Thune: Health Care 101: How Democrats’ Policies Fail Patients and Families
“[A] three-year extension without reforms, and furthermore, a three-year extension that actually backtracks on some of the reforms that have been made earlier – and that also is in Democrats’ bill – creates more fraud, more waste, more abuse, higher prices, and a higher cost for the American taxpayer.”
WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) today delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor:
Click here to watch the video.
He complained about the democratic program. But at least democrats are doing SOMETHING!!
Republicans haven’t put anything forward because they don’t have anything better, Or anything AT ALL!
Pure whining.
They’ll be voting on 2 Republican health care bills tomorrow, Jack.
Try to keep up.
How did these votes go today, Jill?
Ya doing something. Something that isn’t working.
Senator Thune calls this effort to maintain lower healthcare costs a “fantasy”. That’s right – a fantasy. Without the extension, millions of healthcare premiums will double. Add that to the fact that Medicaid patients will be devastated by his policies, and many Americans will face a hellish reality.
Thune says that he cares about the cost of this. He indicated that it will cost $83 billion over the next three years. And that may be true but, as I have noted previously, one of the Senator’s priorities is to eliminate the estate tax on the wealthy. Since Elon Musk is already worth $500 billion, his family’s tax break under Thune’s proposal could dwarf that cost. For just one family. And THEY are his priority?
This… is… no… fantasy. Millions will suffer because of Senator Thune’s policies. And that, my friends, is a fact.
Millions? Calling it a fact doesn’t make it one.
How do you not know this? Of course millions are impacted.
The originsl Obamacare subsidies remain. Obamacare was promised to work as originally passed. The extra subsidies because of covid are the ones the dems now claim are needed. Now the dems have to admit obamacare isn’t working.
You kick millions off of their Medicaid coverage, and then raise the premiums on ACA coverage to the point where many can’t afford that either. Come January, you will see how popular YOUR plan is.
They need to repeal the ACA. Or at least repeal the Medical Loss Ratio Rebate provision.
Under the MLRR provision, insurance companies have to spend about 85% of the premiums they collect on benefits. They have to rebate the difference. If they take in a million dollars they have to spend at least $850,000 in order to keep $150,000. (I don’t recall the exact figures.) The only way to increase their bottom line is to charge higher premiums and pay more in benefits So if they charge a group plan $2 million, and pay out $1,700,000 in benefits, they get to keep $300,000.
The rebates go to the employers which provide the group insurance plan to their employees. The easiest way for the employers to increase the size of that check is to get rid of the sickest & most expensive employees.
The other provision which caused the ACA to not be budget neutral, as promised, was to take the healthiest demographic, the young adults between 18-26, out of the insurance pool. Instead of paying in, they are allowed to coast on their parents’ plans for free. Stupid. Just stupid.
The ACA has failed. Remember when the Obama administration said it was going to save us all money? How’s that working out for ya?
Anybody who bothered to read that thing could see it wasn’t going to work.
Saved many million from going through bankruptcy. I see the above poster 6:45pm is the paid MAGA shill
nobody is paying me anything. In fact, I retired in 2011, when I became a grandmother to twins (as one man pointed out, “you didn’t retire, you changed jobs.”)
But whatever, nobody paid me to read the ACA, I just did. And I saw what an asinine piece of work it was, incentivizing insurance companies to charge astronomically high premiums and incentivizing employers to get rid of ill employees.
I remember seeing VP Biden giving a speech about how much people would love the ACA, “just wait till August when those rebate checks go out!”
Yes he actually believed the employers would share that money with the people who had not fallen ill. Other lunatics believed the MLRR checks would inspire employers to provide their employees with gym memberships, smoking cessation programs, and healthy food choices in their cafeterias.
Such notions were evidence the Democrats were not playing with full decks. The entire Democrat caucus was showing signs of dementia when they passed that thing. One really had to have shit-for-brains to not see how this was going to work out.
We have been waiting 11yrs for Frumps big beautiful medical plan At least the Demos did and are doing something. Republicans want people to suffer and small town hospitals to close
So John, WHAT IS YOUR PLAN? You have been in DC since 1997 and have you ever proposed a health bill on the floor?
So do you have a proposal to replace or is just get rid of? I will wait. I have waited 28 years so whats another 15 or 20 years.
it won’t be even remotely sustainable until the 18-26 year olds get kicked of their parents’ plans and start paying in. Taking the healthiest people out of the insurance pool was stupidity on steroids.
Oh look, he’s talking to his fan club of one
“I just don’t know how Republicans would explain that to 24 million Americans whose premiums are gonna double.” Josh Hawley (R-Mo)
They can explain how the increase was built into the ACA. If the Republicans don’t know that it was written in, right there in the Medical Loss Ratio Rebate provision, they have not read the ACA themselves.
You really have to be stupid to not see how that was going to increase premiums.
“You really have to be stupid to not see how that was going to increase premiums.”
You just described elk.
I was simply quoting Sen. Josh Hawley – so if you want to say he’s stupid, I won’t get in your way. But the truth is, he was educated at Stanford and Yale. He isn’t ignorant. But he often plays the idiot… just to get your vote.
There’s literally no way around.not extending the subsidies for one year without total destruction of the GOP in midterms. This what Thune wants though. Understand the game being played people.
At some point people will wake up and realize blaming the “enemy” (as they have set it for you) doesn’t lower the costs. They are in total control, so much so, the constitution is being reinterpreted by the Trump SCOTUS and he can do anything without congress. But those evil dems still control this apparently. Imagine believing this crap…..
Funny, I bet you didn’t complain (in 2014)when Obama declared he could do anything he wanted without Congress when he said “I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone.”
Maybe you weren’t even born yet (1977) when Richard Nixon said “when the President does it, that means it is not illegal.”
None of the current members of the SCOTUS were there in 1977. Five of the current members were there prior to 2014, when Obama declared his own autocracy.
Blaming any of this on the “Trump SCOTUS” shows you are either very young or very ignorant.
Nice whataboutism to avoid reality. Your comments show you know nothing about constitutional law. You cited rhetoric in 2014, and 1977, these comments never made it to SCOTUS because they never had actions like Trump has with law. Trump has actually taken cases to SCOTUS and reversed 100+ year precedent. I know you like to cite age, but you may be too old to understand logic here. I would just start looking for a new nursing home, don’t worry, your kids can afford a nice one I’m sure they will deliver!
The fun part of being an ex Republican right now, probably the MOST fun, is the pucker faced pique people like Sen Thune display when they trot out the same old slanders and promises over and over, and the old audience for that crap has moved on without them. They need a new script and they just don’t have one.