The Health Care Freedom Act (HCFA) or the Skinny ACA Repeal bill is an act of the highest treachery on the American people for it will destroy America's Healthcare system and provides for no good replacement system. Like it or not America's healthcare system has as its framework that which was mandated by the ACA which is the individual insurance market has community pricing even for people with pre-existing conditions and the way it is designed to be able to work is that the system is supposed to create large pools of people who most don't have such conditions where the high cost for the former group is spread across the entire pool to make insurance affordable for everyone. The keystone of the system is the individual mandate which pressures people to buy individual market insurance to avoid paying the individual mandate fine if this mandate is repealed it will definitely shrink these insurance pools. Back in 2009 when the ACA was being negotiated with all the players the insurance companies said we must have the individual mandate to provide ACA insurance if the Federal Government now reneges on this deal the insurance companies will refuse to participate in the individual market it may not completely happen next year but it will happen over time because insurance companies cannot tolerate the risk brought about by a no mandate policy. If insurance companies don't participate in the individual insurance market than the many Americans that need such insurance won't be able to get it. Another major aspect of America's healthcare system is that the system needs employer sponsored health insurance because otherwise all these Americans from that market are coming into individual insurance market where individuals whose family income is up to 400 % of the poverty line get federal subsidies and the increase in the federal government subsidy expense will be too much for the federal government. The employer mandate pressures America's employer to continue providing health insurance it provides vital protection to the federal government's budget. Moreover, to those employers that have already dropped such insurance and whose workers are availing themselves of gov't assistance in this area this employer mandate revenue stream is helping defray this large expense. The repeal of both the individual and employer mandate is solely being done for political reasons it appeals to certain sections of the Republican base many of these people are not appreciating what the government is trying with these mandate which is make insurance affordable for all Americans and the critical role of these mandates in reaching these goals elected officials cannot afford the luxury of using tunnel vision in evaluating these mandates they have a duty to the American people! HCFA also does the completely idiotic to ultra-reckless move of giving the Secretary of HHS unrestrained power to waive key protections of America's healthcare system. The Republicans cleverly changed the ACA law to say that the Secretary "shall" instead of "may" grant waivers "if" four conditions are met and the key is they removed the word "only" before the word "if" meaning the Secretary has unconstrained discretion here. The subject matter of the waivers states can get are extremely critical elements of the health care system: all the essential benefits, they can lower co-pay help for low income Americans, they can eliminate the requirement that large employers pay the Federal government back for the subsidies they pay for their employees, they can eliminate the penalty large business have to pay if they have non-conforming health insurance plans meaning these employers workers can get shafted big-time. Don't get me wrong the ACA is a failed law the insurance it produces is too expensive and because Congress cannot display the character to put politics aside and be responsible financial stewards establishing balanced mandates I fully support giving states the power to waive essential benefit mandates but there needs to be fundamental protections like if one gets major illnesses the insurance must cover all health care needed to get the standard of care so one can recover or successfully manage their illness, it is unconscionable to give the Secretary cart blanche power here! Those Republican centrist Senators that say we are going to vote for this bill even though we know it is a bad law so that we can get it to the conference committee and there a good bill will be negotiated are not being virtuous you are lacking courage. It is almost a certainty that what will drive the formation of the bill is politics it is what drove it in the House it is what is driving it in the Senate and it is not foreseeable that it will change in the conference committee. It is obvious what the Republican leadership is trying to do which is to salvage their reputation that they will do what they say they will do and they can govern and they need to placate their base which understandably cannot stand ACA insurance. If there was a good insurance bill to be had Republican leadership would have produced it by now. Centrist Republicans the Republican party has been acting bad for seven years expressly and implying they would replace the ACA with a better law the misleading of the American people must stop the opportunity to stop it is presented to you today show courage and end this war for the American people! You know the right path Congress should take you've proclaimed yourselves in the past: a bi-partisan effort to improve the ACA Ryan and McConnell instruct their respective chairperson of the respective committee in their chamber oversees the system put together a bill following the normal process with the obvious bi-partisan protection guidelines: no repeal, no creation of a government financed insurance company, no tax increases and no tax repeals! What is emblematic of this whole Republican effort is how Majority Leader Mitch McConnell began this whole final floor process last night Senator McConnell addressed this Republican sore point and that sore point grinding Republican axes not focusing on America's needs of how to lower premiums and deductibles for all and how to expand choice for all, I join the chorus of countless Americans saying this Senate display over these two days is shameful!
