Senate GOP Obamacare replacement would lead to 22 million more uninsured in 2026, CBO estimates

Again, not in tune with reality.

 

And yet, we have a real world current example of where excessive government control of health care decisions leads. This isn't even an example of asset preservation by the State, they have simply taken all control from the parents and mandated that their child has a duty to die.

 

No we don't. That's simply how you choose to view this case, absent "real world" facts. For you, the facts are inconvenient, failing, as they do, to support your narrative. If you are so determined to find fault with other countries' health systems, try to do so without contending that governments should sanction the continued pain and suffering of a child.

 

They also claimed the child was "brain-dead" so incapable of pain and suffering. This is where excessive government and single payer leads. The State mandating the death of a child even though allowing the parents to even try is a wish that is ruled "inadmissible!"

When it comes to our healthcare choices, we want Freedom and Liberty!

 

And Bite Hard It Does!

"From Horrific To Catastrophic": Court Ruling Sends Illinois Into Financial Abyss

S&P warned one month ago will likely result in a humiliating and unprecedented downgrade of the 5th most populous US state to junk status.

Then came the begging:

According to Bloomberg, on Friday Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, a Democrat who controls much of the legislative agenda, pleaded with rating companies to "temporarily withhold judgment” as lawmakers negotiate. “Much work remains to be done,” the Democrat said on the floor of the House Friday, before the chamber adjourned for the day. “We’ll get the job done.”

The state remains without a spending plan, a record $15 billion of unpaid bills as it spent over $6 billion more than it brought in over the past year, and with $800 million in interest on the unpaid bills alone. Devastated social-service providers are shuttering services for the homeless, disabled and poor. The lack of state aid has wrecked havoc on universities, putting their accreditation at risk.

The Blows Keep Coming:

In a "shocking" development federal judge Joan Lefkow in Chicago ordered Illinois to come up with hundreds of millions of dollars it owes in Medicaid payments that state officials say the government doesn’t have, the Chicago Tribune reported. Judge Lefkow ordered the state to make $586 million in monthly payments (from the current $160 million) as well as another $2 billion toward a $3 billion backlog of payments - a $167 million increase in monthly outlays - the state owes to managed care organizations that process payments to providers.

Illinois has accumulated $15 billion in unpaid bills, the state's Medicaid recipients had had enough, and went to court asking a judge to order the state to speed up its payments. On Friday, the court ruled in their favor. The problem, of course, is that Illinois can no more afford to pay the outstanding Medicaid bills, than it can to pay any of its $14,711,351,943.90 in overdue bills as of June 30.



The backlog of unpaid claims the state owes to managed-care companies directly, as well as to the doctors, hospitals, clinics and other organizations “is crippling these providers and thereby dramatically reducing the Medicaid recipients’ access to health care,” Lefkow said in her ruling

Friday’s court ruling, which meant that the near-insolvent state must pay an additional $593 million per month, may have been the straw that finally broke the Illinois camel's back.

“Friday’s ruling by the U.S. District Court takes the state’s finances from horrific to catastrophic,” Comptroller Susana Mendoza, a Democrat, said in an emailed statement after the ruling.

As a result of the court decision, “payments to the state’s pension funds; state payroll including legislator pay; General State Aid to schools and payments to local governments -- in some combination -- will likely have to be cut.”

"As if the governor and legislators needed any more reason to compromise and settle on a comprehensive budget plan immediately, Friday's ruling by the U.S. District Court takes the state's finances from horrific to catastrophic," Mendoza said in a statement. "A comprehensive budget plan must be passed immediately." Realizing where all this is headed, she said that payments to bond holders won't be interrupted.


Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza

Friday night's legal decision followed a previously discussed ruling, when on June 7, Judge Lefkow ordered lawyers for the state to negotiate with Medicaid recipients to come up with more money, but she stopped short of dictating how much more the state should pay each month, or when. That decision sent Illinois General Obligation bond soaring.

Earlier this week, the parties again went before the judge to say they were at an impasse, with lawyers for Medicaid recipients asking for more than $1 billion a month to cover past and ongoing costs.

Lawyers for Illinois countered that they could only come up with approximately $75 million more a month, which would translate to $150 million with federal matching dollars. Although the state is way behind, state officials said in court filings that they have been making more than $1 billion in Medicaid related payments each month in 2017, “including payments to safety net hospitals, MCOs, and other providers.”

While the state was livid over the decision, plaintiffs were delighted. Tom Yates, one of the lawyers who represented the Medicaid recipients. said the judge’s ruling is a “fair result” that will help them have access to care. “Medicaid is an incredibly important program for 25 percent of the state’s population,” Yates said. It remains unclear, however, where Illinois would find the required funds.

In her ruling, Lefkow said the state must pay the $2 billion toward its past obligations beginning July 1 and ending June 30, 2018. She ordered the state to file monthly reports showing that it’s making the payments consistent with the ruling. The Judge said she considered submissions by managed care organizations, including The Meridian MCO and Aetna Better Health Inc., in reaching her decision. Meridian is owed $540 million and Aetna is owed $700 million, the judge said. In addition, she considered submissions from doctors and clinics.

Adding insult to crippling financial injury, the judge also ordered the state to file monthly reports showing that they are making the payments consistent with the ruling.

Bloomberg writes, the state has continued to spend more than it brings in. That’s forced it to cover “core priority” payments first, including payroll, debt service and pensions that total about $1.85 billion a month. While those bills include some Medicaid-covered payments like health services for children and adults, the state has said there aren’t enough funds to include general payments to managed-care organizations as a top priority.

Mendoza said that this won’t jeopardize debt-service payments, however she probably should have added "for now." For now, Illinois hasn’t missed any bond payments and state law requires it to make monthly deposits to its debt-service funds.

The market is set to react: investors have already punished Illinois for its fiscal woes. Yields on the state’s 10-year bonds have soared to 4.8%, 2.8% points higher than benchmark debt. That’s the highest yield of all 22 states that Bloomberg tracks.

The case is Memisovski v. Wright, 92-cv-01982, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois.

Democracy Drowned By Debt

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-...ic-court-ruling-send-illinois-financial-abyss

 

The political class will always try to grow the government it controls at the expense of productive workforce. The process is rather like cancer. IL has reached the end stage.

 

Yup. So let them bankrupt and fail and with their failure, surrender Statehood and revert back to the status of a US Territory. Once they think they are again capable of self-government, they may reapply to Congress for Statehood. Or, the surrounding states could simply expand, if by referendum, the citizens of the contiguous territory voted to join a nearby State.

 

Incorrect. No one has claimed this.

Incorrect.
(a) Again, the issue is pain and suffering.
(a) Their application to the European Court was declared inadmissible.

Those choices - such as they might be - won't ever provide the right to inflict pain and suffering.

 

t

Good catch, I recalled it incorrectly.

Charlie Gard'sillness makes it hard for anyone to know if he is pain.

Yup. The Parent's views were ruled inadmissible to the Court. The Court wouldn't even consider their application when it determined that Charlie Gard had a duty to die, and the Court imposed death, even though life saving efforts would not even impose a cost on the State. A truly horrifying over-reach by an Out of Control State, and an Out of Control Single Payer healthcare delivery system.

There is no medical evidence that Charlie was experiencing either.

This is the end point of both an Out of Control State and Single Payer Delivery of Health Care.

Even when it imposes no costs on the Health Care System, the State Still ordered the Death of Charlie, and forbid outside medical efforts, even when these efforts imposed no costs on the State.

Truly Horrifying.

 

The application was inadmissible, not their views. Their views were an integral part of each of the three UK court cases - cases described by the European Court as "meticulous", hence negating their application.
The likelihood of pain and suffering was determined by numerous medical experts. I'll defer to their opinion, not yours.
Cost - whether to the sate or parents - was irrelevant; not a factor.

The fact that you continue to dodge the realities of this case - including the very real and profound concern and sympathy of all involved, both medically and legally, for Charlie Gard's parents - is symptomatic of a desperation to make this case serve a narrative which in truth, it does not.

It simply leads to a situation in which reality has to be explained to you, over and over again - a pointless exercise in the face of willful ignorance.

 

No. You have your view and vision of an all powerful state controlling and dispensing the very services of life to subjects, who can command another to die, and yet remain unquestioned.

I have a view of Liberty, Freedom and Limited Government, where we damned sure not only question, but ensure that those that make rulings such as this, remain accountable to us and disposable by us.

So you have your view, I have mine, and both our views are tabulated at the voting both. So as for your disdainful dismissive attitude and in this case, the Court dismissed the concerns of the parents and forbid them of further caring for their child, that they decided must die, well, we are never going to agree on this. A State, this powerful, simply does not care for our children as much as we do, and when they gain this level of power, they will demonstrate that they hold even the power of life and death over even the most innocent. This is the danger of an an out of control State and the path toward this outcome started much earlier, never declared that they would assume this level of control over everyone, and so government must be blocked from this path, very early in the process. Otherwise Tyranny, followed by bloody revolution, results.

So unless there is an overpowering reason otherwise, the Parents, not the Court will enjoy the final say so long as I have a voice in it. Your path results in madness:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
~ Yeats

Government must always, hear, and be accountable to our voices.
The Center of the population, not The State, must always maintain control.

This is why WE are the world's longest surviving Democracy. It is with great sadness that we view what has become of Europe, despite our repeated and valiant efforts, spanning a century.

 

See, this is what you've been itching to deliver - rather than a rational, reality-based discussion of a particular case, or the future of health care in the US, a full-blown version of the overarching narrative that everything must be contorted to fit (think round hole). Hence your aversion to facts and realities (think square pegs). Yes, we'll have to agree to disagree. I'll console myself with the fact that my opinions are informed by reality,

 

The Chicago Tribune has published a column suggesting that the IL be divided up and sold to neighboring states and cities.

“Illinois is like Venezuela now, a fiscally broken state that has lost its will to live, although for the moment, we still have enough toilet paper.
But before we run out of the essentials, let's finally admit that after decade upon decade of taxing and spending and borrowing, Illinois has finally run out of other people's money.
Those "other people" include taxpayers who've abandoned the state. And now Illinois faces doomsday.” CHICAGO TRIBUNE, What to do with a broken Illinois: Dissolve the Land of Lincoln, By John Kass, 6/20/17.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...olving-illinois-kass-met-20170620-column.html

The column admits that they probably could not get any money for Chicago and suggests it be declared an independent nation - "Rohmania".

 

Hahahaha! Hahahaha!

 

CBO is fullacrap, as usual.

Don’t Trust the CBO’s Numbers


https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/dont-trust-cbos-numbers
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Learning From CBO's History Of Incorrect ObamaCare Projections

As Congress readies legislation to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates will play an important and respected role as they did in the passage of the law in 2010. We now know that many of CBO’s projections of important aspects of the ACA have significantly differed from actual outcomes. In this piece, I highlight CBO’s key past errors in projecting effects of the ACA. They can largely be grouped into two categories. First, CBO projected that the exchanges would be stable by now with more than twice as many enrollees as they currently have, rather than suffering from severe adverse selection in most states as they now are. Second, CBO projected that the ACA Medicaid expansion would be much smaller and less expensive than it has turned out to be.

These errors were caused by two primary mistakes in CBO’s model and assumptions. First, CBO significantly overestimated the degree to which the individual mandate would induce relatively healthy people with middle class income to buy coverage in the exchanges. Second, CBO failed to anticipate that states would respond to the federal government’s elevated reimbursement rate for the Medicaid expansion by maximizing enrollment and paying insurance companies extremely high payment rates for this population. CBO has not yet explained if or how it has corrected its models for these past mistakes, but it should do so if it wants to improve confidence in its estimates of repeal and replace legislation.

Exchange Enrollment Much Less Than CBO Projected

When the ACA passed in 2010, CBO projected 21 million people would be enrolled in the exchanges in 2016. After the Supreme Court ruled that the Medicaid expansion was optional for states and not compulsory, CBO increased its projection of 2016 exchange enrollment to 22 million as some people who would otherwise have been enrolled in Medicaid in non-expansion states were then expected to enroll in the exchanges instead. Exchanges plans have proved much less attractive than expected as enrollment will average only about 10 million people this year. This means that CBO’s last projection of exchange enrollment before the exchanges opened overshot actual 2016 enrollment by 120 percent.


https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapo...incorrect-obamacare-projections/#3c7b29fb46a7

 

Illinois Blows Budget Deadline, Pushing Closer to Junk Rating...

 

Why would they have come up with something 4 years ago when the Democrats said it was working just fine?

 

Yes hoping it would make Obama and the Dems admit their program was doomed to failure and come to the table and fix it rather than lie to the people that it was working.

If the insurance companies are not protected from losses during a transition back to consumer based insurance from the Obamacare based insurance there will be no insurance companies at all and we will get stuck with single payer government insurance.

Is that what you want?

 

Big Government always ends in an epic fail. The serious Left used to know that.

 

The argument that the CBO systematically overestimates insurance uptake means the GOP's bills are even more horrific than the CBO is suggesting.

 

All complex bills are horrific. Is there any other kind?

 

You really want to save the insurance companies? Then immediately repeal the ACA and let the insurance companies set premiums based on risk just like they do with life, auto, liability, accidental death & disability, business product insurance. The only reason insurance company bailouts and premium subsidies are needed is because the govt is placing fiscally unreasonable requirements on insurance companies.

You really want to reform health care insurance and health care costs? Stop using health insurance as a health care payment and provider system. Let health insurance operate as insurance, not as a means of regulating health care costs and as a treatment approval system and as a wealth redistribution system and as a welfare system.

But the GOP wont do any of that because they want that control and power.

 

Because they got elected promising to repeal and replace...they ran on a promise they had no plan to keep

 

Progressives stole the Liberal label, and destroyed it. Constitutional American Liberalism is the most succcess political doctrine in human history. No one is going to talk us out of it. The seduction is always to trade our Freedom and Liberty in on Tyranny, posing as Utopia.

There is no Utopia, there is only Freedom, Liberty or its lack.

 

The Founders of the USA were classical liberals and very opposed to and afraid of Big Government. They even rejected a standing army and navy until the Barbary states forced them to reconsider.