't want. Why? So the Feds had the cash on hand to pay for the rest of the Obamacare enrollees. In essence Obamacare taxes the productive to benefit the unproductive.

American Healthcare for Euros

Ok, European readers, you may be wondering what this healthcare debate in America is all about. You may be wondering why there is any debate at all.

To recap, a brave Texas judge struck down Obamacare, Barrack Hussein Obama's enema to the American healthcare system. The most vile part of that vile law was the Individual Mandate, which required people to have health insurance. We rank the Individual Mandate up there with the Indian Removal Act and the Fugitive Slave Act.

One of the quirks of modern American life is the lack of National Health Insurance. This is a result of the Second World War actually. During the war demand for labor was massive but there was a huge labor shortage resulting in a fierce competition for workers. Prices were frozen. So companies offered to pay for health insurance.

Today old Americans have Medicare, poor Americans have Medicaid, everyone else has insurance through their employer or buys it themselves.

You Europeans may be wondering what that costs.

Well it ain't cheep.

When Mrs. Stroock was a consultant we bought insurance for the (then) three of us and it cost $1253 a month. I know becuase I was the one writing the checks. 

When Barry O took office about 40 million Americans didn't have insurance, about 80% of us did. Obamacare tried to rectify that. As the numbers at the link show, it failed. Last year 27 million Americans didn't have insurance.We'll get into that tomorrow.

If you guys want to begin to understand the complexities of the problem, read the explanation at the link.

Whither Obamacare

A Texas (figures) judge has ruled Obamacare is unconstitutional.

His reason is that since Obama argued the mandate is a tax, and since the Supreme Court agreed, and since Congress has repealed said mandate, Obamacare is no longer constitutional.

With the mandate repealed we really don't care. Without the mandate Obamacare is just bad insurance. Trump is taking other steps to kill the law, allowing more narrow, less expensive plans.

One way or another Obamacare dies.

Of course the Trump Administration declined to defend Obamacare in court. A precedent set by the Obama Administration when it declined to defend the Defense of Marriage Act. Reap it, Barry.

We'll spend this week talking about American health insurance for the benefit of our European readers who as we understand it, are baffled by this debate.

Meanwhile Barry Soetoro is hocking his own law on twitter. He looks like Lorne Greene touting Secure Care:

At least Greene was Commander Adama.

Winning...

...Trump is doing it. Trump is winning because that's what winners do.

Let's set aside the Obamacare debacle for a moment and look at what el Trumpo Supremo has accomplished.

Gorsuch is on the Supreme Court. Isis is on the run. Illegal border crossings by illegal Mexicans are way down. More than 500 corrupt employees at the corrupt VA have been fired. More than a million jobs in six months.

Let us not forget his handling of Harvey.

Every week Trump scraps some piece of Obama era policy by dictate. This week DACA is gone and Breitbart reports this morning that Betsy De Vos is scrapping the college kangaroo courts.

Getting back to Obamacare, Ryan and McConnell really screwed that up. Worse they have shown the president no loyalty whatsoever. So Trump made a debt ceiling deal with Chuck and Nancy and is openly negotiating with them on DACA. Ryan and McConnell are said to be furious. Good.

Last night President Trump had dinner with Paul Ryan. Below is a clip:

The End of Conservative Wonkery

The indispensable Steve Sailer wants to know what all the think tanks are for.

Good question. Watching the failure of Rynacare Sailer has had the same thought as we. That is, what's the point of all this conservative policy wonkery? Since the 1980s conservative think tanks have been cranking out ideas in the form of papers and books on everything from schools to tax reform to healthcare and on and on.

As mentioned in this space before, we're roughly the same age as Speaker (dead man walking) Ryan and we both came of age politically exposed to NR and the Weekly Standard and George Will. Ryan first served under the ultimate conservative policy wonk, New Gingrich, another failed speaker. When I was a young CR in the early 90's they passed out free copies of Jack Kemp's Liberal Cliches and Conservative Solutions.

We are wracking our brains here trying to think of a time when one of these ideas took hold and worked, or even was signed into law.

Remember President Bush's Office of Faith Based Charities? Neither does anyone else.
We know how No Child Left Behind has transformed education.
Hey, how did Bush's planned Social Security Reform work out?
Who can forget the success of President Bush's 2006 comprehensive immigration reform?

Look guys, I say this as unrepentant Neocon, this is the end. There will be no more conservative wonkery and ideas. We've failed. Our man is running the show and he's failed miserably. He should resign now and get a gig running a think tank..

Paul Ryan deserves no better.

Vichy GOP

So with Paul Ryan's Obamacare repeal and replace bill its hard to avoid the conclusion that the Speaker doesn't get it.

In a lot of ways this is not his fault. He's the same generation as I, and he came of age in the era of Newt and W, Heritage policy papers, Weekly Standard movement journo pieces, and a slew of policy-wonk ideas. Paul Ryan has certainly loaded this bill up with those.

This reminds me of previous failed GOP big idea bills, W's Social Security plan of 2005, the immigration reform bill of 2006, the debt ceiling fiasco of 2011, Marco Rubio's own attempt at immigration reform in 2014; all loaded with ideas none of which will work.

Frankly Paul Ryan's bill is a surrender document. All that remains is for the Dems to ad their bits ala No Child Left Behind.

Fortunately both the GOP squishes like Senator Collins of Maine, and hardliners like Senator Paul of Kentucky pronounce the bill DOA.

President Trump is a deal maker of course and I suspect this bill will be negotiated and marked up to acceptability. But I've always been an optimist.

Look, Mr. Speaker, this isn't about tweaking medical delivery systems or medical savings accounts. This is about repealing the most vile piece of American legislation since the Fugitive Slave Act. You got the power, use it.

The Dems wouldn't hesitate.

2017 Predictions

-The New England Patriots will win the Super Bowl
-They will defeat the Seattle Seahawks
-The New York Giants will win a playoff game
-The Chicago Cubs will win the World Series
-The Democrats will chronically underestimate President Trump
-President Trump's greatest enemy will be the GOPe (Ryan, McConnell)
-Obamacare will be repealed quickly and easily
-Trump will get on splendidly with Vladimir
-Geert Wilders will be the next PM of the Netherlands
-Marime Le Pen will narrowly lose the French presidential election
-Someone will try to assassinate Donald Trump