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It's no secret that Republicans for the last 30 years have struggled to come up with or agree on their desired healthcare policies. Though they opposed Obamacare with fervor, nobody is quite clear on what they're going to replace Obamacare with.
Conservative Republican journalist Matt Lewis wrote dozens or hundreds of articles for the Daily Caller over the years that were critical of Obamacare. Now that Republicans have the power to create and pass a replacement for it, he sat down and analysed the pros and cons of every Republican healthcare proposal. His conclusion? Keep Obamacare. He concludes that none of the Republican ideas seem substantially better than Obamacare, so they should just keep it, because he fears the alternative is that they end up screwing it all up royally.
Of course, Democrats essentially left Republicans with nowhere to go on healthcare by moving so far right to create Obamacare. President Nixon advocated a version of Obamacare that was more left-wing than Obamacare. In 1989, Stuart Butler of the Heritage Foundation advocated what is now known as the 'individual mandate' and said they should "mandate all households to obtain adequate insurance", and the individual mandate concept was being pushed by advisers to President Bush Snr. Due to the Dems moving away from the traditional left-wing position of single-payer and moving so far right with Obamacare and taking what was previously the right-wing's health plan and implementing it, the Dems have left the Republicans no real options on healthcare.
Of course in my country where we have had single-payer for 78 years people shake their heads when they hear of Americans having to pay bills when they get medical care, or arguing with insurance companies, or having "medical bankruptcies", or talking about "co-pays" or "deductibles", or talking about staying in a job they hate for the health insurance. Here if you're sick you go to the hospital and get healthcare, there's no bills, no paperwork, no insurance companies to deal with, no floors of employees who write the bills, nor floors of employees who argue with you on the phone about what you do or don't owe insurance companies, nor floors of employees to generate paperwork for you to fill out... there's just you and the doctors. The doctors provide you with whatever healthcare they decide you need and then send you on your way. They're in charge, and there's no insurance company sitting between you and your doctor. The costs of the efficient system are automatically paid for by the government out of taxes.
Watching the American arguments over healthcare is like watching a village argue over the government regulation of all the private taxi companies that drive people to the water well that's 20 miles away from the village every time they need water... and we think "um, so why doesn't the government just build a pipe to the well and then everyone in the village will have water on tap? Have they not discovered that's a thing? Are they so against 'socialism' and 'big government' they can't see that the government providing such a basic service is just cheaper for everyone?"
There's an easy fix to the problems of the right-wing market-based plan of Obamacare, and it's called "single payer" and it's worked well in dozens of countries around the world. Even such mighty thinkers as Donald Trump noticed that the government-provided healthcare is great in Scotland when he was over there for his golf courses.
Conservative Republican journalist Matt Lewis wrote dozens or hundreds of articles for the Daily Caller over the years that were critical of Obamacare. Now that Republicans have the power to create and pass a replacement for it, he sat down and analysed the pros and cons of every Republican healthcare proposal. His conclusion? Keep Obamacare. He concludes that none of the Republican ideas seem substantially better than Obamacare, so they should just keep it, because he fears the alternative is that they end up screwing it all up royally.
Of course, Democrats essentially left Republicans with nowhere to go on healthcare by moving so far right to create Obamacare. President Nixon advocated a version of Obamacare that was more left-wing than Obamacare. In 1989, Stuart Butler of the Heritage Foundation advocated what is now known as the 'individual mandate' and said they should "mandate all households to obtain adequate insurance", and the individual mandate concept was being pushed by advisers to President Bush Snr. Due to the Dems moving away from the traditional left-wing position of single-payer and moving so far right with Obamacare and taking what was previously the right-wing's health plan and implementing it, the Dems have left the Republicans no real options on healthcare.
Of course in my country where we have had single-payer for 78 years people shake their heads when they hear of Americans having to pay bills when they get medical care, or arguing with insurance companies, or having "medical bankruptcies", or talking about "co-pays" or "deductibles", or talking about staying in a job they hate for the health insurance. Here if you're sick you go to the hospital and get healthcare, there's no bills, no paperwork, no insurance companies to deal with, no floors of employees who write the bills, nor floors of employees who argue with you on the phone about what you do or don't owe insurance companies, nor floors of employees to generate paperwork for you to fill out... there's just you and the doctors. The doctors provide you with whatever healthcare they decide you need and then send you on your way. They're in charge, and there's no insurance company sitting between you and your doctor. The costs of the efficient system are automatically paid for by the government out of taxes.
Watching the American arguments over healthcare is like watching a village argue over the government regulation of all the private taxi companies that drive people to the water well that's 20 miles away from the village every time they need water... and we think "um, so why doesn't the government just build a pipe to the well and then everyone in the village will have water on tap? Have they not discovered that's a thing? Are they so against 'socialism' and 'big government' they can't see that the government providing such a basic service is just cheaper for everyone?"
There's an easy fix to the problems of the right-wing market-based plan of Obamacare, and it's called "single payer" and it's worked well in dozens of countries around the world. Even such mighty thinkers as Donald Trump noticed that the government-provided healthcare is great in Scotland when he was over there for his golf courses.
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