How One Republican is Responding to ObamaCare

[_Analytics]

A Republican friend of mine on Facebook recently posted the following:

A lot of you have been asking what I have been up to lately. Well, here is the public announcement of my insurance agency that is hiring 2,000 agents to sell ACA plans in Rite Aid stores nationally. The best thing I can do to support free market health care reform is to find inefficiencies and exploit them for a profit. Our ACA health plans will add several more benefits not available on the federal or state health exchanges which are calculated to keep Americans out of the hospital.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXR-T1wA ... ture=share

In a related news story, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Steve Lonegan held a news conference across from the Hoboken Rite Aid and said the healthcare law is already causing chaos in the economy and called for a boycott of Rite Aid.

http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article ... /309099983

Which is the better Republican?

[_cinepro]

I don't know who the better "Republican" is, but I'd say your friend is the better free-market conservative.

If only those were the same thing...

[_ldsfaqs]

I would say they are BOTH right..... simply addressing the issue differently.

One is simply acknowledging that to survive one must work with what they are given, and the other is fighting against it, even though he also might have to still ultimately do the same. The first also might be totally against it, but again, still has to live and survive with what is, not with what he would hope to be.

It's like with several other currently existing programs. Most Conservatives/Republicans would prefer they were either eliminated or drastically changed and reduced, because they like the new Health care law add nothing more than more blot to the system making money go even LESS far than it would than if there was less government involvement. But, we still have to live with those things, be it the Dept. of Education, Social Security, etc.

It's the sad fact, the bad people ultimately get their way, and it pretty much stay's that way, and they know it, because it's the "easy" way.

As a side note I might actually be working in a call center soon for Obamacare..... haaa haaa, the irony.

[_bcspace]

Funny to see such liberal support now for big insurance companies who of course supported a law that would give them guaranteed business because it forces people to buy. Who knew that type of thing was free market conservatism..?

[_Analytics]

I would say they are BOTH right..... simply addressing the issue differently.

One is simply acknowledging that to survive one must work with what they are given, and the other is fighting against it, even though he also might have to still ultimately do the same....

Just to clarify, my friend isn't simply "working with what he was given." Rather, he sees that Obamacare significantly increases the size and the competition within the health insurance market. And, he sees within that market an opportunity not only to compete and survive, but also to make a ton of money. But he isn't approaching that in a cynical way. He realizes that if he helps design and bring people to plans that are more efficient, he'll be helping make the world a better place by helping Obamacare achieve its most important objective: controlling health care costs.

Rite-Aid is more in the middle. Customers have questions about ObamaCare and might even want to sign up. Why not have them do that in their stores, where they can pick up a pack of gum while they are there?

On the other hand, actually calling for a boycott against Rite-Aid simply because it is trying to serve customers seems extraordinarily misguided.

[_Analytics]

Funny to see such liberal support now for big insurance companies who of course supported a law that would give them guaranteed business because it forces people to buy. Who knew that type of thing was free market conservatism..?

The law doesn't force people to buy insurance--it just raises your taxes a little if you don't. Living without health insurance puts a huge risk and cost on the rest of society. If you don't have insurance and then crash the ER or the oncology clinic, the care you receive is subsidized by the rest of us. Dealing with the free-rider problem should be something conservatives care about.

Anyway, the support of the law buy insurance companies was generally spotty and tepid. You need to remember that many of the people who are now buying insurance didn't have it before for the simple reason that insurance companies rejected them in underwriting. A law that forces insurance companies to accept unprofitable customers isn't the type of thing insurance companies get excited about.

If personal responsibility is a part of conservatism, then a law that encourages personal responsibility with slightly lower taxes should be appealing to conservatives. Likewise, a law that establishes competitive markets where insurance companies compete on their ability to keep their operating margins small and health care costs down should also appeal to conservatives.

[insert reference to how Romney and the Heritage foundation used to support the principles behind Obamacare here]

Has "conservatism" now been redefined to mean being in favor of anything that will make America fail and the Obama administration look bad?

[_ldsfaqs]

The problem is we have already had socialized medicine for many years now, and it's what created our currently problem.
Everyone else that has money has already been paying for those who don't.

ObamaCare is bad for many reasons, the chief being that it's "another" bureaucracy adding more cost and taking more money out of peoples pockets.

It doesn't do what you state, that is a very sanitized simplistic view of it. Not only that, but it is force, force is not Freedom.
There were/are ACTUAL Conservative plans that would have fixed most of our problems. Problem is, is liberals got the power, and they had the passion.

There is almost nothing conservative about Obamacare, so it's fascinatingly odd how liberals think it is.

[_cinepro]

The really frustrating thing for me in all this is the Republican party's total failure to act on the issue during the Bush presidency. You know, that time when there was a Republican president and Republican majorities in Congress?

So unless you want to argue that the status quo was ideal, Republicans need to answer for their lack of progress on this issue during the time when they could have done something, and acknowledge that Obamacare is the price they are now paying for their lack of action.

[_ajax18]

Republicans need to answer for their lack of progress on this issue during the time when they could have done something,

I guess the ultimate answer will be you paying higher taxes and health insurance premiums for the expansion of Medicaid.

[_Doctor Steuss]

So unless you want to argue that the status quo was ideal, Republicans need to answer for their lack of progress on this issue during the time when they could have done something, and acknowledge that Obamacare is the price they are now paying for their lack of action.

You forget the progress that the Republicans gave via the Medicare Modernization Act.

Over a half-trillion dollar increase in government spending over a ten year period for Medicare -- much better than the socialized medicine, and entitlement spending the Democrats are trying to ram down people's throats.

/sarcasm


I'm not sure what the answer is. When I went through the bill from my last hospitalization, there were charges of hundreds of dollars from doctors I never spoke to, unnecessary blood tests, and a myriad of contracted entities that made it nearly impossible to figure out what exactly I was paying for. I have insurance, but it’s catastrophic coverage, so almost everything comes out of pocket. It’s eye-opening when you realize you could have stayed in a presidential suite with a complimentary on-staff physician for the same price you just paid to share a room/shower with someone, and eat crappy food.

It's a helluva thing when you have to weigh the value of your life against how much you can afford.