What is dishonest is that you are presenting these as Republican ideas that were incorporated into the Democrats package. That is not true. These were common ideas that existed in Both Democratic and Republican bills throughout the process.

That is the lie. They were not incorporated. Similar provisions already existed. Note that none of the bills referenced passed.

No. I said there were common provisions between the Democratic package and the Republican package. For any given bill 75% or more of what is proposed from either party will be alike.

But in fact, no Republican amendments were incorporated into the final reconcilation bill.

Summary of Republican Amendments Submitted for H.R. 4872

Politifact says mostly false.


http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...says-health-plan-incorporates-ideas-of-Democ/

You dodged the question. Do you think it think implementing this big a change that takes 5 years to see if it works is good policy.

I dodged nothing. You asked a loaded question, pre-qualifying your question with your own opinion. That being said, I absolutely think this is good policy. If you think 5 years is a long time in terms of government action and federal lawmaking you are naive about the process.

False that was not the way the old system worked. Prices we set behind closed doors. Most were set off Medicare reimbursement standards. There was no negotiation or price comparison possible before a procedure was done. That is not open competition. If you want a small idea of how a competitive market would work look at Lasik eye surgery. It is rarely covered by insurance yet the cost of the procedure has gone down over the years and the quality has improved. That is open competition my friend. When we try that through out the whole spectrum of health care it would be worth a 5 year span to test its effectiveness.

No I did not pre-quality the question, you did. You, and Red, to say it's too soon to make a judgement on the success or failure of the bill. We need to give it time, maybe a year or 2. So we are 3 years in, plus 2 is 5 years after the bill is passed before we are supposed to judge it good or bad. You say that's good policy, I say it's unnecessarily reckless.

It should have been done in small steps prioritizing things like portability and preexisting conditions. That way we could learn and adjust as we go along. Maybe, just maybe, we could figure it out on the fly enough not to have to delay major cornerstones of the Law - twice. And we could have planned and communicated better to frightened sick people who were about to open cancellation notices. Shit, maybe we could even have a transition plan for them. We had a plan for big business with health plans that fell short of the minimum standards. They get to go to the White House and get a 1 year waiver [Notice I didn't say exemption, the incorrect 'spin' word].

Who knows, we could have found a way to give people better health care. Instead, we gave them a health card [eventually] issued by the same companies Obama said were the great evil of health care costs; the health insurance companies. The punch line, were going to subsidize their rates. And if they lose money the first couple of years; no problem we'll give them more.

Of course its going to eventually be declared a success. Either by actually succeeding at doing what was promised. Or by having success defined down to whatever it becomes. By people like you.