Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

manateefourmation t1_j6iqmed wrote

Reply to comment by mowotlarx in Mayor Adams plows ahead with plan to privatize health benefits for 250,000 NYC municipal retirees by mowotlarx

If it was up to Republicans this is all we would have as options. The irony of older voters voting for people who want to strip them of their benefits. I believe not one republican in Congress last year voted to remove the Part D prescription “donut hole.”

This is a great example of what happens when you add the profit incentive into a health insurance product.

11

DrRat t1_j6j4mnd wrote

Affordable Care Act served up millions of Americans (with the help of the IRS) to private health insurance companies. Jimmy Carter's traditional Medicaid certainly did not include third-party profiteering. GWB's Medicare Modernization Act in 2003 also welcomed private insurance companies into the fold with Part C, D, E, and F.

4

manateefourmation t1_j6j7vuy wrote

Absolutely true on the ACA which was passed with no Republican support. But not because the Republicans wanted a better option without private insurance. They wanted no options at all. Obama, like Clinton, wanted universal Medicare-like insurance for everyone (or at least a public option to compete with the private insurers), but the lobbying of so called “center right” democrats killed those options off. So we are stuck with a private insurance based option with government support. Expensive for no reason other than insurance company profits. I’m all for capitalism - made my career in the capital markets. But health care is too fundamental to leave to unchecked market forces. And the Republicans have no solution that they have seriously offered.

Medicare Supplement plans predate GWB by quite a few years - 1992. Bush was president when Part D was signed into law. I liked GWB - donated to and voted for him. But todays Republican Party is an anathema to the party of Nixon, Bush senior, George W. Go look at the republicans party platforms from back then - they mostly read like democratic platforms. It was a time before the crazies took over the party.

5